A Word From The Wise

Louie came home from the vet with a small red heart Sharpie'd onto his cast. It's adorable. And of course the kids wanted to sign his cast because that's what casts are for. Micah signed it. Three times. Luke has his John Hancock on there as well. The other kids are too cool for that kind of stuff. And I'm not sure what to write on it so I haven't done anything yet. Would I sign it Mom? Karen? The Reason For The Cast? Guilty?

And then Luke had the bright idea to have the dogs sign Louie's cast. I agreed that it would be fun. So this evening I put a blob of red paint, a blob of blue paint and a blob of green paint on a styrofoam plate. We use these for paint palettes because they're cheap and completely disposable. My idea was to dip a dog's paw into the paint (one color for each girl that needed to "sign" the cast) and then "stamp" that colored paw onto the cast. It would look so fun. And colorful.

I should have known that it wouldn't be that easy, because when is anything easy that seems to be on the surface? Let's think of things that could go wrong, shall we?

Jill didn't exactly want to put her foot into red paint? Check. Commence the struggle to get the dog near the paint palette without tipping it all over the floor.

Jill didn't want to stamp her paw onto Louie's cast? Check. With fresh paint on her foot, I couldn't let go of that foot. I had to hold onto it and drag her by it about 2 feet over to where Louie was.

Louie didn't really want Jill being drug right into him? Check. So now I'm dragging Jill by one paw and holding Louie down with my other hand to keep him from moving out of the way of a dog with a red foot coming right at him.

There was too much paint on the paw and instead of leaving a perfect foot print, it smeared into a giant red messy blob? Check.

A second attempt at stamping, this time with less paint, was largely unsuccessful as well? Check. I did manage to get about 2 of the toes to come out fairly visible, but seeing that dogs have more than 2 toes, there's still more of a "what is that" factor going on rather than "look, a dog print on a dog's cast!"

Louie deciding that he was not wanting anything more to do with this nonsense? Check. Despite my best efforts at holding him down with just one hand, he managed to twist all around on the dog bed he was lying in.

Wet paint gets all over the place from Louie's wiggling? Yup. Just yup. Red paint on the dog bed, red paint on Louie's nose, red paint on Louie's opposite hip that isn't broken, wet paint on a front shoulder, red paint on the floor, red paint on me. I think red paint multiplies when exposed to air and dog hair simultaneously. OH MY GOSH.

Fail to even think about cleaning up a paw with wet paint on it and therefore not plan for that? Of course. So now I'm dragging/carrying Jill and Louie 2 feet the other way to reach the Clorox wipes that were (thankfully) not put away last time I used them. I had no idea that it would take 5 wipes to sufficiently clean a foot of paint.

Even after 5 wipes to clean paint off a foot, that foot will retain enough paint to leave bloody-looking prints all over the kitchen? Uh-huh. And then there's even more wipes involved to clean the floor.

You guys, Louie's cast looks like he walked through a horror film featuring an axe murderer. No, I don't have photos. I was too busy cleaning up the mess. And Louie. Wipies get most of the red paint off dog hair, but that's the best I can do because one can't bath a dog with a full leg cast on.

Take a lesson from those who walked the bloody red line: DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME.