Counting down to birthday number three ~ June 16, 1988

David Heiller

There are few words more frightening in the human tongue than the voice of a two-year-old from the bathroom late at night saying, “I need someone to clean up my mess.”

So Cindy and I sat up in unison when we heard Malika call out from the bathroom at 10 o’clock Sunday night: “I need someone to clean up my mess.”

Earlier on that hot day we celebrated
Noah and Malika's birthdays.

We were sitting in the kitchen playing “Rummikub” with Cindy’s mother when the words came. We didn’t expect them, because any upstairs creaking had been muffled by a large fan that hummed by the table. We hadn’t checked on Malika or Noah for half an hour.

The last time, it was black magic marker on her wall, doll, and pillow. The time before that, it was green felt-tipped pen on her legs. As Cindy and I looked at each other, we both wondered, “What color is it this time?”

After a couple minutes of debate, I stood up from the kitchen table to see what Mollie’s mess was this time. When I opened the bathroom door, I thought I was seeing things. Mollie was sitting on the potty, staring wide-eyed at me. She seemed to be wearing a pair of orange nylons. Her legs were orange, solid orange, from her ankles up to mid-thigh. It took just a split second to register—Malika doesn’t have orange nylons. Cindy doesn’t have orange nylons. No one has orange nylons.

Malika was covered with orange paint. “I’m a mess, Dad,” she said. It was the understatement of the year, even for her.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. Malika had left a trail of orange paint from the potty to the rug in front of the sink, where she had stood for some time with a once-green washcloth, trying to get rid of the evidence.

The rug, once beige, was now mostly orange. We followed the trail upstairs into her bedroom, over the once-pink rug, onto the bedspread and her blanket, now both streaked with orange, onto the wall next to her bed. The wall had been marked with green and black strokes, but now the orange drowned them into insignificance. We’re talking Picasso here.

The crime, as we could easily piece together, had started with a bottle of Tempera paint on top of the filing cabinet in her room. She had scaled the dresser, using the handles as footholds. Once the paint was opened, she got more than she bargained for on her pajamas. She tried wiping it off, using the bedspread, then the wall. She thought about the bathroom and a wet washcloth, and succeeded only in painting her legs. Jackie Johnson could not have done a more professional job, nor John Clark. She finally realized it was no use, so climbed on the potty and called for help.

David and Malika. She always had a good time,
 or she'd manufacture it.

It took three adults one full hour to clean up the mess. I was assigned to Malika. She stood sobbing on the kitchen counter, looking like a sad Halloween character. I washed her several times in the sink, while Cindy scrubbed the bathroom and Lorely worked on the upstairs. When I was done with Mollie, we sat her on a chair in the middle of the kitchen.

“I don’t like you,” she said in defiance to the spanking and scolding. “I’m angry at you. I’m angry at Momma. I like Noah.”

“Noah’s upset with you, too,” I countered.

“I’m angry at Noah,” Mollie continued. “I want to go to Bobby Jo’s!” Bobby Jo is her best friend from the day care. Then Mollie hung her head on her chest and sat in silence.

We finally had the mess cleaned up enough so that Mollie could go back upstairs. Her mattress was soaked with paint and water, so she slept on the box spring in a sleeping bag. She didn’t say a word as I laid her down. At five minutes after 11, we sat back down at the table. “That’s what you get for raising such an independent daughter,” Lorely said with a shake of her head and a smile. “Another kid that age would have called for help. Mollie didn’t think she needed help. She thought she’d clean up the mess herself.”

I think that this little girl is 
plotting some fun/mischief.

And it could have been worse, Lorely went on: Yes, the Tempra paint permanently stained an expensive rug and bedspread. But it could have been worse. She might have drunk it instead of spilled it.

I’ll second that opinion. As I looked at Malika standing in the kitchen sink, covered with orange paint and crying, I didn’t know whether to be angry, or to laugh. Maybe I was feeling what Lorely had just expressed.

Anyway, I’ve written about Malika before. In fact, this is my third “Terrible Twos” column on her. It had better be the last, because she will be three years old this Saturday, and that gives Mollie just three days to destroy the world as we know it. Hold your breath.