A few weeks ago, even without trying, another one of my attempts at being crafty totally backfired.
There are probably quite a few words people would use to describe me, as a mother and otherwise, and I’d bet a million dollars that not one person who actually knows me would ever utter the words, “Susan is so crafty.” I have no discernible artistic ability whatsoever and had come to terms with that, but I felt a little guilty when I had my first child. What if he was the next Michelangelo, and his talent never blossomed just because his un-artsy mother cannot even draw a straight line with a ruler?
Driven by my guilt, I went one day to my local craft store, loaded up on all things crafty, and tried (and failed) at multiple art projects with Joey back when he was toddler. Joey never seemed to interested, and even today doesn’t really like to draw or craft as much as he likes to build and create with blocks, legos, etc. My guilt subsided and my failed crafts faded from my mind.
In my designated craft drawer, however, many of these items still sit, barely used, and serving as nothing more than a reminder of my failure to be a crafty Mom. The drawer is now mostly filled with things I can handle like crayons, markers, scissors, glue, coloring books, pads, paper and paint.
One of my long forgotten items showed up a couple weeks ago, dumped in a pile on the dinning room floor topped with glue:
For your reference, the pile was larger than my hand and was probably a measuring cup's worth of glitter topped with Elmer's Glue.
In this moment of exasperation over yet another unnecessary and ridiculous mess to clean up, and even though I knew what the pile was, I yelled out, “what the hell is this mess?!”
A few seconds later the two boys came running into the dinning room. Both had on their best innocent faces, and Joey casually replied, “Well, Mom. I’m not sure, but I think that looks like unicorn poop.”
Four years after I bought the glitter (of which there were three containers/colors that I’ve now tossed in the trash), it’s come back to remind me how uncrafty, and also how apparently stupid I am (who buys giant containers of glitter, anyway?)…and now that’s it’s been nearly three weeks, I can tell you that I’ll be reminded for years to come because no matter what I do, I’m still finding glitter everywhere. It’s on my feet, it’s on my clothes, and even been seen on the my daughter’s ass when I change her diaper. We’ve found it inside of books, in the kid’s hair and I found some today on my baked potato. Apparently, glitter stays in the environment forever…and ever.
Although each of my three children were repeatedly questioned, no one has cracked and confessed to said mess. Each remains a suspect, and I just hope to catch them in the act the next time…and knowing my kids, there is always a next time.
I placed the glue next to the mess for the photo, but it was actually found under the table in the dinning room in a separate sticky puddle.
And even though I had the best of intentions, and it’s pretty, sparkly and pink, unicorn poop, no matter how you spin it, it still a pile of poop.
What’s the most ridiculous mess you’ve had to clean up from your kids? Leave me a comment! And while you’re here, take a quick second and click on the banner below to vote for me on Top Mommy Blogs! Just one click is all it takes to cast an automatic vote for me! Thank you!!
My oldest two are a year and 4 days apart. They are like Bonnie and Clyde when it comes to messes. It’s always been the only thing they could ever work at together.
I’ve cleaned poop off the wall and carpet and bed and kids because the oldest who was maybe 2 1/2 thought she could change her and her sister’s diapers. They then proceeded to play in it while being ever so quiet because they were suppose to be napping.
I’ve also cleaned up pee once, because it must have been easier to pee in the bucket in their bedroom than take the extra 10 steps to get to the bathroom.
I have cleaned raw egg off the schnauzer and the carpet and all over the kitchen, along with dry beans and pasta and a cup of milk. Still not sure what they were doing.
They found a set of food coloring pens once and colored on the walls with them. I’m pretty sure black sharpie is easier to cover than food coloring.
I’m sure there’s tons more, but I must say it was completely different with my now youngest (she’s 4, and her older sisters are now 7 and 8) than it was with the older two. She has never really gotten into anything…so I have no stories on her.
My son got his hands on the Vicks Vapo Rub once. He thought it was hair gel and globbed the entire tub into his hair to “make it pointy.” Ugh. Have you ever tried to wash Vapo Rub out of a 2 year old’s hair?! “Aaaak! Mommy, it’s buwning my eyebawlls!!!” Not fun. No, ma’am. Not fun at all.
AH ::comfort:: glitter the herpes of craft supplies. Still giggling about the unicorn poop though.
LOL, I was going to way what Kimberly B said!
I feel for ya – I have a 13 year old who is a dancer. Recital time = glitter hairspray! And she loves clothes with glitter. So yeah – its everywhere. I’m sure the hubby loves finding it in the laundry!
I have had to clean a pile of childs poop. My daughter 8 at the time had the stomach flu and didn’t make it to the bathroom. Call me I will clean the unicorn poop.
That could totally happen in my house! And it’s pretty funny that your son was so witty to tell you that it was unicorn poop – my guess is that he’s the culprit and came up with the unicorn poop in the time between him spilling it (or overseeing the spilling) and you finding it.
And I passed on a blogging award to you – it’s one of those ‘blogger’s choice, promote other blogs’ kind of awards, and I love reading your stuff. If you would like to accept it, click on the link below and follow the instructions.
The Crunchy (Grouchy) Mommy – mommyiscrunchy.blogspot.com
Ha ha! Those are very, very clever children. You should be proud. And I hate glitter. It goes everywhere. Found some in TC’s poop a few weeks back. Not sure where she’s been hanging…
My worst was a Costco size bottle of olive oil. That my 2 yo dumped EVERYWHERE. Kitchen floor, carpet, all over his toys, himself… while it was not pretty like unicorn poop it was the biggest pain ever. My floors still have a slick shine 2 years later.
Well since you already have the glitter all over your body, you can now get a job a stripper. Always look on the bright side I always say. LOL
BTW I have awarded you the Versatile Blogger Award. http://realarmyofmoms.blogspot.com/2011/08/you-like-me-you-really-like-me.html
You can hang it up with all of your other awards. I think it will clash with the unicorn poop so maybe in another room.
When my two boys were 5 and 2, one of them took maple syrup out of the refrigeration and dropped the plastic bottle. What they didn’t know was the plastic bottle cracked. They were good and put the bottle back in the refrigerator on the top shelf. I was unaware this happened. Later I passed the refrigerator to see a small quarter size of maple syrup on the floor. I thought nothing of it and wiped it up. I left the Kitchen and to come back and see another spot of maple syrup. Something told me to open the refrigerator and when I did, I had a cascading waterfall of maple syrup. I screamed. The boys came running and when they did, they slid into the syrup that was cascading onto the floor. They thought this was hysterical. I wasn’t as happy as they were. So not only did I have to clean my whole refrigerator, I had to clean two boys, the floor and cabinets of maple syrup.
Now maple syrup goes on the door on the bottom and till this day, I can’t stand the smell of maple syrup.
reminded me of an email I read several years ago……….enjoy!!
I was due for an appointment with the gynecologist later in the week. Early
one morning, I received a call from the doctor’s office to tell me that I had
been rescheduled for that morning at 9:30 am. I had only just packed everyone
off to work and school, and it was already around 8:45 am.
The trip to his office took about 35 minutes, so I didn’t have any time to
spare.
As most women do, I like to take a little extra effort over hygiene when making
such visits, but this time I wasn’t going to be able to make the full effort. So,
I rushed upstairs, threw off my pajamas, wet the washcloth that was sitting
next to the sink, and gave myself a quick wash in that area to make sure I was
at least presentable. I threw the washcloth in the clothes basket, donned some
clothes, hopped in the car and raced to my appointment.
I was in the waiting room for only a few minutes when I was called in. Knowing
the procedure, as I’m sure you do, I hopped up on the table, looked over at the
other side of the room and pretended that I was in Paris or some other place a
million miles away. I was a little surprised when the doctor said, ‘My, we have
made an extra effort this morning, haven’t we?’ I didn’t respond.
After the appointment, I went home. The rest of the day was normal … some shopping, cleaning, cooking. After school when my 6-year-old daughter was playing, she called out from the bathroom, ‘Mommy,
where’s my washcloth?’ I told her to get another one from the cupboard. She replied, ‘No, I need the one that was here by the sink, it had all my glitter and sparkles saved inside it.’
Never going back to that doctor . Ever.
OMG this is hysterical!!!!!!!
OMG!! ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!
bwahahahahahahahahah! a lot of these comments are hysterical! I like the doctor’s comment best! lmaooo! too funny!
my daughter is a real girly girl so we have various glitter shakers, well maybe i should say had because my toddler got her hands on them not to long ago and used them at the dinner table for salt while we were finishing getting the food to the table its amazing just how fast they can move when they are doing something they are not suppose to
When my four kids were 2yr-12yrs my house,life everything was crazy. Had finally got walls painted and carpets cleaned. This did not happen alot. I felt like I had moved. Carpets were still damp and my 2 year old daughter got “one” of her brother’s box of nerds… When I saw her beige carpet I could only laugh.Little tiny dots of every color melted in. So much for moving… Happy to say they and we survived it all.They are now
13-23,my daughter has pink hair….
My 1.5 year old drew all over my relatively new sectional couch with virbrant colored poster crayons. I took a photo to send my husband (and use as my facebook profile pic for a while, of course) and he crawled right into the shot and was grinning like it was the cutest thing ever.
Two things about that: 1) I was able to submit that photo to Excedrin What’s Your Headache contest in April on facebook and I won $50k prize from it (and bought a new sofa because the crayon never came out) and 2) My new sofa is doomed because I have 4 boys (7,5,5 and 2) and it’s not the first sofa they have drawn all over. They got the previous one with Sharpie marker.
I can’t have nice things.
Oh boys and couches…talk about a bad match! I have 3 boys under 7. My couches have been peed, pooped, puked, and drawn on, and the baby recently stumbled across a butter knife and thought the popping sound it made when entering the plumpy couch cushion was cool. My couch looks like a herd of rabid cats swarmed by looking for nesting material.
I swear, if I ever get new furniture, it will be when I am old and gray and nobody comes to visit me because I am so bitchy and mean. LOL
It looks like unicorn poop to me
Oh I love the unicorn poop! Sometimes you just have to laugh at the creativity of the little disaster-mongers.
I have 3 boys, all under 7. I recently learned that ‘dry erase’ is not eraseable from walls. Or my oak dining table. Or the fiberglass bathtub. Some thoughtful soul bought Big a dry erase school board, with pens and traceable stuff and whatnot. Little conspired with Middle to get said board out of Bigs’ clutches, and after nap, we found TEAL GREEN dry erase marker all over the wall next to Littles’ toddler bed, on the still-assembled crib we use to barricade him in there (since he just climbs out of the crib), on the sheets, the back of the dresser barricading the foot of the bed, on the kid and on miscellaneous toys that happened to be within reach at the time. We couldn’t find the pen (shudder).
Little rocketed up the stairs at bathtime, and by the time I got there, I was greeted with TEAL GREEN scribbles all over the bathtub. Again, no pen. The scribbles were not there 10 minutes earlier when I went downstairs.
And, two days later, when moving a new bed into Big’s room, we were greeted with TEAL GREEN scribbles all over his wall and Star Wars stickups. Little proudly walks in, points to the mess and announces ME!
I found the pen yesterday. Under the dresser in Middle & Little’s room, dry as a bone, wrapped in an unused diaper. Sneaky damn kids!
Imagine this if you will… peanut butter smeared countertops dusted with flour and chocolate chips to add an extra special kiss. They tried to make peanut butter chocolate chip pancakes for me.
PHEW. When I stepped in that green pile of glitter the other morning, I thought I had a stalker who was obsessed with crafts – now I know it was just Unicorn Poop.
Tell Joey – he totally made my week!!!!!!!!!!
I love the idea of unicorn poop! My worst mess was actually pretty small, and fairly contained, and it was 15 years ago. Have you ever tried to clean a peanut butter & jelly sandwich out of a VCR? My son inserted his lunch where the VHS tape should have gone…
Ugh….. I have a gal that asking to stop making messes would be like asking the sun to please not rise tomorrow morning!! The worst mess would have to be this winter when I was SOOOOOO sick and my husband was away for work and I packed up both kids during a blizzard to go to the doctor, drove across town to the pharmacy, waited there for 45 bloody minutes, and then came home to put the little one to bed. I thought I had adequately set the 4 year old up for at least an hour; computer games, movies, colouring, etc…… I needed to lie down after that outing! When I woke up I was greeted by her and a cup filled with the following:
- soy sauce
- mustard
- hot cocoa powder and….. drum roll please…..
- MY ANTIBIOTIC PRESCRIPTION!!!!
I will not report what happened after that…. but you can only imagine….
I have a million of em’… including a shampoo/poop extravaganza in the bathroom – a “shampoop” if you will, lol!! Love you blog – keep em’ coming!!
This happened during the first year my husband and I lived together..
I had the flu so bad, I was home from work and truly bed ridden. My husband (then boyfriend) was ‘taking care of me’ in his very boy way – beef ramen, tea and a new romance novel he got at CVS with the ramen & tea. After a while of dozing I see him go into the bedroom closet and take out a stack of bath towels and go out into the living room/ kitchen. Then he comes back for more. As he walks out with the second large stack I asked him what he was doing, ‘oh, nothing..it’s okay, go back to sleep’.
yeah..right.
I walk out into the kitchen and he is frantically wiping up the kitchen floor that has about an inch of water flooded in front of the dishwasher. I open the dishwasher and it it filled with bubbles.
‘I guess that you can’t put the dish liquid into the dish washer right?’ he asks.
At least he fessed up.
I guess after armageddon when the only thing left on earth is the cockroaches, at least they will be all glittery.
Unicorn poop! That kid’s a damn genius. Loved this post. Even if I’m late reading it.
Send it to National Geographic….see if they can locate the Unicorn that pooped on your rug. Maybe they will have answers!
Back when we only had three children (1, 2 and 3 at the time) I ran away for the weekend and left my little darling boys with Daddy. While away, the boys had dumped roughly 8 pounds of sugar on the floor at the foot of our bed while Daddy slept in. The boys played with their cars, trucks and tractors in it and told Daddy they made a sand box! Daddy proceeded to vacuum up the sugar using my brand new bag-less vacuum and was only successful in making dirty cotton candy.
The outcome of this episode? The boys got a sandbox in the back yard since they obviously needed one, Daddy doesn’t have to keep the boys by himself for more than a couple of hours at a time, and Mommy has to constantly clean sand out of EVERYTHING without a vacuum cleaner.
Lesson learned.
Haha I love this! I’m with you on creativity! I tried scrapbooking one time. I stuck with it until a friend pointed out that my baby carriages were upside down. I hadn’t noticed. I decided to stick with plain old picture albums!
I had a similar thing happen but instead of glitter…. my kids smeared Mary Kay liquid foundation all over my carpet and couch. It was absolutely horrible.
This is the best description I have ever heard about glitter…and I think you should hear it too. “The Herpes of craft supplies” lol
This year, on Mother’s Day, I looked out the window and found my five year old son peeing down the slide. I never knew you’d have to say “Honey, no peeing on the slide.”
Just a few weeks ago my six year old son had a friend over. I was down stairs doing laundry and him and his friend were in his room. THen I heard what sounded like elephants followed by uncontrollable laughter, knowing six year old boys I knew that couldn’t be good and went upstairs thinking they had dumped toy boxes or something like that out…oh no…. We had kix cereal thrown into the ceiling fan, who knew it exploded into this lovely sticky, fine dust that is IMPOSSIBLE to clean up. “We” are still trying to clean it out of the carpet..
Laughing so hard I am literally crying. Too good.
me too!!!!
Nastiest cleaning job ever…my son decided one day that he was just too tired to take exactly–and I mean this literally–11 steps to get to his toilet and take a poop. He decided to sit on beige carpet (in his room of course) and take a small doody, and then proceeded to wipe his ass, in the same spot, against the carpet. It was one of the cooler seasons, and he had a small portable heater in his room. After a few days, i would pass by the room and frown and almost pass out, and ask what the hell is that smell??? He was about 7 or 8 yrs old, I cant remember, but old enough to know his sh*t was supposed to be in the toilet NOT on the carpet! I decided one day that little boys can’t be this funky…so I started searching for the stank. Low and behold…I found a crusty little patch of doody hidden under the little portable heater. It was like he said Oh, screw the toilet AND the tissues i need to wipe my ass! I’ll just make do with the carpet! It had been there so long that it formed a hard crusted shell on the heater. I almost passed out–literally. I threw the heater away and scrubbed the carpet til my fingers were numb. It was awful!!!
[...] 2. Canned Unicorn Meat. Forget Spam! Get some canned meat with some Sparkle! For just 12.99 you can get 14oz of canned unicorn meat! That’s right this magical canned meat has crunchy horn bits in every bite! Made up of ground up wishes, dreams, smiles, magic and more, you’ll taste the enchantment in every bite. Perfect to dip or spread on sandwiches. You’ll be shitting sparkles and farting pink bubbles with this glittery meat. Seriously, I have no idea if this is edible, but I’m telling my kids it’s what I did to the Unicorn that shit on my dining room carpet in August. [...]
[...] all of which have ended terribly. I’ve even failed at kid’s crafts; remember the Unicorn Poop incident (and that was what I got just for keeping craft supplies in the house)? I’ve been thinking [...]
A little late reading this, but I’ll throw my two cents worth in. Worst mess ever, made by 2 little boys about 4 years old at the time. I had just started a new job, working evenings. My, then fiance, had the kids while I was at work. Boy age 4, and girl- newborn. That evening his son from his first marriage was spending the night too. Not a big deal, the boys were only a couple months apart in age and entertained each other pretty well. This particular night the grown up in charge fed the baby and put her to bed, then fell asleep on the couch, thus leaving two boys to their own devices. They found all sorts of good things to play with in the kitchen. When I came home I found a baby sleeping peacefully in her crib, a fiance sleeping on the couch and two boys playing gleefully in their room. Splashing, yes splashing, in a puddle of motor oil (unused) and throwing eggs at the wall and window. Two happier boys, you have never seen! They had also found a knife in the kitchen and had shredded TWO toddler bed mattresses. And the glittery craft paint i had used to write names on Christmas stockings. Oh, it was a wonderful mess to clean. For the record, no matter how much you scrub, and shampoo-motor oil does NOT come out of carpet. Ever. We just had to pull the carpet up. There is probably still an oil stain on the wood flooring of that room.
Oh my god! I couldn’t see through my tears to read this! Hilarious! I have 2 boys (12 & 8) and have many messes to clean up too. This just caught my eye and made me laugh at the title. I knew I’d be in for some fun. Thanks for sharing!
Toothpaste (almost a WHOLE tube) off a cat who still has ALL of her claws…
Hilarious! Not the glitter on the floor part mind you! The creative Unicorn poop story! During nap one day. I was talking on the phone while the dishwasher was going, so it was hard to hear. All of a sudden I heard a crash in my room. I assumed it was my daycare boy getting into the paperback books kept in my room. I excused myself from the phone and head up to get after, what I thought was one kid for getting into the special books. Turns out I was getting after my 4 year old daycare boy, plus my 3 year old and 2 two year old’s (who my dc boy set free from their rooms), It wasn’t for getting into books, but for “painting” my room with Vaseline! Brand new large jar, all over my windows, walls, carpet, bedding, bed, antique bedside table, you name it, it was covered. Including my 2 year old’s. My walls are still stained with Vaseline oil. And because I thought it was a good idea to use Dawn dishsoap to get the Vaseline out of their hair, my son is afraid of showers because he doesn’t want to get “ouchie soap” in his eyes again *sigh*
I hate to break it to you, but being a preschool teacher for 11 years, I can tell you that glitter will survive until the end of time! Forget the atomic bomb, just use glitter instead!
[...] will be worse than the unicorn poop [...]
[...] will be worse than the unicorn poop [...]
Love! Unicorn poop…that’s exactly what it is!!! Your children are brilliant, feces-creating people!
PS- that mess sucks unicorn balls.