What To Do If A Gallon Of Paint Falls All Over Your Kitchen Floor

There are so very many titles for this post.

Here is what happened....

Yesterday I began getting all my fall decorations out and somehow managed to make the house messier than it was before I began.  And people, it was messy.  Like, I can't believe we are living like this messy.

I blame football six days a week.

Anyhow.

Hubs had given me "the look".  So this morning I made some super strong caramel coffee, ate an apple donut and got to work. 

I kicked butt.

I cleaned parts of this house that forgot what clean felt like (behind the toilet, for instance).  I scrubbed every pot and pan.  I folded five million loads of laundry (but not any socks).

I still had a ways to go, but I could see the end in sight.  Jake was gone on an overnight haul trip and I was certain when I went to bed the house was going to look transformed - and very fallish (my favorite kind of decorating.  Seriously. Who can't love fall decorations?).

I had calculated the time that the boys would only have 15 minutes after getting off the bus for us to leave again for practice so I decided to go pick them up.  Being busy cleaning, I had not made any after school snacks, but figured I would quick mix up a batch of no bake cookies when we got home.  I grabbed my cookbook for the recipe to be out when I returned, walked into the dining room and suddenly heard a very loud

Crash

I knew.  I knew before turning around what it was.

Long ago, before summer even began, I finally had decided on a paint color for the kitchen.  We had gone and bought said paint color.  I had asked a bunch of times if we could paint because according to my husband I am by far one of the worlds worst painters and he needs to help me.

I know for a fact, after today, I am WAY better than some others who shall remain nameless.

Timing never seemed right, so I just kept the paint on top of the dishwasher but I recently had moved it because it made a great book stop for stack of cookbooks.

Well, it had made a great book stop.  No longer.

Paint oozed out.  There is no way to scoop up paint, in case you ever wondered about that.

Once it begins pouring, you just begin crying.

It was like THE time for me to leave for getting the boys.  As I drove to the school, I realized that I was in the currently living in what would probably prove to be a great blog post.  I quick zipped to school and picked up my very surprised boys who thought they were riding the bus home.

"How was your day?" asked S1.

"Well, here's the thing...." I began.

"What.  Happened.  Now."

S1 knows me ever so well.

"Well," I began, "There was a slight accident.  But no one was hurt!  Um, thereisagallonofpaintalloverthekitchenfloor," I rushed out.

S3 and S4 suddenly had sonar ears.  "We get to paint? Yippee!" and they ran for the suburban.

"My thought is," I explained to S1 as I watched them gleefully run, "to just start painting the kitchen.  There is no way to get the paint back in the can so let's just paint it.  But I don't know where paint brushes and stuff is."

When we arrived home, all the boys trooped into the kitchen.  "Wow.  That is a mess," was the general statement of the moment.

What struck me greatly is that while this was definitely a big mess, no one seemed shocked by it.  Not even slightly fazed.  It's almost as if they are used to such things happening....

Maybe I should be worried.

No time to think on that now.

I set S3 and S4 in a spot in the kitchen I was sure that no eyes would ever see but me when I dared to move the furniture.  I had the boys just scoop paint onto paper plates and paint as fast as we could before it got sticky and before we had to leave for football practice.

(You apparently paint better if you just wear your grundies.)

Because I had not gotten to mopping the floors yet (that is an after bedtime thing to do here), the paint has a certain "texture" to it.  We have a sort of grass effect going on.  But we could call it "organic" and it may catch on.

I did not think that the little boys could possibly ruin a back hidden wall.  

I was wrong.

And the door was right next to the wall and the door was already covered with paint and since all the paint happened to be right in front of the door....

People, my boys had a great time. They laughed and stood tall knowing they were helping their mama, but that door is forever going to look like an eight and six year old painted it.  And a few other parts of the kitchen one wouldn't normally paint in a room are glowing in red.

It looks like we really like the color red.

All the boys agreed on one thing...it was a good thing Daddy was overnight.

We weren't even close to being done when it was time to leave for football.  S2 cried all the way to practice, he is so tired.  S3 and S4 fought over who could pretend to sing to the radio and who had to wait for another song to come one.  I did the never done before and left the two football players behind and drove home to continue painting.  When we arrived home, I sent the two little ones to watch TV.

The kitchen floor was covered in paint now.  Everyone had stepped in it and walked all over.  Paint brushes dripping in paint had left long lines of paint across the room.

My husband called.

Now, he can call me and talk for twenty minutes straight about someone he met or some place he stopped or road conditions or weather.  I was really hoping he wouldn't say, "And what have you been up to today?"

But he did.

So I told him.

I held nothing back.  Might as well prepare him.

He was not even shocked.

Are you catching a pattern here?

Even my friends I had text the photo too were unsurprised.  Some even giggled.  Giggled hysterically I would suppose.  Just they wait until paint falls on their kitchen floors.

Wait, I am the only one I know of who has ever had that happen.

The kitchen I had worked so hard to clean was suddenly this hazard mess everywhere.  I only had one burner on the stove I could get to so dinner had to be "creative".  I made up a couple packets of instant noodles, added some left over roast and headed out to pick up the boys.

When we went to get into the suburban to leave, somehow S4 forgot that his door was open, as in wide open, went to lean against it to buckle up and fell out of the suburban onto the hard pavement.

He was still gripping his booster seat.

He let out the most blood curdling scream.  A dad came to see what exactly was going on.  S4 was wailing and it was hard to tell if he was crying because he was scared, hurt, super hurt or overtired.

He asked if he could go to the hospital.

I may have gone to that "mom zone" in my head as I drove home to S4 wailing he may never be able to sleep again and that his wrist was broken so he could never to go school again while S2 cried that his Lions hat he had forgotten at practice the night before was missing and looked to never be returned again.

When we got home S4 ran for the TV, ate two or three plate-fulls of what all the boys deemed one of the best dinners I had ever made (hmmmm, that isn't helping me much.  Here I cook all these big from scratch dinners and they like the noodles from a package with left over roast beef.) and seemed to be just fine.  Well, until shower time when the wailing began all over again.

I think the second week of school is tougher than the first.

I sent the boys to bed.  S3 and S4 said they had to sleep with me so I wouldn't get lonely.  They have taken over the entire bed with all their stuffed animals.  S4 who was so sure he would never sleep again due to his booster seat accident seems just fine.

I scrubbed the floor on my hands and knees.  In my head, I rearranged some furniture pieces that I am now too exhausted to move.  I will spare you the gory details of scrubbing but believe me when I say my fingers ache.  It is pure love to share the story with you (so you can all be thankful this did not happen to you).  But just as I was finishing, S1 came down and stood in awe of the kitchen.

"We did pretty good," he said, "We should have painted this a long time ago."

I have to admit, we did do a pretty good job.  I love the color and I had forgotten how pretty it is.

So, if you need a room cleaned, spill a gallon of paint on your floor and let your kids go wild with the paintbrushes.  It will get done in no time.

OR....paint it as soon as you buy the paint and spare yourself (and your knees and fingers) some serious grief.

All in all, even though I am glad this day has ended and I get to finally go to bed, it honestly is going to be one of those days that we remember forever.  I think we all will grin when we tell the story of how the kitchen got painted.