Seeing Red

Seeing Red 2

Not many things can leave me dumbfounded but after a day at preschool I was left speechless.

My darling daughter is quite the inquisitive little lady, some would say that she’s mischievous. We have a saying in our house, ‘if it’s quiet then Isabelle is up to no good’ and it seems that pre-school is no exception. Isabelle has always been quite the confident child so we let her have the space to be independent but still within seeing distance if she needs us. During her settling in sessions at pre school she was off without even a second glance or a goodbye. I’m happy that she feels confident enough to leave me but sometimes, deep down it kind of hurts, ya’know?


redpaint

Anyway on this particular day I had left Isabelle to her own devices, she was happily playing nicely with her new friends so I kept myself out of the way. The session went smoothly…..until we were packing up to go. That’s when disaster struck, in the chaos of grabbing coats and wrestling children in to them, Isabelle had run off to play again in protest that she wasn’t ready to go home. I heard another parent gasp and at that moment my heart sunk, I knew that the panicked voice  of the parent was brought on by Isabelle. I was completely powerless in what I saw next, a tub of red paint powder (the kind that you add water to mix) had been opened…..BRIGHT RED! Isabelle unknowingly shook the tub which dispersed the red contents everywhere. It was too late, she was caked head to toe in a thick layer of red paint powder. There was coughing and spluttering and shocked faces all round. I like to think I’m a fairly relaxed parent but in that moment it was very much an “Oh S*&t” what the hell do I do?

I went through many emotions in the time it took me to rush her to the bathroom, I was apologetic, embarrassed and angry at myself for not being able to stop it in time. I made a rookie mistake, I attempted to wash some of it out but adding water to the paint mix was a bad idea, it made things worse. Admitting defeat we had to do the walk of shame home with my daughter red from head to toe.

It took 3 showers and a bath to remove the paint but she still had a red scalp for days afterwards. In my sheer panic, I was a terrible blogger and didn’t think to take any pictures but if anything like this happens again i’ll have my camera ready.  Since that day I have been known as ‘the mum of the little girl that covered herself in paint’ and Isabelle has declared that she does not like being red, lessons learned…..hopefully

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