Marshmallow Monster

How I lost my Babysitter of the Year Award

Yesterday afternoon, I made myself some lunch, settled into the man chair and flipped on the TV. I had taken about two bites when I realized that it was 1:30 and I was supposed to leave at 1:30. I hadn't even showered yet! So I had Scott get in touch with Mike to get in touch with Reyna (ahh the joys of communication) to tell her that I was definitely going to be late. I ended up pulling into her parking lot at 2:25 (she works at 2:30) and we literally passed on the sidewalk. Luckily she works less than a mile away, and ended up clocking in at 2:29.

So I'm off to a grrreat start. The oldest wants me to watch him play his video game, and I want to sit down and eat my now cold lunch, so I settled on the floor of the boys' room to watch. The baby comes in to play with us, and I generally trust Middle Child enough that unless I hear a crash he really doesn't need to be supervised.

sidenote: There's a baby gate between the living room and the kitchen. The boys are allowed to jump the baby gate to go to the bathroom...but that's it.

I looked out of the boys' room to see M.C. climbing the gate into the kitchen. "Are you going potty?" "No." "Then why are you climbing the gate?" "For candy!" By the time I got over there, he had grabbed a marshmallow snowman and started to eat it. So I told him he should know better, blah blah blah, and went back into the bedroom. Less than 20 minutes later, he comes in, and he's holding the edge of his shorts. I asked if he had to go potty and he said no, and then I noticed his hands were covered in gobs of sticky gooey marshmallow and that he's not holding the shorts, his hand is stuck to them!

At this point, I found out that the sink in the boys' bathroom is filled with bathtub toys. So we washed his hands in the kitchen sink. Then I hoisted him back over the gate and he brought to my attention the sticky blobs on his legs. And the blob on his shorts that has gotten mashed between two layers of fabric. So we lost the shorts, and I scoured his poor little legs with a baby wipe, and actually had to peel some of the goo off of him.

When I asked him if he still thought it was a good idea to climb over the gate for contraband candy, he replied "yes!" without missing a beat. And that is how he came to be called Marshmallow Monster. (and he replied, "I'm not a marshmallow monster!")