The Mess

Ok. Finally...the blog about Hurricane Parker. This happened on the 20th.

Parker never takes a nap. Finally, after probably 4 straight months with no nap for anyone in our house, I put Parker down for a nap. He was crying and throwing a fit for a long time, and then he was quiet for at least 10 minutes, before Natalie and I went to my room to rest. I fell asleep - which I really, really needed.

When I awoke about an hour later, I got up to find Parker's door wide open. The house was very, very quiet. I rounded the corner to the kitchen to find probably the biggest mess we've ever had since the birth of our first child 5 years ago. (We've had a lot of messes - big messes - but I think this topped them.)

Parker was in front of the refrigerator, with the door wide open, and he was pulling out ingredients to add to his mess. Spread all over the kitchen: food and condiments and two containers of liquid dish soap all over the floor, counter, refrigerator, and some other stuff that had been scribbled on with a permanent marker he found when he emptied a canister that was in the corner on the counter. There were at least 6 eggs he had cracked open into the cat food bowl, along with the cat food, an entire jar of A1 sauce, and an entire jar of Taco Bell taco sauce. I can't even describe all of the rest of the mess. The photos don't show it exactly as horrible as it was, either.

It took forever to clean up the mess. It was so hard to clean up the dish soap. I cannot get all of the permanent marker off of my new stove or the counter or my favorite cookie jar.

So, I had Billy change the handle on Parker's door, so it locks from outside again. That's how it was when Olivia was going through the horrible sneak-out-of-bed-and-cause-complete-destruction-in-the-house-while-the-parents-are-asleep phase. Yes, we lock our child in his room now - for the safety of us all! I think that's the only way we survived (literally) the worst part of Olivia's sneaky destruction phase, too.

I made him sit in the same spot for a long, long time.