The Schinker Family

My net friend Sarah over at Skyward Journey recently posted some pictures of her son Henry’s antics with oat bran in the kitchen.  Her shots inspired me to dig out and post a picture from our own family’s historical monkey business.

This picture was taken on May 18th, 2002, about 5 eeks before Emily turned 3. I didn’t find out about the disaster until I returned home late that night, but John didn’t tell me exactly what had happened.  He said only that “Emily was busy tonight after I put her to bed and you might want to take some pictures.”  I knew it was going to be bad/funny, so I snuck upstairs with my video camera in hand, not knowing WHAT I was going to find.  The video is hysterical, documenting both the room and my initial, heartfelt reaction.  It’s made funnier by the fact that I had to shoot in night mode because Emily was in the room in bed asleep.

This was the scene the next morning.  Baby powder EVERYWHERE.  It looked like a thin, magical snowfall had mysteriously hit!  She had to help me clean it up - and we did it in small doses because powder was filling the air.  On the plus side, the room did retain that sweet, baby powder smell for days afterward!

Do you know something?  This is just one of those experiences that every parent has at some point, but that no one really tells you about.  It goes along with kids cutting clothes and/or (their own or someone else’s), kids blurting out something you said at the dinner table the night before that was not meant to be shared with the outside world, and innumerable other little rites of passage that, before digital cameras, people rarely documented.

Like Sarah, I’m glad I grabbed the camera and documented for posterity Emily’s childhood mischievousness!