Yesterday evening Alex was trying our patience and wasn’t listening to anything we asked him to do.  We were finally at our wits end and were frustrated enough that we sent him to his room for a little quiet time.  We figured some alone time would do him, and us, some good.

After a couple of minutes in his room things got pretty quiet which should have set off the alarm bells that something was amiss.  I was laying on our bed and could see Alex’s bedroom door from my position and he would open it, stick his head out, then when I looked over he would quickly close the door again.  He did this a couple of times so I gave him my full attention and low and behold was I in for a surprise.  At first I thought he just looked a little funny because of the shadows in the hall but then I realized it wasn’t shadows, he really did look a little funny.  He had taken a brown marker and drawn all over his face and legs.  Forehead, cheeks, chin, lips, nose, legs, knees, shins, feet, you name it, he had colored it with marker.

I though I was going to explode.  I promptly put him in the shower and started scrubbing desperately hoping that it was going to come off.  Today Alex was going to the library for a reading group and I could just see him sitting there at story time with marker all over his face.  Luckily it came off his face pretty easily and the legs cleaned up alright.  You can still see a bit of a shadow mustache but it’s not too serious.

When he was in the shower I asked him what the heck was he thinking.

“Dad, I didn’t have a goalie mask or pads, I had to draw them on.”  Oh, well now it makes perfect sense now, you needed a goalie mask and pads, what was I thinking.

I continued scrubbing in silence for a while and he said,

“Dad, you know this kind of stuff just happens sometimes.”

Yes your right son, stuff like this just happens sometimes.