Patsy and Tiffany along with Tiffany’s boyfriend, Christian, came up for a visit this weekend. They have tickets for a Sunday session of general conference and are staying with us. Kyle and I needed to make a quick run to the store for a few items this morning, and we tried to leave early enough to be able to get back before the Saturday morning session of conference started. We got home a bit later than we had hoped and what we found when we came into the house was not at all what we expected.
Conference was on the tv, and most everybody was in the living room. The kids were playing around, and Tiffany and Christian were trying to watch conference. But Patsy and Dinah were nowhere to be seen. Going down the hall, we found them in the girls bedroom. Patsy was carrying Dinah and Dinah was just crying. We asked what happened, and Patsy explained that Dinah ruined all of her make up, and all Patsy asked was for Dinah to apologize. Dinah is a very stubborn little girl, and decided that she would rather scream and cry and throw a fit than apologize. By this time Patsy was also in tears because she was so upset. I told her to put Dinah on her bed, and Kyle and I proceeded to survey the damage. There was foundation all over the carpet and all over the wall and on Chloe’s sheet and pillow case. Other make up items were scattered on the floor. We had to clean up everything that was on the floor and then we moved the bunk bed so we could bring in the carpet cleaner and see how much of the foundation we would be able to get out. Dinah sat on the bed this whole time. In cleaning up the things on the floor so we could vacuum, I also noticed lots of gum wrappers and an empty gum package and a bottle of lotion that turned out to be Tiffany’s.
I don’t wear make up, so my kids don’t see those kinds of things in our house very often. I also very rarely ever dare to have gum in the house. So when my sisters bring these things into our house, my little girls are naturally very curious about them. However, instead of just watching my sisters use these things, Dinah really likes to get into them herself. This isn’t the first time she has destroyed make up that belonged to one of my sisters. A couple of months after Lydia was born, Tiffany came up for a visit and Dinah decided to try out her mascara or eye liner (we aren’t sure which it was).
After we cleaned up most of the mess and the first session of conference was over, I took Dinah and Patsy to Wal-Mart. I also took with us all of Dinah’s earnings from doing chores over the summer, and Dinah got to buy Patsy some new makeup and some new gum for Tiffany. We used all of Dinah’s money and then Patsy covered the rest. I figure that can be part of Patsy’s punishment for bringing makeup into my house and leaving it where little people can get it. When we got back to the house I lectured both Patsy and Tiffany for bringing makeup and gum into the house and told them that it will be safer if they just leave it out in their car. It’s October, so it’s not too hot to do that. And just maybe, they will someday learn not to give my girls access to their stuff. Maybe.