Mani-Pedi Fail

Hmm. I wonder what that is?

There are those things that I can't really put two and two together on, and I know asking questions will not get me anything useful. Or even close to true. So I file the information away for later. Cachink!

I cleaned the kids' bathroom last week (have I ever mentioned how estatic I am that this house has a master bathroom that no one! can enter! without permission!? Because, eeeeeew), and noticed these weird pink smudges here and there on the counter- but mostly in front of Princess's space- that didn't come off when I rubbed them with the cleaner. It didn't look like anything I could place. Cachink!

Thursday, Peanut asked Princess why Princess's fingernails were red. Princess said, "marker!!!" and stuck her hands behind her back. I looked, and she had kind of a reddish stain around the edges of her fingernails. Suspicious, yes. But Princess has been admonished before for drawing on herself (mostly by Josh, because me, meh. I have bigger fish to fry most of the time), so I didn't think much more of it. Chachink!

Yesterday, I removed Princess's laundry from the dryer. And there were two socks covered in the same color as the counter and the fingernails. A color that did not come out in the wash. Chachink clunk!

Princess?
What?
Please go get me whatever it is that you have that made marks on the bathroom counter and is covering these socks.

She brought me a marker. A washable marker. From the main floor of the house.
Try again, babe. The thing I'm expecting is from upstairs. Probably hidden in your room.

She brought me a bottle of nail polish. Which no one is allowed to have because they always spill it. Yeeeeeeeah.

Ok! Let's go get the rest of my stuff out of your room, then.

I started to toss her room, and she sat next to me. I was about half-way through when I said, "you know, you'd have a lot less to clean up if you got out what you have hiding in here and give it to me BEFORE I tear up everything."

She swooped in and immediately pulled out a bottle of nail polish remover. The brand new one. That was now empty.

I said, "what else have you got?"
Nothing.
I'm pretty sure that's not the same color as what's on your socks.
It is! See!

And she stuck out her fingers and toes. Which I hadn't noticed. Which were pink. And also pretty much the entire length of her legs. And her carpet. And her closet door.

Evidently she had been repeatedly painting her entire self, and everything around her, with my nail polish, and then taking it all off with my nail polish remover, for a week. At least.

I immediately went bat-poo nutso. It was the stealing. The stuff that I'm supposed to remember isn't a moral issue but actually a response to extreme stress and a cry for help always trips me up. I have not exactly been "slow to anger," as of late. It got a little surreal, because AS I was freaking out on her, I could still hear the Still Small Voice in my ear- I was just apparently to scalp-prickled triggered to acknowlege it. It went kind of like this:

She only steals your stuff.
Shut up.
Because it's you she wants to be close to.
No, it's because she has no respect for me whatsoever.
It's because it's you she wants to be close to.
Shut up.
She tried to clean it up. Usually she just leaves her illicit messes for you to find. Or step in.
Shut up.
She wanted you to catch her so she could stop feeling bad. That's why they're still painted. She doesn't know how to fix it with you.
No, she just ran out of remover.
She feels bad and she doesn't know how to fix it.
Shut up!

And it did.

I made a conscious choice to stay angry. You can imagine how the rest of the day went. I stomped around yelling. Princess had such a huge meltdown she got a hanger stuck in her hair from tearing up her closet from the inside

(because she's been painting her nails and removing the polish during the time she was supposed to be brushing her hair and teeth for the past week. The rat's nest look was starting to go on)

my anger upset the other children and flowed over onto Josh, making him feel depressed and helpless. It was not good. Not good at all. Very sub-par. Fail.

Thankfully, every day I'm given is a day to try again. And the Still Small Voice is louder after a two-mile run with really loud music.