Let the vacation begin!

This year’s vacation started off with the usual rush-around-and-try-to-pack-while-the-kids-are-demanding-all-of-my-attention-RIGHT-NOW. I’ll spare you the details, but we made it out of the house (finally!) and stopped in for a night at my parents’ house to break up the drive.

It was a short visit, complete with a horrid bedtime (read: it took so long to put the girls to bed that everyone else went to sleep before I could get them down and I was so exhausted at that point that I just went to bed too), but the next morning my parents were all-hands-on-deck to help us get on our way. I wanted to paint my toenails (while I had reinforcements to watch the kids) and thought that I would use a coral colour my mum has that happens to match my sandals. Bean asks if she can watch.
– Sure thing sweetie.
– You are going to look so beautiful after your nails are painted Mummy.
– (Swoon! Totally happy I said yes.) Ok, just wait here, I need to get one more thing.

I leave the bathroom to grab my basecoat and come back just in time to see Bean opening the coral nail polish. “What’s this Mummy?” Nooooooooo! The nail polish drips off of the brush onto her (mostly) white dress. You’ve got to be kidding me. I close up the bottle before more drips fall and strip her down to try and minimize the damage. As Bean’s helping me to blot the dress (and her thighs — it soaked through) with nail-polish remover, I notice that she’s jiggling around.
– Bean, do you have to pee?
She sits on the toilet to pee but (for some strange reason) leans slightly backward and the pee shoots out, going between the toilet seat and the rim of the bowl, onto her underpants, the outside of the toilet and the floor. You have got to be kidding me. I couldn’t have done that if I’d tried! 

I tell Bean to stay on the toilet and I head downstairs for cleaning supplies. I ask my mum to google how to get nail polish out of a cotton dress. An eyebrow raises in a question. Bean got curious about the nail polish. Oh, and she accidently peed on the floor while sitting on the toilet. With that, I disappear with some paper towels and the Lysol. I clean up the pee and give Bean a quick bath (and a clean outfit) before turning my attention to the dress. “Blot reverse with acetone, rinse, repeat.” So I do. Several times. It’s faded, but I wouldn’t call it removed. Then I used stain remover and (later) put it through the laundry. A bit more faded but the spot is still there. Oh well… it’s not super noticeable, since there are orange flowers on the white dress… the coral stain sort of blends in with the pattern if you aren’t looking for it.

By the time I finish all that, El’s up from her morning nap, ready for a breastfeed, and my toes remain unpainted. Maybe bedtime tonight will be better and I will have 5 minutes to actually beautify my toes.

Author’s note: Vacation was last week (not this week), but I had a (more-or-less) device-free week (aside from Google maps & taking photos), so you’ll get the updates this week instead. (You can expect more than one post… hopefully it’ll make up for not posting in a few weeks!) Also, a HUGE thank you to my parents. This post is more about how much mess Bean managed to make in a 10-minute time period (and the hour it took me to clean it up) than their help, but I wanted to give them a shout out for all of their help on that crazy rainy morning. You two are awesome!