INK-A-DINK- A-GAIN?

With five children in the house there is always something going on. Sometimes it's good and sometimes we have opportunities for training.
Titus shares a bedroom with his two older brothers. Since the children keep all of their toys downstairs in the Family room, I don't have to worry about wondering if Titus will be tempted to play with toys instead of go to nap. However, as most parents know, children are often entertained by things that aren't classified as "toys".
One happy, quiet afternoon when Titus was supposed to be napping, I heard him yell "EEM-A-LEE!!" I thought that was strange for two reasons. One, because my son Titus is upstairs sleeping, and two, because Emily is also asleep in another room upstairs. Why would he be yelling for Emily? Brian also heard Titus yell and went to investigate. A minute later he came down and told me that I needed to go upstairs and check Titus...oh, and I might want to bring the camera along also ( the well trained husband of a scrapbooker that he is). Upon my entering the room, I immediately knew that my son Titus was NOT sleeping at all and had not been for quite some time.
For some reason, he had gotten out of bed in search of trouble. How do I know this? Well, what you see all over him is black ink from a ball point pen that had been thrown into the trash. It wasn't even broken to begin with, so I know it wasn't an accident. Caleb had thrown it away because he couldn't get the ink to come out smoothly. So, not only did Titus raid the trash can, which he knows is off limits to take things out of, but he also had to do a bit of digging to find it. Caleb had buried it under a few pieces of trash. Another reason that we know that even Titus knew he had done wrong was because when we finally found the remnants of the ink pen, they were buried alllll the way at the bottom of the trash can. Titus further incriminated himself in the bathroom where we see his attempt to wash his hands that backfired. If you look at the picture below you will see some smeared hand prints, and what the picture doesn't show is the smear of ink on the soap dispenser or the water all over the counter (definitely the work of a 2 year old).
And if all that wasn't evidence enough, he also wore his self tattling expression that says "I'm in soo much trouble".
It was impossible to get the whole story about how such a thing could have happened. Did he bend the pen ?and then spurt ink all over his body, the bed, his shirt, the blankets, the mattress?? My personal theory is that he had some portion of the pen in his mouth because of the picture you see ink in hid mouth. It would seem like he must've tried to bite it open or something. A boy that's supposed to be napping doesn't just sprout a blackened tongue and teeth!!


Thankfully, most of it washed off or brushed out, but I think Titus learned his lesson about several things after that experience. As a matter of fact, today, when I was getting these pictures ready to post he stood by me. When he saw himself he starred and said "ohhh, nnnoo" and then just continued to stand there thinking through the memories of that day.
We still don't know why he shouted for Emily. Maybe he was trying to wake her up and show her what he had done...an early attempt at blame shifting? I guess we'll never know.
I hope that my next post will be about something other than some form of ink! If not, I'm sure it will be quite a story!