Frank had a birthday last week, which as all kid's presents do, involved a lot of cardboard and styrofoam packaging.
Last night, using that peculiar line of reasoning that comes to the human brain in the wee hours, he decided that it would be cool to have snow. Since summer is coming it would have to be fake snow.
And after turning the idea over he realized he could make some himself. Out of Styrofoam.
So in the middle of the night he went out into the garage, dug the slabs of styrofoam out of the trash, brought it into the kitchen, and began shredding it with a butter knife.
At some point he realized he'd covered the floor and table and everything else with little white pieces of styrofoam and began frantically trying to vacuum them up. Which is where I came in.
22 comments:
Ooops! Does that mean a new vacuum is required?
I was anxiously awaiting the part where you said he sucked it up with the wet/dry, only to reverse the tubing and blow it out the other end... replete with pictures :D
LOL!!!! Oh kids.... at least he was using a butter knife!
xx
Jaxs
My three kids did the same. It's amazing how much static charge those little beads of styrofoam carry and how tenaciously they cling to the vacuum. You have my sympathy good sir!
"At some point he realized he'd covered the floor and table and everything else with little white pieces of styrofoam..."
Wasn't that the point of his whole experiment? Or was he planning on doing something else with the "snow"?
I remember gleefully throwing bean bags beans around a room as 'snow' when I was a pre-schooler in Australia, having burst the bean bag by repeatedly jumping on it with a friend, I think. I never saw real snow until I was an adult - I think the ersatz stuff was more fun, up until the point my mother caught us...
that's why boys should be locked up at birth and not allowed out until 45
This reminds me of my neice's birthday in which a dozen toddlers ripped open a 5 foot "nemo" fish stuffed full of tiny styrofoam beads.... Needless to say I am sure it resembled your mess! At least he tried to clean it up.
5 year-old Boykin: Wheedlewheedle cajole whimper can I please have that huge block of Styrofoam from the TV box puhleeeeze oh pleaseplease I really really want to carve an awesome castle out of it I'll be careful and if I make a mess I'll clean it up I promise!
Missus Cocklecarrot: To self: Hmm.. this might not go so well. But I mustn't suppress his creativity! To Boykin: Okay, dear.
1 hour later, in the playroom, Boykin and his butter knife are nowhere to be seen. A few unrecognizable chunks of styrofoam are scattered about. All surfaces, including computer, TV and bookshelves, appear to have a dusting of snow. Missus is frantically vacuuming.
Missus Cocklecarrot: Why the hell didn't I listen to Cocklecarrot? He was right. Again. * sighs *
Have fun. they stick to everything and practically impossible to clean up. I get pissed off when I spill packing peanuts. Now imagine styrofoam balls. eek! We need pictures.
I once had a house and yard covered in tiny styrofoam bits too. I'd just moved and unpacked a new fridge, then asked the kids to dispose of the styrofoam packaging. They had swordfights with it..........A year later I was still finding bits if I moved any furniture.
Cool. If I were Frank, I would have set it on fire.
My friend, Julie, was sort of dozing one morning. Her little boy, Matt, was being very quiet.
When she woke up, she found that he had taken an entire box of laundry detergent, a scoop at a time, across the living room (which had a dark brown rug), to the coffee table because he wanted to play in the sand box but he knew Mommy wasn't up yet.
Matt is now in his 30s. I hear they just got the last of that stuff out of the rug last week...
>:p
I would have LOVED to see a picture
of his 'project'! It brought back
so many memories of my kids 'projects'! I know from experience that what fun you had cleaning it up...static cling and
all! LMAO ! Thank you a good laugh!
OMFG
ERP- you are my long lost twin. and boys are still boys at 45, sweetie. had a coworker describe a birthday party today with 600 water balloons popped on her front lawn "like skittles"
Hey, he did try to clean it up, so that's rather awesome. Dr. Grumpy, one question - how old is he? I've got a ten year old and a near-two-year old and the 2yo is already doing things like testing the water absorbency qualities of her big sister's doll clothes. Bodes well.
Well, must go. The baby's in the cat food.... Man, you'd be challenged to pay me enough to do this again.
He's 11.
I agree with the others: If he's trying to clean it up, you know, that's a promising sign.
Ah, Life Lessons-My favorite so far is "Never leave a 2 yr-old alone in a room with a can of paint and a screwdriver", but my second fave is, "Send all packing peanuts and styrofoam posthaste to my nieces" because we found out the hard way about static clean, too.
Thanks for yet another laugh!
Funny...I wrote about just these types of moments in my blog this week:
http://www.trianglemom2mom.com/content/take-me-away
Maybe you need some Calgon!
In 1986, my husband and I (with our one month old son) bought our first home. In 1987, we had new carpet installed. In 1988, we had new carpet installed.
Our now two and a half year old son woke up real early one morning, found matches, got paper towels and lit them on fire. He dropped the burning paper onto the carpet. The carpet began to smolder. He grabbed a bathroom towel from the laundry hamper and threw it on the smoldering carpet. What woke me up was the sound of running water and then I smelled the acrid odor of something burning. Our bedroom was filled with smoke. I freaked out and woke my husband up thinking the house was on fire. We scrambled to find our son in the smoke. We found him sitting next to the smoldered spot trying to clean it up with wet paper towels. We didn't find the scorched towel until later, after we got the story from him ("I just wanted to see what it looked like to burn the paper towel" and yes, at two, my son was exceptionally articulate, .... not a genius, just able to speak well). After I got over my mad and my fear of what-could-have-been, I was actually proud that my son reacted quickly to put out the fire he started. So never worried about the occasional cleanup of styrofoam peanuts or balls.
WV: amidiank (am i dian k)
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