Monday, December 6, 2010

Putting Him Up For Adoption

Once upon a time, I left the children playing happily in the basement while I ran upstairs for 15 minutes to scan some family history stuff.  When I returned to the basement, this is what I found:

"Oh, no!" I thought. "Enoch's gotten in to in the game closet!"  But the mess didn't look too bad, and I wasn't really worried .... until I rounded the corner and saw this:


Nearly every game we own opened, with the pieces dumped.
Over 1700 puzzle pieces, dumped and mixed.
Approximately 10,000 legos.  (You think I'm exaggerating.  I'm not.)

Amazing how a 15 minute mess can take 15+ man hours to clean up.  If Enoch ever touches that closet again, I'm putting him up for adoption.

30 comments:

Jamie said...

Oh my goodness!!! I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry! :) Your closet is so organized! I can't wait to have a house someday so I can have somewhere to store everything better!!!

Rebecca said...

LOL! My cousin and I did this when we were little kids...only it wasn't a game closet...it was a game ROOM. TOTAL disaster! I'm just waiting because I know my kids will do it to me some day because I did it to my parents. I'm guessing It'll be the twins. ;o)

Megan said...

Oh. Wow. That stinks. I am constantly amazed at how little time it takes kids to cause major destruction.

The Pingels said...

lol!!! I'm just so glad that Max can't open doors yet, or else I'm sure I'd be seeing a lot of that mess in my own house. What a creative little mind he has!

Cara said...

um. Wow. You told me about it, but I still wasn't prepared for that. What a punk.

Erica said...

Whoa!That must have been a nightmare to put up, but think about it, now you have something to lord over his head for the rest of his life. And who knows what sort of gifts you get out of guilt trips?

Jolie said...

WOW that was some mess!
When I looked at the first picture I thought to myself, ahhh, that's nothing. I've seen worse...
...but then I scrolled the screen down a few notches and saw the next two pictures.
And OH MY FREAKING FREAKIDY FREAK was that a mess!!
Holy moly Enoch! That boy had a productive 15 minutes. ;-)
Aren't kids the best?!

Caroline said...

I'm wondering what you did to him afterwards.... was this with no encouragement from the others because I've seen what Elijah can do:)

Kori said...

Only mormons have a closet FULL of games! That is any mom's worst nightmare. Sorry Janae.

Kori said...

Oh, and did you put all the puzzles together to make sure you got all the pieces?

Tera said...

Now that was fuuuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnny! Thanks for sharing! I bet that was crazy to clean up.

janae said...

Caroline: Elijah opened the closet and was an "innocent bystander" - he really didn't help, but I definitely gave him a talkin to about CALLING MOM when Enoch does stuff like that.

Kori: We've done several and still have about five to go. So yes, the plan is to put them all back together. Eventually.

Dave and Gina said...

I laughed so hard I cried. It was great. Looking at the disaster that my 3 yr old, 2 yr old and 11 month old can create, I found out...it can always be worse! thanks for the post!

Qait said...

:|

:|

:|

[translated: speechless]

Jennifer J said...

Ok, I've seen a lot of messes in my life, but Enoch seriously has a gift. That mess was A.MAZ.ING.

Sam Ricks said...

Wow. I guess I hadn't really looked very closely at the photos before. I mean, I know you said it was bad. But it was really bad.

Sam Ricks said...

Wow. I guess I hadn't really looked very closely at the photos before. I mean, I know you said it was bad. But it was really bad.

katieo said...

aaaaaahahahahahahahahah!!!!

seriously. This made my day.

AWESOME.

(..that other people's kids do stuff like this.)

Aubrey said...

Oh my... that was amazing. I had no idea such a mess was even possible. Now I know.

Paige said...

holy. moley.

steph said...

Oh my.. wow!!! I thought Jack made bad messes, but his are nothing compared to that. How could that have happened in only 15 mins??
Did you really go through all the puzzles and try to figure out which piece went where?

Stacy Lynn Carroll said...

Oh my gosh! How awful! I would do the same.

janae said...

Steph - Oh yeah. My mom swears that she's only ever lost one puzzle piece (ironically, my doing around age 6), so I basically had to make sure we got everything put back together. She would have died if she'd been home to see the mess!

Stephen and Debbie said...

Holy cow! You have quite the crazy kid! That is amazing! We will take him if he needs a new home! :)

Sarah said...

*jaw drops* totally speechless. I don't think I would even begin to KNOW how to handle that situation. Woooowwwwwww..........

Babydoll said...

Yeah, I have no words. Wow! What a mess! But it sure looks great now that it is cleaned up.

Cranberryfries said...

Hi Janae, just stopping in to see your cute family. Love this. Well not the mess but the immortalizing of the mess. I know it's always funnier the next day.

Jenna Baker said...

I sure hope he does that again. I would GLADLY adopt him. Juuust saying.

Krishele said...

where do you get these boys???

It takes a special parent to not strangle a kid after a deed like that....good job, kiddo.

Jodi said...

I need to get back into reading your blog. Your life is just too funny!