Crayola Mural

Last night was the final evening of VBS (Vacation Bible School) and they were ending it with a huge carnival in the church parking lot complete with bouncy rides, snow cones, a band, etc. The kids and I have been attending VBS all week long, each night from 6:30-8:30. I worked in the Craft Cabana helping elementary age kids assemble "island" themed crafts all week long while Emilio & Gabi were in their respective classes. They really seemed to enjoy the week and were so proud to bring home their crafts to show off to Daddy each night. Emilio especially was looking forward to the big Carnival last night, until............

I went upstairs before the Carnival to iron a summer dress I was going to wear. On my way up I noticed the kids getting out crayons and color books. I yelled down to them that they must only color on the pages and not on anything else, the walls, furniture, etc. I thought I made myself pretty darn clear.

As I was gathering them up to head out the door I noticed bright red crayon on my kitchen wall. I immediatly reprimanded Gabi who broke into tears. I scrubbed it out with some Comet and a sponge as I worked up a sweat and thought about what a hassle it was and how we'd probably now be late for the carnival. Emilio casually strode up to me after I had most the markings erased and proclaimed that Gabi had written all over the walls. I asked him if he had seen her do it because I expected him to tell me if he had. He said no but promptly started showing me multicolor crayola crayon (NOT WASHABLE I might add) grafitti all over my dining room, living room, up the stairwell, etc. I was mortified. I couldn't believe Gabi had accomplished all that in a matter of ten minutes (the time I had been upstairs). I started scrubbing again when I started to notice that the drawings were very mature for Gabi's usual scribbles. That's when I noticed the happy face man!!! (Emilio's favorite thing to draw these days). I looked to my son and said, "Emilio, Gabi doesn't know how to draw happy faces!" and he gave me a sheepish look. I realized that most of the drawings on the wall were not illustrated by his kid sister but by Emilio himself. There were circles and multiple straight lines and the happy face man complete with stick arms and legs to boot! I was so sad. My child had not only lied to me but he had defaced our house.

I called John in a state of despair and we both agreed that the most natural consequence was to miss the carnival. This was a major dissapointment for all of us as we had really looked forward to attending as a family. It was really hard to be a parent and know your child had been looking forward to something so much and have to follow through with the punishment. Emilio had other consequences too, one of which was standing in the corner for 45 minutes while John and I scrubbed our fingertips off trying to remove the stubborn red, green, purple, blue and yellow crayons from our walls. He used a bleach paste, I used a baking soda paste. We were able to get most of the color off but you can see some of the areas that we scrubbed the hardest.

Emilio and Gabi went to bed early last night after we said a family prayer thanking God for forgiveness and fresh starts in the morning. We also talked about lessons learned and the importance of telling the truth. John and I then treated ourselves to ice cream as it had been a hard parenting day. No more non washable crayons in our house!