A New Classic: Peanut Butter

On Saturday DH and I attended a marriage enrichment course. It was very good. We don't have a bad marriage, in fact, I think we have a good, if not great, marriage but we needed some tweaking. We decided to get a room for Saturday night and sleep. And we did. After our class we took a 3 hour nap, got up, did dinner and then went back to sleep for the night.

We hired two sitters to watch the brood. Maybe we have a gaggle? A herd? Anyway, I digress. We walked in Sunday at noon to find that the sitters were still asleep, the children had been awake since 7:00 a.m. #3 met me at the door with the absolutely most pathetic face I have seen. "Mama! I am soooo hungry" and he started crying. I knew right then and there things were not right.

I told him to eat cereal. Then I walked into the family room and found that all the couch cushions were off, the Girl (21 months, a.k.a. Mistress of Mess) had gotten a jar of peanut butter off the countertop. She brought it over to my BRAND.NEW. loveseat, took off the lid, smeared peanut butter all over the back of the loveseat, a couple of cushions from the couch and then covered herself head to toe in peanut butter.

She also got hold of a marker and decorated the entire desk and DH's work laptops.

#4 was under the bench and dining table breaking an entire box of crayons into bits.

#4 had a stinky diaper.

#1 and #2 were on the computer sucked into a new Bionicle game oblivious to all that was going on around them.

I called the sitters' mother. She told me to let them "have it."

We got the Girl into the tub, the stinky diaper taken care of, the cereal dished out to #3, #1 and #2 were looking sheepish and getting ready for church. I head downstairs to talk to the sleeping ones.

This is how I let them "have it," "We are home. It is 12:05. You are asleep, the kids have been awake since 7:00 and there is a jar of peanut butter smeared into my brand new furniture. Your mother says to let you have it but I don't have teenagers yet so I don't know how to let you have it."

Not very good, huh?

D. (older of the sisters) replies to me, "Don't worry. You will learn how."

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH

A. came upstairs, looked at the couch and started bawling.

You know, the couch doesn't bother as much as the fact that the kids were not taken care of. It just killed me to be met at the door by a crying child who was hungry and not cared for. There are so many things that really, really could have happened to my children. We are so incredibly blessed that it was just a couch, a box of crayons and an empty tummy.


and, yes, we are getting new sitters.

And all that peanut oil should keep the Girl's skin peanutty smooth. Sheesh.