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I was lying in bed the other morning wondering what I am going to write my column about this month, humming and hahing with my porridge brain trying to find something vaguely amusing. And then last night my dear daughter solved my dilemma… But let me start at the beginning, just under a week ago…
Now first I must explain that Megan has always been very good with drawing implements. Give her a pen and a magazine and she is as happy as pie. Even better, give her a piece of paper with my handwriting on and she will spend hours trying to doodle over what I have written – trying to be big like Mommy I guess! So I have never had the problem of scribblings on the wall or tables like a lot of my friends have, and have been quite happy to leave her alone with her crayons while she colours in at her table. That is, until last week. She has this lovely dry wipe book that I bought for her some time ago, and she loves drawing over the pictures and then wiping the koki clean with a wetwipe. So last week I gave her said book and a box of wetwipes and after I saw that she was sitting quietly minding her own business, I thought great, time to catch up on emails while she is occupied. So I was busy typing away when she came into the study and held out her hands saying, “Mommy, hands dirty!” “Oh dear,” I replied, not too concerned as the koki tends to smudge over her hands as she draws, so I told her we could go wash them, and got up to help her, end of story. And then I went into the bedroom. And saw. The carpet. The table. The white cupboard door. And even the yet-to-be-born baby's pink outfit hanging from the cupboard door. There was black koki everywhere. Of course Megan got yelled at from a dizzy height, and when the little face dissolved into a crumpled mass of trauma, I actually wanted to laugh at the drama! Thank goodness the pen she had used was a dry wipe and I managed to get most of it off, except for the carpet – Granny to the rescue! My amazing mom arrived ten minutes later with a bucket of all sorts of magic cleaners, and got most of the mark of the carpet. Problem solved, koki removed and packed away, all's well that ends well.
So, you would think I had learnt my lesson. Guess again. Now as you have probably realised, I am maybe sometimes a little too relaxed about leaving Megan to get on with her own thing – my philosophy is anything for some peace and quiet, as long as she's not in immediate danger. So last night when she asked to listen to her Barney songs on my six month old laptop (yes, start getting worried now) I happily obliged, thinking great, I can quickly get supper started while she is occupied. Well things were nice and quiet, and so I had time to pack the dishwasher. It was when I was going to Megan's room to collect the bottles for washing that I heard a suspicious squeaky sound, and wondered what on earth she was up to. So I detoured to the study… and saw her with not one, but two black koki's in her hands, one dry wipe, one permanent, merrily scribbling on my (uninsured) laptop's monitor (having done a good enough job on the keys, the keyboard surrounds and desk (she even got it on the little Vodafone 3G gadget that plugs into the side). Well if you have ever heard a two year old having a tantrum, it is nothing compared to the wobbly I chucked. I raced around the house searching for wet wipes (which had vanished under the bed), only to discover that while wetwipes do a remarkable job on dry wipe koki's, they do NOTHING for permanent markers! I eventually crumpled in a heap balling my eyes out thinking this is it, no more laptop, no more extra income, (I rely heavily on my laptop for my web design work) no more brain activity while Megan is at school! I eventually phoned my hubby and he suggested I try meths, which thank goodness worked on most of the mess. The monitor is fine (except for a small scratch) and there are just a couple of lines left on the Vodafone gadget and in the right light you can see koki all over the black keys. In hindsight I wish I had taken a picture so you could see exactly how bad it really was, but grabbing my camera was the last thing on my mind!
During all of this my dear daughter was following me around (having recovered from her mom's-mad-at-me snot-en-trane) saying “What you doing, Mommy? Mommy sad!”. “Yes, Megan, Mommy is very very sad. Why is Mommy sad? Because you drew on Mommy's ‘puta' with a pen that won't come off!” Eventually hubby arrived home armed with a bottle of pure alcohol from his IT department – I asked him if it was for me or the computer (but he assured me that one sip of it would have me out like that, for good, so I reckoned it was for the computer).
Anyway all's well that ends well, again, and someday I might laugh about it (like when my computer is more than 6 months old!). We are now investigating insuring it against little people, although I am not sure they will cover acts of Megan. All koki's, pens, scissors, lipsticks and anything vaguely tempting to a toddler (i.e. everything) has been moved much higher, although she will probably eventually figure a way to get to the furthest reaches of the house. But for now, sanity is restored, and lucky for you your copy of Mum's the Word will, for now, keep coming!
© Sally Hetherington .
