Today is the first Saturday of the school year. Soccer hasn't started yet, no other activities to rush to, so I wanted to sleep in. Paxton woke up sometime early morning, and he was in my bed. The rest of the kids were still asleep. One by one, they started waking up, but I wasn't quite ready.
I got up and got Madalynn and Paxton some milk. Gray and Cam were playing a video game they had rented in the living room. Everyone was content and it was only 9. Seems like a good idea to lay back down. I was, as my sister used to call it, "savoring the feel of the bed".
Just a few minutes passed, and Paxton came into my room trying to reach something behind the head of my bed. I smelled something fruity. I laid there for a couple of minutes still trying to postpone the inevitable, getting up. The fruity smell was overwhelming! Does it smell like my lotion? I knew that particular lotion was out of his reach, so I got up to check it out. Soap! Plum soap!
That could only mean one thing. Someone had left the bathroom door open. This is something we don't do anymore. Paxton is forever into things in the bathroom. He loves to get out toothbrushes. He will dip those, cups, washcloths... anything really, into the toilet. He will pull all of the toilet paper off of the roll. And his newest fascination... The soap. He has figured out the pump and will walk around pumping soap everywhere. He has only gotten a couple of drops out in the past, but today he was becoming more efficient at pumping.
Grayson was the last one I saw go into the bathroom. I told him to get in the bathroom, quick. He apologized, and I told him he had to clean it up. "But, mom, I don't know how!" I told him I would walk him through it, but he was going to do the work. Fortunately, the soap didn't hit any carpet, but it was on about 10 feet of wood floor.
First get a paper towel.
He manages to make an even bigger mess by spreading the soap everywhere. Wiping it in circles, sticky, soapy circles. He's moving way to quickly to be doing a good job. I tell him to slow down.
Next get a wet rag.
He wets the rag, wads it up and squeezes it, leaves it waded up, and wipes over the soap smears. Once again, super quickly. I show him how to spread the rag out and wipe it more efficiently. But it is just making a sudsy mess on the floor. "Mom, I can't do this! It's way too hard!"
"I know it's hard. Much harder than shutting the bathroom door. Maybe next time you will remember."
It's at this point I realize he is doing this all so quickly because he is wanting to get back to his game, which just makes me more angry.
Finish with a dry towel.
I am planning on mopping the floor a little later, so I give him a towel to dry up the suds. He finishes up and tries to throw the towels to me. "No, they go in the dirty towel basket." He sighs, runs and throws them away and gets back to his game.
Maybe next time he will remember that it would be much easier to prevent a mess rather than clean it up.
Maybe next time I will remember that my laziness almost always results in a mess.
Maybe, just maybe, we both learned from a lazy Saturday morning.
