In loving memory of my son, Lucas...

Well, I am not sure where to begin...

So will start at the beginning.... (Note: there will be no pictures of this incident to protect the innocent...)

This evening as I was watching the news and catching up on emails, Lucas decided that he wanted to raise his basketball hoop and that he needed something from the garage. I told him he should wait for his dad to come home and he would help. "No, Mom. I know what I am doing. I can do it." I repeated myself again probably 5 times to him still going out to the garage. About 5 minutes later, he came back into the house with paint all over him.

"Mom, I need help. How do I clean up spilled paint?" Oh not good...

I went out there and he had knocked over a can of primer and it spilled probably half the gallon right in the middle of the garage floor splattering paint on everything within range! How in the world do you clean up paint??? I don't know. So call Tom - Lucas calls Dad at work. "We have had an incident. I spilled some paint. A lot of paint. How do I clean this up? I am so sorry... Oh crap - is this a message??? " So we try Tom's cell, but he never turns it on unless he is calling us so no luck there.

As we are standing around literally watching the paint dry on the garage floor, Vicki calls... Oh good - she will know! She is a mom and should know these things... After a comforting story from Vicki about her driving her corvette into the garage when it was being painted and spilled the paint all over the car and a sobbing Lucas.... "Dad is going to kill me. Dad is going to kill me. Dad is so going to kill me." we started mopping up the paint with paper towels. THREE rolls later, we could see the concrete. When reading the label on the paint - it said that it was good on concrete! Maybe we should just paint the whole floor, maybe Tom won't notice....

We got some buckets of water and my new mop - of course I had already thrown the old one away - and started scrubbing the floor. Poor Lucas... I vented on him for awhile and then we started to see some humor in it. But he is really freaked about when Dad gets home.

"Mom, I really need you to back me up on this. I am helping to clean it up."

"Dad always says there is no such things as accidents - how am I going to explain this one?"

"I am going to stay out here cleaning on this til Dad gets home so he knows I am trying to fix it."

I just kept telling him... "Well, it really has been a pleasure knowing you...."
"What have you learned from this?"

"Listen to when Mom when she says wait for Dad!"

But after about an hour of mopping and scrubbing - I think we got most of it cleaned up. Tom is going to be home late so think I should put Lucas to bed before he gets home... Lighten the blow maybe. The funny thing is that Lucas is now very hoarse and squeaky. We keep saying it is his voice changing because he is thirteen, but really it is his cold... Anyway, makes it a little more humorous. When I picked him up after school today, I asked him, "Why are you so hoarse?" He said, "I am not a horse!"

So keep him in your thoughts that he survives Dad coming home....

I told Lucas that if I got any paint on my new pants, he was buying me new pants. When we were washing our hands - he was looking at my pants "Mom, did you get any paint on your pants?" He doesn't mind spending money if it is for him.... lol

Kids - will I survive them???

Til next time...
Laura