Seven Minutes

Posted on | June 18, 2012 | 11 Comments

You know that moment when you realize that your life is about to drastically change in all the wrong ways?

Yeah.

That moment happened this weekend.

For almost the entirety of J’s young life, he has been a really good kid.  He listens … pretty well.  He obeys… most of the time.  He knows right from wrong… sort of.  And above all else, he’s always been quite content to watch television or play quietly with his toys while I do the “necessaries.”  You know, things like going to the bathroom, cooking dinner, taking a shower… things that just plain HAVE to be done. Without 2 year old supervision.

So it was without any trepidation whatsoever that I left him happily engaged in Wow Wow Wubzy on Saturday morning while I ran to the restroom and jumped in the shower.  They had to be done.  We had plans that afternoon and I’d been exercising.  These things, this shower and this bathroom break, they had to be done.

I take really fast showers.  Like SUPER fast.  Call it the mom in me, but honestly it dates back to being a camper/camp counselor and knowing the warmish water was going to disappear in a matter of moments.  So the entire trip to the restroom lasted no more than 7 minutes.  Tops.  I was relieved, showered, dressed and out the bathroom door in less than seven minutes.

Does anyone remember that game “Seven Minutes in Heaven?”  The one where you would get locked in a closet with a boy for seven minutes and everyone outside would oooh and ahh and wonder exactly what was going on in there while usually, NOTHING was going on except two middle school kids feeling awkward and giggling?  Seven minutes was a really long time then.

Seven minutes is still a REALLY long time.

Because in the seven minutes I was “indisposed” and “unavailable” for my child, he managed to climb up onto the island in the kitchen, grab my purse, open my purse, dig through my purse until he found his weapon of choice…. bright pink glitter nail polish… and then run around the house like a fairy on speed, sprinkling pink glitter nail polish on every surface of the house.

The white cabinets in the kitchen? Pink.

The white countertops? Pink.

My brand new purse? Pink.

The sliding glass doors, the white french doors, the laminate flooring in the kitchen, the kitchen table, three chairs and part of the living room carpet?  Mother effing pink.

THE G-D TELEVISION SCREEN WAS PAINTED PINK.

Seven minutes in hell.

Seven minutes of decorative expression from my two year old which resulted in twenty plus minutes of muttering, grumbling, angst ridden cleaning which left my house smelling like a two-bit nail salon which was inexplicably STILL PINK.

It’s clear that I need a new plan for showering in the mornings. 

Is velcro frowned upon?

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