The Power of Powder

I think almost every child will have a Powder Moment.

The moment where they discover an opened bottle of baby powder within their reach.
Or even the moment where there discover HOW to open a bottle of baby powder within their reach.
Once that moment comes, there's no stopping... The Power of Powder...

It's either used as creating an indoor snowstorm... or transforming the child from cherubic baby to a main character in a Chinese Opera... or recreating a scene from CSI...

Mikhail chose all of the above...

One fine evening, Mikhail and I were hanging-out in his room (which is, by the way, the Master Bedroom in our condo... Mommy and Daddy sleeps in the secondary room... the one WITHOUT the pool view, the air-conditioning nor the attached bathroom..Guess there's no doubt as to who's Master of THIS household...)

I was lounging on his bed (Queen size, don't imagine big ol'me curled up in a crib) while the littlewan busied himself with his toys, chattering away and banging his cars together. It was a lovely way to spend the evening.
Absorbed in my book, I suddenly realized that something was wrong.

There was silence.

And anyone with children will know, that when there's silence, there's trouble.

I turned to my right and found myself staring at a floor, covered with a thin film of powder... adorned with tiny baby footsteps...

I raised my head to follow those footsteps and there he stood.

The perpetrator of the crime!

Mikhail hadn’t noticed his Mommy looking at him.
He was engrossed with the bottle of baby powder in his hands.
His face was smeared with powder.
His lips were pursed in concentration and his hands had a firm grip on the base of the bottle.
As I watched, he turned the bottle upside-down and watched the powder cover the floor with another layer of ‘snow’.

“Oh…. My…. God…” Mommy says (ala Janice from F.R.I.E.N.D.S.)
Mikhail snaps out of his powder-induced trance and whipped his head to look at me.
I swear that little boy froze in his tracks.

He didn’t move a single muscle… He didn’t even blink!
It was as if he thought that if he didn’t move, I wouldn’t be able to see him.
Invisibility via inertia, perhaps?



“Miiiikhaaill, what have you done?” I say, in my best Mommy-is-Mad tone of voice.

He looks down to the floor and gives a shriek.
“Eeeeee!!!” he says, pointing at the mess he has made.

“I KNOW!” says Mommy, amazed at the fact that the littlewan is now zealously pointing to every thing that’s covered by powder. As if he too has just made this discovery, instead of being the one who DID it.

“Yeeeeshhh, ball, yeeessh” says Mikhail, walking across the room and pointing at his ball (also a victim of the powderstorm).

Then, amazingly, he stares straight at me, points at the powder covered floor and goes “Haaa… haaaa…” in that sing-song tone (Haaa... Haaa… tak tauu…) as if I was the one who created the mess!!!

“WHAT??” I sputtered. “Excuuuuse me, Mikhail, YOU did this. You don’t ‘haaa… haaa…’ when YOU are the one who did this!”

He blinks at me for a second, then proceeds to repeat, “Haaa... Haaaah!”

By this time, the Mommy was trying very hard not to laugh.

“No, Mikhail. Don’t blame Mommy. Give me the bottle and clean up this mess. Wipe! Wipe!”

The littlewan surprisingly hands me the bottle of powder.
He then reaches for the nearest piece of cloth (his red t-shirt) and starts wiping at the mess. He wipes for a bit, then realises the futility of the act and scrunges his face up with a frustrated yell.

He then concludes that it's the fault of the t-shirt and tosses it aside, picking up a small towel instead. He continues wiping, keen to be rid of the evidence of his dastardly act. Hehehe...



Thus, ends Mikhail’s First Powder Moment.

But even now, when he comes across a toy with a smidgeon of powder on it, he’ll point to it, look at Mommy and go ‘Haaa… haaaa…’

Sigh.
Luckily, I got the entire scene on video (I love this function on mobile phones!).
So no, Daddy, you can't blame ME for the half-empty bottle of powder.
Heheheh!