Paint, Pee and Post-Dramatic-Stress

I swear there are parenting classes that someone who has it out for me hid the information to. Classes that are meant to help helpless parents prepare for, prevent, and post-drama deal with afternoons like the one I had today. It wasn't even an afternoon per se - more like... 2 1/2 minutes. How could I go so very wrong in just 2 1/2 minutes?

I'll start here.

About 3 months ago I bought paint. Red paint. I want a red front door because our house is barely off-white with stark white trim and a white door. I needed something that would pop (HGTV lingo) without putting a huge dent in the pocket-book or require too much work. Anyway, I've been waiting - like forever - for 3 nice days in a row because apparently you aren't supposed to paint an exterior door when it rains because the humidity will damage the paint job - I try to learn something new every few weeks or so. When the nice days started (finally!) I was out of town and this week was really the first streak of nice days I've seen since purchasing my red paint. So, yesterday Jeff and I sanded the door (and by "Jeff and I" I mean Jeff) and prepped the area for paint and I decided today was the day my door would be red! He went off to work and I began to set up shop. It all started uneventfully enough. The first coat made me cry (as usual) and wonder why I'd even ventured a curious thought towards such a drastic change - just like the first coat always does. I let it be for a while to dry (and pray) while I got lunch ready for the kids (who were happily playing in the backyard).

While I'm slapping some peanut butter on some bread and slicing cheese and broccoli onto plates Natalie comes running in the house screeching, "He PEED on me!!!"

I look down and her shoes and shins are all wet (note: she's standing in the middle of my kitchen). "Get in here, Carter!"

While I am interrogating, uh - I mean, talking to Carter I find out that he was peeing in the backyard behind a tree and Natalie was riding her bike past and pretty much he just aimed at her to get her away - what do you do in an instance like this? I mean, really? Time out? Go to your room? Just say you're sorry and don't pee on your sister anymore?

Before I can even process a thought as to what to do with these two, Natalie comes running in the kitchen (again - and yes, still peed on) shouting, "Mom! He tried to help you paint the door!!"

While I was breaking up pee-fights Jack slipped out of the room and went to the open front door (which was drying) and decided to try a hand at slapping some paint around.

I now mostly despise red.

I'm not kidding guys - someone is seriously holding out on me here. There has to be a way to prepare people for days (or as in my case, 2 1/2 minutes) like this. So, here's my disclaimer: When you have a bunch of kids, stuff like this happens. (And yet, still it's all worth it... and I'm talking about the kids - not the red door. Although I do love my red door.)