Monet She Isn't

OK. We get home after 9 pm from visiting Peg and the kids. Bittersweet. It was nice to talk and remember Tom.

I get the kids bathed and I'm cleaning up the bathroom when Chloe walks in all upset and she has a splash of purple nail polish on her forehead. I say "why do you have nail polish on your forehead? She doesn't answer as per her usual M-O. I ask again.. "what were you doing with the nail polish?" Still nothing. So I tell her she had better not have gotten it on anything blah blah.. She is getting increasingly more upset and Jim is now getting louder and heading downstairs to find the offense. I tell him go to bed because if you yell we'll never know what happened. It's after 10 at this point. I just want to know what she ruined so I can get some peace and quiet. I tell her I won't get angry or tell Daddy just tell me. So she whispers "I painted your dining room" I am stumped because I looked in there and didn't see anything.

So I take her into the dining room. "Show Me" . She pulls up the table cloth and points to the pedestal leg. I bend down and look.......



Here's where it gets fuzzy. I think I passed out. I think I had a stroke. I think I had a coronary, died and then was revived by the fumes of all the godamn purple nail polish. I quietly told her she is so close to death she had better get her ass to bed before I take care of it. And that she is lucky Daddy doesn't know because she'd be in way more trouble than I'm about to give her. No nail polish on fingers or toes til she turns 6. No exceptions. She's hyperventilating. I tell her if she keeps that crap up then Daddy will find out because he'll ask why she's upset and I'll flat out tell him.

I got her to bed without incident (lucky her)and proceeded to go downstairs and figure out how I'm going to get it all off without stripping my damn table. Oh my god. I mean she painted the hell out of that leg. And when I say pedestal leg I mean 3 foot around pedestal leg. She painted a good 6 inch square section including autographing her work. I guess so as not to mistake the artwork for her brother or sister's crap scribble. I wiped with remover and quickly wiped with a wet paper towel and kept doing it til it was all gone. It certainly isn't shiny anymore. Most of the finish is off in that section. Luckily it's in the back and usually covered by a tablecloth.

I should have taken a picture before the cleanup so I could torture her with it as an adult so she knew how she took 3 years off my life when I was 36..
but I was stunned so I wasn't thinking straight. And in a motherly instinct of trying to protect her offspring I didn't want the man to find the picture. She's one lucky kid.