Look, mom...blue!

This happened today. 

Prompted by the above quote, the rear view mirror revealed the meaning, and the reaction was all too familiar.  A gasp that turned into a laugh and tapered into opened-mouth dismay.  

The revelation of a child’s face tattooed by Crayola, or worse yet…Sharpie, is always jarring and confusing because it is so funny- BUT-you can’t laugh, if you’re smart..  Because, laughter, you see, generates repetition, and I don’t know a mother on the planet who is looking for an ounce more repetition in her life.

Much like hair cutting, it happens so quickly, with the potential of having some relatively long-lasting results.  Urban legend has it that the makers of the “Magic Eraser” had to include warning labels to dissuade mothers from using this product on the skin of their children, as it was resulting in “burns."  Evidently, this happened enough to warrant a new paragraph on the packaging, and, perhaps, there is an untapped market in “marker removal from skin of minors."

The reason children fall prey to random acts of self staining is due in large part to the fact that they live in a world without consequence.  It is our job as parents to teach the entire concept of consequence, and, eventually, that becomes the element of maturity.  Maturity understands that every action has an equal and opposite…wait a minute,,,I think that is actually one of Newton’s laws of motion, but you see where I’m going with this: our actions have an effect, an outcome that must be handled…or cleaned…

The lack of this awareness is why children think things can be fixed simply with tape; or why “we could just buy more;" or why we could just “wash” it.  (“No, we cannot put the sofa in the washing machine…” ) This is why they believe the food pyramid should be constructed of cookies, Twizzlers and ice cream, and also why they want to camp in January or drink out of wine glasses.  

 

Parents are so often left to care for the "love child" of “Unreasonable Optimism" and “Untempered curiosity."  This is the best part of children.  They have no hang ups.  They never pause to consider ramifications.  Conceptualizing an idea is a mere jumping off point.  The real product of their ventures stems from the escalation...and, oh, how they escalate!

In the end, it may be messy, but it's endearing, in a way, to see how far they will go, and wish that you were still so uninhibited.  I relish peering from the edge of a window, protected by the glare, to observe their genius in action, like a crew of mad scientists, hurling their constant flow of ideas at one another at lightning speed, implemented or denied-it doesn't matter-because they are pushing forward to the moon...