For the last two nights, Christopher has helped himself to the toothpaste. He smears toothpaste all over the counter, mirrors and his hair. Mom and Dad took the initiative to put the toothpaste behind the mirror in the medicine cabinet. But, Bean is on a quest to put his own toothpaste on his brush.

Tonight, he got up on the counter, looking for the toothpaste and Jim says, “No, you can’t have it because you made a mess the last two nights. “ Jim left the bathroom for a moment with the toothpaste in his hand. He came back into the bathroom to find Christopher up on the counter with something in his hand. Christopher is adamant saying, “I’m going to put this on my toothbrush by myself.” Jim asks, “Put what?” while he watches Christopher unscrew the cap to a tube of Preparation H.

I know it’s rotten but I came so very, very close to letting him do it… it would have been a Kodak moment for sure.

Aunt Amy may have saved Christopher’s life today…

I can’t remember exactly how old we were but we were old enough to know better. I’m going to guess that I was in 5^th grade which would have put my sister, Amy, in the 4^th grade. My mom was gone and we were home by ourselves. I don’t remember if my mom had just run to the store or what but she was gone long enough for us to get up to mischief.

I came downstairs to find Amy in the kitchen, the floor covered with water. She was in her socks sliding back and forth across the floor, having a grand old time. I remember saying something to the effect of, “You know Mom is going to be really mad about this.” Amy was too busy having fun to worry about the consequences.  She was giggling and falling all over the kitchen. She was already soaked but decided to put more water on the floor. She kept going over to the sink, filling this little blue cup and dumping more until there was at least an inch of water covering the entire kitchen.

I enjoyed watching her but knew I didn’t want mom to come home and find ME with wet socks. So, I watched and we laughed and Amy slid around the kitchen, practicing her skating moves. Then the back door opened.

When my mom walked in and saw what was going on, her mouth fell open and I knew Amy was going get it and get it good! But, Amy, in one of the slickest, quickest responses I’ve ever witnessed,  started crying immediately and said, “Mom, I was trying to mop and the floor just kept getting more and more wet and I didn’t know what to do!” To my amazement, my mom believed her. I remember thinking, “I can’t believe she bought that.”

Today, that memory just may have saved Christopher’s life. He came downstairs, completely covered in toothpaste. My initial reaction was a deep intake of breath and then instant anger. I didn’t know what I was going to do but I could feel the blood rising to my ears! Then he looked at me and said, “Mom, I tried to clean the bathroom but the toothpaste didn’t work.” That’s all it took. I remembered that story with Amy and just blew up laughing.

I am not foolish enough to believe he was trying to clean the bathroom… especially since two minutes later he said to me, “I really just wanted to make my hair stick up.”  But, while I was upstairs cleaning the toothpaste off my counter, sink, mirrors, floor… while Christopher soaked in the tub to get all the toothpaste off of him, I decided to let him slide.