Monday, December 10, 2007

It was one of the only times I've ever wished for a camera on my cell phone.

Today I took the girls to Meijers for a quick shopping trip. I was feeling especially festive, and the girls were in a good mood, so I decided that we'd stop by the holiday decorations and just browse a little. We had fun looking at the lawn decorations and artificial trees. After a while we continued our shopping and moved to the baking section. I let Emma pick out a cookie cutter because we are making cookies for her Christmas party at preschool. I needed to grab some powdered sugar, waxed paper, and butter to get me all set for a big batch of holiday baking goodness.

And then it happened. We stopped to grab some food coloring, since I had plans to do an egg yolk wash on the cut-outs to give them a nice glossy finish. I was going to just buy a box of assorted colors, but they had some single bottles of red and green, I'm assuming for the holidays. I looked at them, but decided not to commit myself to just one color. As soon as I grabbed a box of colors off the shelf, Emma pointed to the box of red coloring and told me that she'd like to have that one. Well, apparently those boxes aren't very stable because with the slightest touch of her finger, that box toppled right off the shelf. No big deal, I thought. I told her to pick it up and put it back on the shelf.

Big mistake. As soon as she picked up the box, red food coloring POURED out of the box, all over her hand, coat, and floor. I grabbed the box out of her hand and threw it on the floor, trying to stop the mess, but it was too late. She just stood there, holding her hand out, covered in red! My goodness! She looked like the victim of a serious crime, and everyone who entered that aisle stared openly at us. A few people even asked me if she was bleeding!

I quickly called for the stockman who was further down the aisle, assuring him that this was not blood, only food coloring. All the time I'm thinking, why couldn't it have been the green one? At least then people wouldn't think my child was injured! The man got some paper towel and some stain remover for her coat. I cleaned her up as best as I could and high-tailed it out of there! The whole ride home I could not stop laughing. She looked so funny covered in food coloring and she was so stunned she was speechless! Fortunately for me, I got her coat in the wash as soon as we got home and most of it came out. That's really good because she doesn't have another coat to wear, so she'd have to look injured the rest of the winter!

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