Oops

My friend Alli tagged me about my worst "oops" moment. I thought I had a picture, but the only one I have isn't digital; I imagine that in my panic to clean up, I wasn't thinking about preserving the memory any longer than I had to. Unfortunately, it's seared into my brain and I still shudder when I think about it.

When Lizzie was three, she had two little friends over and the moms were visiting in the other room. Quiet almost always accompanies mischief and I wasn't as good as being suspicious of silence as I am now. By the time we thought to check on the kids, they had gotten into baby Anna's Desitin and had it all over their heads. One little girl had put it on like daddy's shaving cream, but on her lips and teeth, another girl had put it on like shampoo, and Lizzie was sort of a general smear. The tough thing is that diaper rash cream is designed to be waterproof and it was impossible to get off. Dry rags were the best we could do without totally stripping them down, which we ended up doing anyway. I still shake my head just thinking about it.

Anytime I think my story is bad, though, I remember my darling cousin Jayne who was the queen of mischief in her day. Between the lingonberry jam incident (a stack of jars in a store and she had to choose the one on the bottom), losing a shoe to freshly poured tar in a parking lot, or coating herself in Vaseline, my Aunt Rochelle is a wonder for not locking Jayne in her room until adolescence. There are so many Jayne stories that I love remembering and they always make me feel better about my own incidents. Fortunately, Jayne turned out to be one of the loveliest, most capable, and absolutely hilarious women I know. That also gives me hope for my own mischief makers.