A Mother's Duty

Let me set the stage for you:

Mother was sick. She had a sore throat that didn't allow her to swallow easily, and a head that felt like it weighed over 80 pounds if she tried to stand up. She was also sore over her entire body, and all she wanted to do was lie down and rest. Mother caught her sickness from Father and Daughter. They had it on Sunday, and Mother caught it Wednesday night.

On Thursday, Daughter was still slightly sick, and thankfully not running circles about Mother creating chaos and pandemonium. Mother called Father at work, and mentioned that if at all possible, she would love for him to come home from work early to care for Daughter. Father said he would see what he could do.

Around 4:00 pm, Father still had not come home from work, and Mother really needed to rest. She placed Daughter in front of the computer, inserted the Nemo DVD (or as Daughter would say, "Elmo" DVD) pressed play, and told Daughter that she would be in her room resting because she was sick.

Mother retreated from the room while Daughter watched her favorite movie.

Fast forward forty-five minutes.

Mother hears daughter yell, "Momma," and some nondescript whining. When Mother called for Daughter to come upstairs to where she was resting, Daughter yelled "Momma. Down." Mother knew that she needed to go downstairs to where Daughter was to help her down from somewhere she had climbed. Mother hauled herself out of bed, steadied herself on the door frame so she wouldn't fall, and slowly descended the stairs to find Daughter.

Mother rounded the corner to where she had left Daughter and found Daughter standing on the computer desk. The next thing Mother noticed is that every. single. pen. marker. and highlighter. had been uncapped and were sitting on the desk next to Daughter. Then Mother noticed something that made her want to cry.

(insert scary music here)

Daughter had written on Father's computer monitor with permanent marker. She also used highlighters (three different colors) and a pen, but the permanent marker was the kicker.

Mother cursed. Three separate times.

Daughter knew she was in trouble and instantly starting crying. Mother told her what she did was wrong and that she needed to go to her room while Mother tried to fix the problem.

Mother left Daughter in her room crying, and hastily grabbed the first thing she could think of that would remove permanent marker off of furniture. Toothpaste.

Squirting a dab of toothpaste on a lint-free cloth, Mother furiously scrubbed a small section of the monitor. It didn't work. In haste, Mother ran upstairs to the cleaning closet and grabbed a multitude of products she thought might do the trick. Simple Green, Vinegar, Water, Hydrogen Peroxide, and Rubbing Alcohol. Mother wasn't going to try all of these items, she was just at a loss of what to do, and was concerned that Father would walk in the house in any minute and see the devastation done to his computer.

Mother finally had some time to calm and collect herself and used Google to search:

"permanent marker on computer monitor"

The first response and suggestion was to use an eraser to erase the marks. Without hesitation, Mother retrieved an eraser from the craft room, and began erasing the marks from the monitor.

Believe it or not, it worked! An eraser will remove permanent marker ink off of a computer monitor. Once Mother realized that the problem was going to be fixed, she took a picture of the 'Masterpiece on the Monitor' drawn by Daughter.


















After Mother was finished clearing the monitor of any marks, she returned to Daughter to hold and comfort her. Daughter had to be cleaned off because she had drawn on herself with a permanent marker, black pen ink, and orange, pink and blue highlighter ink. Mother grabbed a towel, a water spray bottle, and some toothpaste and started to clean Daughter's skin. All of the ink didn't come off (still hasn't), but Mother noticed that Daughter was exhausted and decided to stop.

Mother scooped up Daughter, sat on the comfy chair, and within minutes Daughter was asleep in Mother's arms. That is when Mother could sit back and laugh about the whole situation.

Father came home from work 15 minutes later and didn't have a clue that anything had happened.