Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Messmaker

Some time back, I started singing this song around my son:

Messmaker, messmaker, you've made a mess,
you put your Mom to the test.
Late in the night when you're all alone,
you're making a perfect mess.

It has more verses*, and it's sung to the tune of "Matchmaker" from Fiddler on the Roof, but it is definitely my son's theme song at times. Last night, he lived up to it, and I just had to laugh.

He was happily eating dinner, and I needed to get a mattress out of our room so I could bring in a replacement, so we felt it was safe to leave him alone for a short time. There was nothing on the plate he could choke on, and he loved everything we gave him, so no reason to expect it to be thrown anywhere. I got the mattress mostly down the stairs and went to check on him before making the difficult turn into the garage (mostly I needed a breather, king-size mattresses are not light). He was making a sound like he was choking and pointing to his mouth, so I got momentarily worried and ran over to him.

Then I noticed the salt pile on his plate and his place mat. He apparently had decided his food needed some salt and dumped a pile of it on his food. He wasn't choking so much as trying to get the taste of pure salt off his tongue and not knowing how. It was a priceless moment, and I called my wife to come see. I said, "You should blog about this." but she said I should since I was the one who found him. It was pretty funny, and the tiny mess was easily cleaned up. He gladly took a drink of water and then milk to wash the salt taste out of his mouth. A picture might've been worth a thousand words, but I didn't have a camera, so here's my best shot. I know one thing, he certainly knows how to live up to his song.

-- Robert

*For anyone interested, other verses are:

For mama, make it some yogurt,
for Daddy, make it crayons on doors,
for me, well, I wouldn't holler
if there was a mess all over the floor (my wife's contribution)

Messmaker, Messmaker, make me a mess,
you've put your Mom, to the test.
And when you're done
we'll think you're a pest. (my daughter's contribution, thanks to another person who suggested that line to her, though we would never call any of our children pests).

There may be one more I'm forgetting, but it's just a song we sing while we clean up messes.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hee hee. Kids are so funny.

King sized mattresses ARE really heavy! Two movers could barely get our thick one up our stairs to our bedroom and there's quite a bit of room in the stairway. It just turns, though.

I have a song that I sing to my kids too, as bedtime nears, and they know I don't really mean it. You may recognize it as a Christmas song that's used in a Staples commercial for back to school:

It's the most wonderful time of the day:
When the children are sleeping
And mommy and daddy are running away!
It's the most wonderful time... of the DAAAAY!!

That's it.

Robert said...

I would be afraid to say that to our kids. Twice people have joked with my daughter that they were going to take her or her brother away from us, and she has completely freaked out. She was practically inconsolable both times, and the people who made the joke were mortified. It's because we've helped her learn that running away from us could lead to bad people taking her and us never finding her again. Still, it's good to know she wouldn't go quietly with someone trying to take her.