The fourth of July and all that went with it.

So my fourth of July started out an uneventful day which is always nice around here. While looking for bug spray to pack for that nights festivities (because I know now that mosquitoes wait for July 4th and then come out in swarms.) I ran across my old bag of fingernail polished. I haven't painted my nails in probably about 3 years and I notice that there was some red nail polish in there so I thought, oh what the heck. First mistake. I should know better then to try to be girly at this point. So I painted my nails and toe nails bright red and they looked great if I do say so myself, the boys wanted in on all the fun so I painted their toenails too, why not being as it was a patriotic color and all. Then I went and watered my garden and kept my nails intact which I was feeling pretty proud of. I cleaned house, packed for the evening fun, gave the boys a bath, dressed them in super cute matching t-shirts (I know I'm bad) and did their hair, put on a dress (!) and make up (!), made a patriotic red, white and blue fruit salad (which was super yummy and a big hit I might add) and when my husband got home I was frantically running around trying to make sure I had everything and wanting to get out the door on time because I HATE being late. I asked him to map the directions and went to get hoodies for the boys to hide in when the mosquitoes came for dinner. This is when it all went wrong. I came back down the hall, walked around the corner with my hands full of hoodies, and my jaw dropped to the floor. There before me was my red head crouched down and elbow deep in RED NAIL POLISH WITH RED NAIL POLISH SPREAD FINGER PAINT STYLE ACROSS MY TILE FLOOR WITH A GUILTY LOOKING SPIKE ALSO STARING UP AT ME WITH RED POLISH COVERING HIS HANDS!!! I screamed people, I hyperventilated I'll admit it. I freaked the funk out. I didn't know which one to grab first. I desperately grabbed for both while screaming at them to not wipe there hands on their brand new not even worn out of the house yet shirts. Which is what Spike had already started to do, you know to hide the evidence. So now I am marching Atty down the hall holding his hands and freaking out when I hear "he has it on his shoes" and I look back to red prints following us down the hallway. I think at that point my head popped off, and went rolling away, I know I lost my head and went crazy for a moment. After frantically scrubbing my floor with fingernail polish remover and scrubbing the boy's hands with the same, calling my friend who had invited us to the party and through tears telling here we would most definitely be late, I looked at the shirts I had just got them and broke down. I went into my room and bawled like a baby. I know it sounds stupid to cry over something like this, but I had just had enough. Everything always seems too hectic around here, and I had just wanted to have a nice night with my boys and get to where we were going in one piece with out smelling like finger nail polish remover and having stained up t-shirts on. Plus I ruined my nails and had already cried off all my make up so what was the point really? If I had never got that stupid red nail polish out none of this would have ever happened, I knew there was a reason I never get very girly. Oh it went on and on and on and honestly if Bubu hadn't been such an angel through it all and hadn't been looking forward to the night so much I wouldn't have left my room. But I'm glad I did. I left the shirts on the boys red stains and all, grabbed some sunglasses and marched out that door. The fresh air was good because at that moment my house smelled like a beauty parlor. Stinky!

You can't tell that there shirts are stained in this picture, thank goodness, in fact they all just look like sweet young boys (who happen to have fro-hawks) in fact in this picture you might not even be able to tell that the two youngest just caused there mother to have an emotional melt down. If it wasn't for the evidence left on there shirts no one would ever know.

chowing down on the good stuff waiting for the fire works.
The culprit wasn't so keen on the fireworks again this year, he kept saying "go away fire" and "nigh-nigh" I don't think he has ever asked to go to bed...that is by far not normal. He clung to me, snuggled into my sweat shirt, squeezed his eyes shut and ended up falling asleep. Which was better then the non stop screaming and crying of last year. He wouldn't look at a single fire work, flat out doesn't like them. It's just to over whelming for him.

The other culprit was unsure but he did watch out of the corner of his eye from the safety of his daddy's lap. Bubu was so brave this year, he jumped when the first set when off, but he sat in awe in his own chair squeezing daddy's hand for the rest of them. He had been looking forward to fireworks all day and he kept saying "This is so cool", he is really such a doll. We had the best spot to watch the show. We were practically right under them in some ones backyard. Their yard was right next to the field that the city shoots the show off at, so instead of having to fight for a sort of good spot at the park, we got super seats up front and center. It was the coolest fire works show I have ever seen.

Ohhhhh, ahhhhhh, wow...they went on and on, so much fun I almost forgot about the red fingernail polish catastrophe. Almost.

*

The following day I became determined to remove the polish from the boys shirts, so I did what I always do when looking for ideas, I googled it. Ha ha...seriously I did. There were all sorts of ideas on there, so I wrote some of them down, and started in. First I tried hydrogen peroxide but since the stain was already dried it didn't do a thing. Then I moved on to scrubbing at the stain with baking soda, still no such luck. So now I am getting frustrated, the tears are springing back into my eyes. Blame it on the pregnancy hormones or the fact that things are already so stressful enough right now that I am falling apart if you look at me wrong. Either way I'm back to crying when hubby walks out of our bedroom that he is painting. He was on his way to the store and stopped to check on me. He asked me if there was anything else to try and I told him all the other stuff sounded stupid and I didn't feel like trying them. Then he saw something on my list of things to try that you could get from the store and he said he would look for that for me and headed out the door. Before he left he told me I really shouldn't be at the dinning room table and I crossly replied that I had a bunch of towel under the t-shirt, I wasn't an idiot. I then moved on to try fingernail polish remover another idea that had mixed reviews on whether it worked or not. Yeah it doesn't work with dried on red nail polish. In the mean time Bubu got stung by a bee on his foot for the first time and started crying really hard from the back yard so I went flying out the door to see what the matter was. I brought him in, made a paste out of baking soda and water and gave him a snack to distract him (of course all of them got a snack, you can't feed just one). Then I picked up the t-shirt to move it off the table so they could eat and my heart sank. You guessed it I'm sure, I am an idiot and I screwed up our brand new dinning room table. Part of the table stain was now on the t-shirt that I was still trying to get red polish out of. I don't know which was worse that I am an idiot or that he was right. So if you don't have me figured out by now, I lost it again and turned into a blubbery mess. I seriously cried for a freaking long time and I couldn't hide in my room because there was no one else to watch the boys, and I couldn't stop and I just laid on the couch with my head buried in a pillow and cried and cried and cried. Until my eyes were swollen. My poor boys, although you couldn't really tell if it phased them or not because they just kept eating their snack and then got down to play...except Bubu he's pretty sensitive. Any who to make an incredibly long story shorter my hubby finally came home with the bottle of spray and I had by that point sort of got myself under control so I set back in on the stain, because it had become personal at this point. The grout in my tile is hot pink, the table is ruined, I've already removed the red polish from my ruined nails... I am going to get those stinkin' stain out! So I grab the bottle and start spraying, and I couldn't believe my eyes the stuff actually worked. I kid you not...It took lots of spraying and rubbing and flipping the shirts inside and out to treat both sides but the polish came out! The stuff is called Motsenbocker's Lift Off 3, I guess there are different types for different stains, but this is the one that works for fingernail polish as well as a bunch of other stuff listed on the bottle. So seriously if you've ever had a run in of any sort with finger nail polish, especially when it's already dried on, use this stuff. I've now run the shirts through the wash twice, once with Oxiclean and once just to rinse them one last time and they look great, I am going to try it on my hot pink grout next and I am hoping it will work a miracle there too.

So that was my weekend. Melt downs, fun times, more melt downs and now back to our normal. A normal that borders on crazy. My life with boys.