It’s Time To Play ‘What’s That Smell!’

This past weekend was one of our game weekends. The little people love the game weekends. It means lots of people to play with, copious amounts of junk food and a guaranteed late bedtime. This was a bit different, in fact even better because it included a big sugary birthday cake (mine) for all to share.

Cabbage Patch was put to bed right on time (she’s only 2 and has no concept of time so putting her to bed right on time and pretending it’s late always works for her). Super Girl was escorted up to bed about half an hour later. As usual she got out of bed (woke up her sister also) and started to pilfer through things she was not supposed to be in. Every time I heard a noise that sounded distinctly not cat like but more like children-having-funish I would leave the game and head up the stairs to threaten children and put them back into their beds.

At one point it was relatively quite but I started to smell an odd yet familiar smell. At first I thought it was a figment of my whacked out imagination. Up the stairs I went to investigate. Yes the little people were up, yes the smell was coming from upstairs and yes I was getting pissed now. The little people had locked themselves in the bathroom and I could hear them trying to be quiet – which anyone knows that when you are little and you ‘try to be quiet’ you are always making plenty of noise to attract the attention of any mom type person in the vicinity. I unlocked the door and this is what I saw, my 2 year old standing on the commode while my 4 and a half year old spreads a thick coating of Vics Vapor Rub all over her! Immediately I sent Super Girl off to her bed – I figured the time it would take to clean up Cabbage Patch would cool off my temper enough to not spank the living daylights out of Super Girl. I got soap and wash cloth and started washing down Cabbage Patch – I was actually quite nervous that she would get some of that crap in her eyes. The whole time I’m thinking “I didn’t even know we HAD any Vics Vapor Rub. The last I remember us buying any of that was 4 years ago when Super Girl was a baby and had a bad cold. Is this the same jar? Does that stuff go bad? Is my baby going to suffer something horrible from not only having been covered in vapor rub but also having been covered by expired vapor rub?? Am I just being paranoid? Is it possible for my kids to get brain damage from being exposed to so much vapor from the rub? Would I even notice that? Doesn’t this stuff sting after a while of being on your skin? Why isn’t she complaining? Why did she let her sister do that to her? Where the hell is the jar this vapor rub came from? Hey! Are they eating my cookies down stairs? Stay Away From My cookie!” Or something like that…

So I change Cabbage Patch into clean jammies and take her to her room only to have my senses assaulted by the even more pungent aroma of vapor rub in their room. Apparently the incident started in their room, in the crib. The jar was IN the crib, the sheet was covered in vapor rub, the pillows were covered in vapor rub, the quilt was covered in vapor rub… and I was getting pissed again. I muttered some thing to my children about not moving off Super Girl’s bed until I tell them to or they would be grounded until they were eligible for retirement and headed to the linen closet for fresh sheets and such.

So half an hour after I go upstairs to investigate the smell I finally come down stairs with an arm load of offending bed linens and pajamas. By this time everyone downstairs had figured out the smell and were making funny (at least to them) comments about how their sinus were so darn clear now. Ha-ha.

That was my fun for the weekend…..