Share the biggest messes your children have made in the 5 minutes when your back was turned - £300 voucher to be won!

[EllieMumsnet]

Perhaps you have a child with the potential to be a future 'Banksy' - an artist able to cover a wall in felt-tip graffiti, while you are busy chopping carrot sticks. Or maybe they're more of a Jackson Pollock character - suddenly spraying the entire contents of their bowl across the floor in homage to the painter's splatter artworks? We’ve all been there when unbelievable messes have occurred in the blink of an eye and Carex would love to hear your stories about the biggest messes your children have made.

Here’s what Carex has to say: “Here at Carex we’re all about living life hands on… and sometimes that means getting messy! Luckily we’re here to clean, care and protect with our range of antibacterial hand washes. To keep the family busy this summer you can currently enjoy half price entry to Alton Towers and Sea Life centres with every promotional pack of Carex.”

Did you leave the room for five short minutes only to come back and find they'd somehow got at your prized Chanel lipstick and had liberally applied it not only to their lips, but their cheeks, eyes, hands and hair? What madness made you leave them unsupervised?! Share the unfortunate stories of the times you turned your back and a mess ensued.

Everyone who posts on the thread will be entered into a prize draw to win a £300 voucher of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck
MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

[JemIsMyNameNooneElseIsTheSame]

DS used to empty his box of reusable nappies thrice daily. That was a bit of a ball-ache.

[DuckingMel]

DS decided to decorate his desk with what only can be described as elementary graffiti or "tags". He has never drawn on anything but paper (thankfully) and at 7 years old I was not expecting it at all! The pens were not permanent markers, but as the wood was unvarnished, the designs are there to stay. I can't say I was thrilled, but two years on, I am now used to them and think my reaction was perhaps too negative to begin with, as it is his desk, he is happy with it and it is a cheap piece of furniture. Just goes to show the most "sensible" child will still manage to surprise you!

[Popcornandbuttons]

I turn my back for two second and an entire box of tissues will be across the room, or wipes. Let alone 5 minutes

[byronsbrain]

My two year old thought it would be hilarious to pour a tub of olives and oil all over the kitchen floor and then proceeded to stamp them into the living room carpet. Lovely.

[Cosmia]

Red biro, cream sofa, trip to Ikea for new loose covers.....

[Farwah]

My 4 year old was “experimenting” on the bean bag,had it opened. The one year old thought the balls are so much fun and within 3 minutes,the bag was empty,the fun had begun,the balls were out! And I was out of my sane mind too! I couldn’t figure out to clean the mess,get the baby changed as his clothes were full of balls let alone a choking hazard,shout on my 4 year old or start hoovering!!

[QwertySmalls]

One morning I couldn't be bothered to get up straight away and my son who was 2 at the time found an egg in the kitchen and cracked it on my face. It worked though and I soon got out of bed.

[Teaspoon74]

Banana as shampoo just seconds before we had to leave the house for work is the nursery. Every square inch of flesh and hair covered. Took ages to clean her. And then I realised I had to do the sticky banana hand prints all over the living room too!!

[Awoof]

My little monkey tried to make slime out of tooth paste, glue and..... coco pops. On her bedroom carpet. She alleges that she saw this on YouTube

[KittyConCarne]

Snails! Urghh!
DSD1&2 decided to keep some secret new pets in their bedroom- they apparently thought an open margarine tub would happily contain them.
I noticed several tracks of shiny clear lines on their wallpaper for about a week; told the girls to keep their glue sticks for their arts & crafts/ not the walls, and it was only after I found DSD2 devastated at crushing Henry the Snail with an underbed storage box, that they admitted to having around 8 snails that had escaped on day 1. Nice!

10 years on, and DD1 was thankfully the tidiest & most well-behaved child in the world ever.
So I was lulled into a false sense of security, and completely unprepared for the daily destruction of DD2 when she arrived a few years after.
DD2 once stripped an entire wall of wallpaper from her cot bars (sleeping in a nest of it until morning), enjoys daily scribblings of eyeliner/ biro etc on all PVC frames & furniture (she blatantly has squirrel stashes of stolen pens that I've yet to find), sprinkled an entire sandpit over our living room carpet (whilst under the amused eye of my not so 'D' Brother), and also once coloured most of her fringe & forehead in with Sharpies after watching her teenage sis dye her own hair- "Pretty hair!!!"

[welcometonarnia]

I swear my back was only turned for a second and my daughter smeared half a tub of sudocreme all in her hair and face...it took ages to remove!

[Angiemum23]

Pooped in dads office while I was running a bath. He rubbed it all over the desk, the chair, on cuboard door and carpet. This was in the space on 20-30 seconds. We had to give the chair away to a not so nice relative.

[bikerclaire]

My DD is nearly 2 and a few weeks ago she started getting really interested in playing with pens and drawing. One Saturday morning I gave her have a couple of pens and gave her some fresh paper and let her get on with it for a couple of mins while I checked my emails. I knew there was a chance she'd be drawing on herself but when I looked round - WOW! One of the pens was a bright RED sharpie! Yes - she'd drawn all over one arm, her forehead, underneath one eye and on her neck. It took ages to get it off and I had to google the best way to do it, finally going to get an old bottle of lotion from the bathroom cupboard which did the trick. I've not let her have that particular pen again!

[IWasThere4Aug12]

Not a mess as such but DS2 managed to pull off almost every key from my work laptop

[Runningshorts]

Another one saying sudocrem.
DC1 spread it into the carpet, table, their face, hands, clothes and on the TV stand before I noticed.
Not funny at the time (I may have cried with exhaustion) but I can look back and laugh about it now!

[No1PalitoyTreehousedweller]

I went to pick son up from nursery as he was apparently looking ‘peaky’ as I bent to pick him up he projectile vomited all over my brand new coat and dress. He went on to vomit all over the carseat and car on the way home and covered 3 carpets with sick patches before we got to the toilet...not his fault though but Mama has a lot of cleaning to do!

[HELENSCRESCENT]

I walked into my bedroom after taking a shower which was five minutes maximum to find my daugher had covered herself and the wall and chest of drawers with panty liners! She had found two boxes and peeled the backs off and used them like stickers!

[HomeEdRocks18]

I found an entire box of tampons stuck to my bathroom ceiling. My boys were aged 6 and 8 at the time and had soaked them in water, squeezed the water out and thrown them up onto my bathroom ceiling. It had been freshly painted the day before.
I'd been putting the washing away and thought the giggling coming from them was cute so i left them a bit longer.

[Exploring]

My son said he felt sick so dh grabbed him and rushed to the bathroom. He was sick over his shoulder at the top of the stairs. All the way down them and through the bannisters.

[SillyMoomin]

A 2 litre bottle of coke upended down the entire carpeted staircase

[tobypercy]

thankfully not me, but one of my husband's colleagues saw his child come back into the house through the front door carrying a brillo bad. "I've been cleaning your car, Daddy"
Ouch.

[Sophia1984]

I bought my son a lovely natural wood dolls house. Let’s just say he decided to renovate it with some crayons and it now looks like it has ivy growing all over it

[queenoftheschoolrun]

That would be emptying a full tub of hundreds and thousands over the kitchen floor. They are aptly named and I have never bought them again!

[SilverDoe]

While I had my back briefing turned to help his older sister make a puzzle; little 1 year old DS
Opened the rabbit hutch and began scooping out all of the wood shavings, bedding etc onto the carpeted floor and then climbed inside

[npret]

We have an under counter fridge. Once I left the room for not even 5 minutes and came back in the kitchen to find my son had opened the fridge & was proceeding to drop all the eggs on the floor (with a big smile on his face)! It was a huge mess.