‘In no time, 3,000 euros worth of damage was done’

Image: iStock and Unsplash

How do those little mutts manage to achieve maximum effect when their mother is out of the room for three seconds.

Just a cartoon

Bianca (33), mother of Timo (2): “From the kitchen I saw my son spinning his finger on the TV screen. I yelled punitively for him to take his hands off. Timo did, but it looked like he had something in his hand. And then I saw the TV. He had found a minuscule piece of shell in the plant in the windowsill and ‘drawn’ with it on the television. I still hoped that the scratch mark would be removed with a cloth, but unfortunately. An expensive joke. We didn’t get anything back from the insurance, because the TV was a bit older, even though there was nothing wrong with it. There was no choice but to buy a new one. It now hangs on the wall. Something with a donkey and a stone.”

Assassination attempt with lipstick

Sietske (36), mother of Desley (10), Noëmi and Kiyla (8) and Xenn (4): “Noëmi and Kiyla are crazy about make-up and were having fun in their room. Seemed innocent, wasn’t it. After fifteen minutes my husband walked up the stairs unsuspectingly and found all ‘stains of blood’ in the house. It looked like a murder scene had been shot, everything was covered in red spots, handshakes and smudges. On the boarding of the stairs, the steps, the wallpaper and the doors above. The sink was also completely pink.

“It looked like a murder scene had been shot, everything was covered in red spots”

Apparently they had gone completely wild with the makeup, just not on each other but on the house. All but one bedroom were smeared: their light wooden bed, the beautiful white dress-up chest, but also the newly delivered laminate. Everything was covered in red nail polish and lipstick. It took days before we got everything reasonably clean. The oily lipstick in particular was hellish. As punishment, they were not allowed to go near makeup for a year. That term expired last August. Now they are only allowed to play with it under strict supervision.”

creepy quiet

Manon (41), mother of Abel and Ferre (9): “I had just walked upstairs to switch on the washing machine when I suddenly heard the loud voices of our then three-year-old twins become silent. That didn’t bode well, so I ran down the stairs. I found my sons feasting on the kitchen floor, surrounded by a sea of ​​chocolate sprinkles. They had quickly pulled a packet of sprinkles from the counter and scattered it over the kitchen floor. I laughed so hard inside, even felt butterflies at the cuteness of the scene. But of course I said they should never do that again.”

It brightens things up

Ikram (44), mother of Sara (10) and Damin (8): “Our toddler thought the three white Adidas stripes on his shoes were boring. In an unguarded moment Damin colored them in with red pen. Funny now, I could cry then. He had only had those shoes for a week.”

noodle with fish

Karen (37), mother of Luc (6) and Jens (3): “When I got out of the toilet, toddler Jens turned out to have fed the fish. With a pack of stir-fry noodles. Jens beamed with pride. I asked him if the fish liked it, he thought so. After that I explained to him that fish should only eat fish food and no noodles. That message got through, two months later there was a whole jar of fish food in the aquarium. The fish now live in Grandma’s pond.”

The mischievous twins

Mieke (37), mother of twins Calvin and Chuck (5): “Our 11 month old twins never slept at noon, not since they were 3 months old. But when my sister came to babysit and put them to bed, she thought she had a magical influence: the twins were amazingly calm. When I came home after an hour and went to see the gentlemen, I understood why.

They had crawled out of their sleeping bags and were in bed together. Besides, they had pooped and smeared the poo on everything. Their closet, floor, walls, beds, everything was covered. After a minor nervous breakdown, I started brushing. I then put Calvin and Chuck in bed with their sleeping bags backwards and a bathrobe belt under the mattress for months.”

Hairdresser in training

Brigiet (47), mother of Pien (14), Suus (12) and Keet (9): “My sister Nathalie and I were sitting in the garden with the doors open and had just said to each other how sweetly our daughters, then three and four, played in the living room. But when I went to check just to be sure, the whole floor was sprinkled with blond hair and some red tufts.

“The whole floor was sprinkled with blond hair and some red tufts”

Niece Sanne and Pien had pulled a pair of scissors from the drawer in the kitchen and played caper: Pien’s medium-length blond locks were ultra short, there were only a few punky strands left. Only a few bites had been cut from Sanne’s hair.

I laughed a lot, the damage was already done. Unfortunately, the following Monday our hairdresser was closed, but I immediately made an appointment that Tuesday. It certainly took a year before Piens hair was somewhat back to normal length.”

Naughty cat!

Judith (42), mother of Giulia (13), Elio (10), Lotta (7) and Sara (5): “I had been on the toilet for no more than three minutes when I found Sara, then three, with a black scratched face. Sister Lotta had left a black felt-tip pen lying around and she had found it. However, Sara claimed that Ziggy, the cat, was the culprit. That could well be. His head was also covered in black stripes.”

Precious wall drawing

Nadine (35), mother of Faith (4): “I went upstairs to get the laundry basket. That was easy, because Faith, then two and a half, sat on the floor in our bedroom and lovingly colored with her pencils in her coloring book. When I returned she was standing by the wall. Apparently she had moved her drawing skills to the wall under the mirror. Unconsciously she looked at me and said proudly, “Artwork, Mama!”

For a millisecond I was angry. But then it occurred to me that I had never explained to her that coloring on a wall was not meant to be. Luckily she never did it again. Her drawing is still there now, two years later. We never dared to paint over it, for fear of color difference.”

Nurturing type

Marlies (35), mother of Job (4) and Bas (3): “Last summer, three-year-old Job had applied Sudocrem, two-year-olds, very carefully from head to toe. ‘Gives you a soft skin’, was his recommendation. At that moment I was washing the dishes, they were sitting on a bench in the garden. It took half a kitchen roll, but in the end I managed to scrub off the worst of the white from his skin.”

Also read: The delicious blunders of these women will haunt them for a long time >

Just a reminder

Marleen (39), mother of Bo (11): “Bo sulked. We had just gone shopping and she couldn’t sit in her own spot in the back seat of the car because I had put the shopping bag there. As I put the shopping cart away, she scratched her name – which she could just write at the time – with a stone twice large in the lacquer of her door: ‘Look Mom, now you always know: this is my place!’ she cried when I came back.”

golden gift

Astrid (53), mother of Alandra (13): “Alandra was five and played sweetly with her boyfriend Jelte. I figured I could call a colleague. During the conversation I suddenly noticed that it was suspiciously quiet. I told my colleague to hang up because something was wrong.

“I suddenly noticed that it was suspiciously quiet”

I soon discovered a trail of gold paint leading from the downstairs hallway and toilet to the stairs and Alandra’s bedroom. There were splatters of gold paint everywhere. When I opened the bedroom I saw two scoundrels bent over a work of art. Alandra explained that Jelte hadn’t made anything for Mother’s Day and had suggested that she do it anyway. She had used our special paint for this, which I kept to make special Christmas cards together. Nice right?

Well, I didn’t think it was very funny at the time. There was gold paint on the top of the toilet seat and the floor for a long time, and the stripes on her bed have never come off. When I had recovered a bit and had assessed the damage, I praised Alandra and Jelte for the beautiful artwork. I made them promise to ask first in the future. Jelte was very happy that he could give his present to his mother. That was so touching, it made everything right.”

Project X

Anouk (39), mother of Elsa (9) and Emma (7): “Last summer I took a nap after a night shift. My husband was doing odd jobs in the attic, coloring our daughters. An hour later, when I came downstairs rather disheveled, to my amazement the room was full of neighbors. There were drawings all over the walls and on the table was a tray of lemonade and biscuits. The neighbors nodded kindly at me, “How cute and what a great idea.”

Elsa and Emma first turned out to have made all kinds of artful creations, when notes were handed out in the neighborhood with the announcement that an exhibition was being organized in the house and after that they invited half the neighborhood for coffee and cake. The next day I just managed to intercept my youngest with notes in her hand that read something like: ‘Come everyone, tomorrow morning half past nine, disco with us.’”

That’s what those wings are for

Hilde (27), mother of Tibo (2) and baby Emma: “About four days after the birth of our daughter, I was sleeping peacefully. My husband was with Tibo. My son proudly stepped into the bedroom and woke me up: ‘Mommy, come and see, I made all kinds of airplanes from stickers!’ I had to go to the bathroom, where he had stuck all kinds of sanitary towels with ‘wings’ on the wall a meter high. ‘So beautiful!’ he kept shouting. I estimate that eighty were stuck, he had rushed through four packs.”

The litmus test

Lesley (34), mother of Mimi (3): “Mimi was almost three and had just gone to bed. My husband and I watched the press conference about the corona measures. Then when I opened the door to the hallway, I smelled a fume of nail polish and remover. I thought Mimi had painted her dolls’ nails, but when I walked upstairs, I found a make-up mess.

“Walking up, I found a make-up mess”

All my magnesium salt was in the tub, expensive tubes of cream had been squeezed out and smeared all over. Not fun, but at least you get that out. Nail polish on the other hand is really the biggest mess I know. Of these, Mimi had opened at least 25 jars/turned them over/used them as paint.

How she managed to open the doors unnoticed is still a mystery – her door creaks, ours clamps. While I thought she was sleeping peacefully, she caused three thousand euros worth of damage in no time. We have a PVC concrete look floor and the nail polish had simply bitten into the floor. That floor for fifteen hundred euros had to be replaced, walls had to be repainted, the carpet had to go, as well as the bedding and curtains. In fact, we could throw anything that didn’t have a hard, smooth surface. Unfortunately, not everything was covered by insurance. And that aside, we spent a year restoring the top floor.”

I’m having a good time

Elsa (28), mother of Azazel (2): “In a panic and with my arms full of groceries, I ran into the living room. I was just cleaning up in the kitchen when I heard such a strange noise. Some kind of whack. Suddenly it occurred to me that the window was open because it was so hot. Azazel liked to look out the window at the speeding cars and bus and I feared that in those few seconds he had climbed on something and fell out of the window. We live on the third floor. But when I ran in, he stood with his hand full of toys ready to throw them out the window.

“Don’t you dare do it!” I still screamed. But he looked me straight in the eye and then threw the whole Little Dutch wooden tool set away into the pond below the flat. I was furious. I put him in his dining chair, enlisted the neighbor to babysit and tried to get the stuff out with a broom. However, Azazel had made a great choice: Only the most expensive and hardest-to-find toys floated in the pond.”

This article can be found in Kek Mama 04-2022.

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