I knew I should have gone with those CCTV cameras

*Silence*

I saw them go into the room so I figured they were playing with toys peacefully for once. That was nice, I thought. No shrieks of “GIVE ME BACK”, “NOOOOOOOO” to contend with and I can finally sit down for a cup of afternoon coffee.

I set down my steaming cup of joe and walked into the room wanting to tell them how proud I was that they were learning to play in peace and maybe give them a pep talk so it would last longer.

Instead, I walked in to see the entire left side of baby girl’s cheek colored pink. In Tru’s hand was the smoking gun, a bright pink marker. “I draw on mei mei’s face”, he pointed to his masterpiece. Objectively speaking, it was a fine piece of work, with the entire surface area colored in like I taught him to. Except that it was his sister’s face he was using as a canvas. In semi-permanent ink.

Deep breathing. Come on, be calm. I never specifically told him not to draw on his sister’s face so no rules were broken, so to speak. Besides, Kirsten was a willing party. “See, pink color,” she said laughing. “I like kor kor draw on the face.” Give it 10 years, young lady, and we’ll see if you still like it as much. Well, he did use a chair to prop himself up high enough to reach the box of markers I thought was kept safe out of his reach but that was a misdemeanor at best. This will just have to go into the list of things he now knows he’s not supposed to do.

Rule #261: No coloring on faces. Incidentally, Rule #260 was no putting rice in the washing machine. I need to have all my bases covered with these two.

When I calmed down sufficiently, I brought them to the shower and started scrubbing off the marker stains (which upon closer inspection was on their hands, legs and Truett’s right butt cheek – I don’t even want to know how that happened).

“Ok, that’s enough mischief for the day, go play with toys. Peacefully.” I used my stern mommy voice so that should buy me fifteen minutes to get some vacuuming done. As I was finishing up the living room, Kirsten started screaming bloody murder and this time, I walked into something far worse. Truett was holding a pair of scissors and there were clumps of hair EVERYWHERE. He had taken it upon himself to give his sister a haircut and by the looks of it, took off a piece of her ear in the process.

That was when I lost it completely. Kirsten was still screaming, I was screaming and by this time, Truett decided it was probably a smart move to join in the screaming. On the plus side, Kirsten’s body parts are all still intact but her hair now looks like she was attacked by dogs. I’m trying to change her parting so I can use the hair from the other side to cover up the patches.

With two kids, silence is not golden. It’s terrifying.