children make interesting choices

Sometimes children make strange choices.

Like over the weekend I actually had to ask my 7-year-old daughter, “Why would you rubber cement your doll’s hair to her forehead?”

By the way, the word, “ask” is an euphemism for “yell” in this particular scenario.

And Dylan explained that she wanted the dolls bangs to lie flat, instead of sticking straight up. At which point, I made a note to introduce my daughter to this fancy new gizmo called a barrette that can magically make hair do things.

And then later in the day, we were playing at the YMCA and 22-month-old Chase was insisting on bringing his water bottle onto these soft mats where all the kids were running around.

Now I can only imagine that Chase is training for some kind of half marathon because his intake of water is enormous.

I kept telling him to sit down with his water and he kept demanding that he run around with it. It was 4:30 pm and I was tired and well, I gave up. And I don’t want to spoil this story for you but yes, he did indeed spill that water all over a mat about 3 minutes later.

I sprang into action to clean it up.

Well, I meant to.

I was going to pull out a wipe but I I didn’t want the twins to descend on the diaper bag like desperate vultures in search of snacks so close to dinner time.

Instead, I thought about running to the bathroom to get paper towels but I distinctly remember from high school chemistry that water evaporates so I decided to let nature take its course. Plus I sort of just forgot about the whole thing

And a little bit later, I suddenly noticed some kind of CSI forensic unit surrounding one of the play mats. (It may have been one YMCA employee and a few parents but who can say exactly.)

They were circling the mat with alarm and apprehension.

At first I was like – “Hey, I wonder what is going on over there.”

And then I remembered. So I bounded over.

“Hey! Sorry about the spill,” I said.

“We are very concerned this might be urine,” the head investigator briefed me.

“Oh! No, it’s not pee. It’s water! My son had this water bottle and then he spilled it and I meant to clean it up but I didn’t have any napkins and well, evaporation is not as quick a process as you would think,” I explained.

“Are you sure it’s not urine?” he asked. Man, these guys are thorough.

“Totally sure,” I insisted.

And in case you think there isn’t any karma in this world for leaving a water spill and causing a YMCA urine crisis, this week I was walking down the street with Chase and Harlowe and Chase decided to pick up TWO pieces of dog poop. With his bare hands. Just because.

Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I managed to clean that up right away.