This is post #2 From Brian at Way Station One. Again, if you like it, be sure to check his blog out!!

She was only going to go out for a couple hours with the girls. All I had to do was make sure the boys were alive when she returned. This proved abundantly harder than it initially seemed.

Slowly, the blue digital numbers on the front of the microwave mark time slipping away from us. So far we have played cars, superheroes, dress up, and Sorry. I imagine my wife is laughing right now, sipping tea at some café with the other ladies, talking about things that are important to them. Time is probably flying by quickly and they don’t even notice, not bothering to check a watch or cell phone.

I am bored,

this would be Logan, my oldest.

What do you want to do?

I am enjoying the brief respite after the flurry that started the moment my wife shut the door behind her.

Scrunching his face into the thinking pose, Logan’s eyes light up, Let’s finger paint!

This is no surprise as he is a budding artist, even at this young age. His younger brother, Cole, jumps at any possibility of getting messy, so we have found our next activity.

Grabbing the bin marked finger paint from the hall closet, we gather around the kitchen table, prying the lid off our prize. Unfortunately, no glossy paper stares back at us, only tubes of vibrant colored paint. No problem, we have been in this predicament before.

We’ll just paint on the top of the table and wipe it off when we are done, how’s that?

Yay!,

Their exuberance pushes my rank in their eyes to mythical status, as I squirt great globs of paint across the mahogany surface.

Stripping them down to their underwear, ensuring that no laundry needs washed prior to mommy’s return, they have at it, running their hands across the slick table top, creating abstract universes, giggling with glee. My smile glares the pride I have in myself, we will survive this time and they will tell marvelous stories of how cool dad is.

Thump.

thoughts of my magnificence as interrupted by a loud noise, Logan slipping as he stretched across the table to land full bodied in the paint. Fearing his brothers drown, Cole leaps to the rescue, succeeding in covering himself head to toe in paint as well. Oh well, we’ll just take a bath, might as well make this fun, so I let them roll in the paint for a minute, while I start the bath water.

Wait right here, do not leave the table!

I explain sternly through my smile.

Water starts to gush into the tub and I hear footsteps running behind me…this is when panic sets in…placing them in the tub to limit the damage we begin to scrub, but the paint is not coming off as easy as it usually does. Turning to walk back to the kitchen, blue-purple footprints mark their path across the Berber carpet. My heart tips a beat or two.

Grabbing the tubes of paint, I read…acrylic…full blown panic settles on my shoulders. I have multi-colored children, ruined living room carpet and paint drying on the kitchen table…when the phone rings…

Hey there! On my way home, is everything okay…

Everything is okay, gotta go, boys are in the tub…

the click of the phone closing is my death knell.

Calling all the wives I know, their laughter drowns any actual help they might give. My boys are starting to feel the tension as well, as they stand before my crumpled form, by the blue-purple smears in the carpet, dripping suds from beneath the towels they are wrapped in. Gravel crunches as the gold van pulls into the driveway…

Mommy’s home!

They yell, then whisper, What do we do?

Looking them in the eye, I explain, We are all going to die! Hide!

This is the low point for me as a parent. We survive, though my wife still says she can see the footprints in the carpet, no one else can. I think she just wants to make sure I remember that once you start making poor choices, they tend to cascade into further poor choices. And now I also understand how the days can be evil….

Eph. 5: 15-16