Don’t Eat The Paint

Ezra and I headed out to the Denver Children’s Museum yesterday with some friends….turns out it was a Daddy-Day-Care moment with four Dads and five kids. The kids ranged in age from about 18 months to 5 years, so once we got in the doors of the museum we pretty much split into a bunch of different directions. Ezra soon headed for his favorite place – the train area – and despite several valiant attempts otherwise, set up camp for most of our time there.

For one brief period, I was able to pry him away from the trains and head to the painting area (see previous post showing photos of another trip). We got him set up with an apron, a blank piece of paper, and black and red paint. Ezra then proceeded to paint for a while before deciding that there was something really intriguing about that red paint color…so intriguing in fact, that he wanted to taste it to make sure that it wasn’t something that he could snack on.

As if the world entered a matrix-like state of slow motion, the paint brush went from the cup straight to his mouth before anyone with reason could stop him. After he pulled it out of his mouth, I immediately took him over to the clean-up area (elbowing several other children and their Moms along the way to clear the path), and dunked him under the water faucet for a mass-decon of the area. Using high pressure water and a few wash cloths, we were able to remove most of the paint that hadn’t already made it’s way into his stomach. And despite the fact that Ezra looked like he was punched in the mouth (red paint), he was as cheerful as could be. Back to the train tables we went.