Royal Weddings and Steam Cleaners

So I'm not a huge follower of this upcoming royal wedding, but I do think about it sometimes. I thought about it a lot today, imagining how my life would be different if I were a princess. First thing this morning I thought "princesses don't have night duty with babies; they need to look good for their kingdom (the media) and have nursemaids. I would definitely have a night nurse." Second thing, getting Eli dressed was like wrestling a wild pig into size 18-month clothing, and I decided princesses definitely don't have that job, some poor butler would be the one wrangling kids into their clothes for the day. Depending on how many sets of clothing they went through, the butler might have to do this more than once. For instance, Caroline experienced a Nasty Blowout that soaked through 2 layers of clothing today; the poor butler would change that. Then, 10 minutes later, when she did it AGAIN, the poor butler would dress her AGAIN. And do the goopy green laundry. Third thing, someone would cook for me (and do the grocery shopping prior to cooking, I suppose, but I didn't shop today so it didn't cross my mind too much) so I wouldn't end up eating a bowl of end-of-the-package cereal dust. Fourth, and most important thing, a princess would not only own a steam cleaner (perhaps that makes me part princess, since I do), a princess would own a SERVANT to USE the steam cleaner (rather than get her own hands dirty) when some feisty toddlers accidentally dumped an entire can of black paint on her light tan carpet. Yep, a whole gallon. Black. Exterior paint. Since I am not a princess, it took me over an hour of scraping, scrubbing, and steaming to get the mess as clean as it's ever gonna be again. The carpet isn't black, thank goodness, but it's definitely not light tan anymore. I'm pretty sure Joe's gonna be ticked about that when he hears about it tonight, but if I were a princess then he'd be a prince, we'd buy new wall-to-wall carpeting tonight, and we'd live happily ever after.

After all this, I'm thinking "Waity Katie" has definitely taken the easy route.

Good Question, posed by Kari: Why was the paint open and accessable? Well, it wasn't open, it was hammered shut. It came open when said feisty toddlers took to stacking paint can upon paint can. We have a BUNCH of mostly-empty paint cans from all our projects around the house; some are less empty than others. The 6th can up was black, it was heavy because it was full which caused it to tumble (all sorry coincidences), and it opened when it hit the floor. The paint cans are currently stacked along the wall, single-file, where NONE should fall... unless crazy kids get a hold of them. They are there because last week (2 weeks ago? time flies) we moved the freezer into the house from the garage and stole the paint cans' former location. Neither of my kids ever seem to spend time in the basement, and they certainly hadn't noticed the paint cans, but when we have friends over I often overlook things that my kids don't get into. I hadn't even thought about other kids noticing them! I don't think any of them are bad kids, my own or our friends (Patrick said they all worked together), they were just having fun stacking things and it was an accident, just an accident that had all the odds stacked against it (and against me). I hadn't moved the paint to the garage because extreme weather, like our garage has, ruins paint. It seems clear now, though, that little kids ruin it much faster.