Christine got into a bottle of Calomine lotion I had left next to my bed when she was about a year old, and proceeded to anoint herself, the bedlinen, the bedhead and the drawer unit with it! Of course, it dries into a chalky mess, and to this day I have white speckles deep in the grain of the wood in the bedroom furniture that I can't remove!

The other doozy was when Christine and Samantha (at ages 5 & 3)decided it was a nice day for mud pies outside (a kids classic, but one I never thought I'd have to deal with!) They dug a bucketload of soil out of my gardenbed and added water, then painted themselves and the back porch with the resulting muck.

I found them at it after about 20 minutes, I mean I could hear them and they were obviously playing happily so I wasn't watching them fulltime, and when I did all I could do was stand there and laugh. They were so filthy, but so happy I couldn't bring myself to tell them off, so all I said was "next time, wear OLD clothes first!" and went for the camera.
To date, one of my favourite pictures is Samantha, plastered from head to toe in streaks of mud all over her nice top and skirt, grinning impishly at me from a deck plastered over with sculpted dirt.

A mother with a few more years experience than me had made a big impression on me when she said that after a few years, you stopped getting mad about situations that had already happened and looked for the fun in it - I mean, I could have really told the kids off for making such a mess, but what would that have done? This way, we have some gorgeous memories, and all I needed to do was some serious hosing off!

Kerrie