Good Intentions Gone Bad

Sometimes the best intentions yield bad results. Last week, for Mothers Day, Thing 1 pledged to help. He even made this in school. How adorable.

So, with Thing 1 leading the way, he and Thing 2 set out to clean the basement. They may even have told me first. I don’t remember, they tell me a lot of stuff.? SuburbanMommy was enjoying her Mothers Day outside the house, so I had my hands full.?? I’m not sure what they were doing, I was just glad they weren’t fighting.? I assumed cleaning the basement meant what it always had until that point, which consisted of picking up all the toys and balls and other stuff.

A little while later, I spotted Thing 2 on his way to the basement. He was wearing goggles and had a roll of paper towels. His socks were soaking wet.

Me: “What are you guys doing down there?”

Thing 2: “We’re cleaning”

It was time to take a look.? With Thing 4 in my arms, I went to the basement to check out this cleaning operation.? I found the basement carpet was wet.? Really wet.? There were puddles of water on the floor in the bathroom.? Several towels were soaking wet.? They were wetting the towels, then carrying them, dripping wet, to parts of the basement to “clean” them.? How adorable.? To be more efficient, Thing 1 instructed Thing 2 to use the other sink at the wet bar.? Now there were two sources of puddles on the floor.

Let’s look at the bright side. They were trying to help. How often does that happen? They were also working together without fighting. That’s a good thing.? After using nearly an entire roll of paper towels to soak up the water, I asked:

“Is there anything else you cleaned I should know about?”

“No.” Then he thought about it. “Yes.”

“What?”

“The pillows”

They had taken the pillows from the couch and held them under the water in the sink to wash them.? Then put them back on the couch.?? Adorable.