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

We've had far too many cream disasters.
The time dd found a confetti cannon, that took a while to clean.
Dd once decided to wash the window for me. I hand only just finished cleaning it myself, so just left the room to put the cleaning stuff away, came back in to half the front room window looking like it had been painted.
The worst mess was when dd thought she'd make me a coffee using the coffee maker whilst I was settling newborn. COFFEE GRANULES EVERYWHERE.Floor, worktop, tiles, cabinets, on and underneath the fridge, sown the side of the dishwasher, and chairs. She had poured water from the kettle (thankfully cold) onto the coffee maker and the worktop and poured a whole bag of granules all over. Took weeks cleaning it all up, still find little bits off coffee every now and again.

Big bottle of golden syrup.... 14 month old had squeezed it so hard the lid popped off. He was sat on the kitchen floor licking it off his feet. That was hard to clean up. 😂

We had moved into my now ex partner's house (perhaps this is why he's now my ex!) he didn't have any kids. I was making a nice roast lamb tea (he was Welsh, what can I say...) as he had been on a long flight back to the UK. I sat my Daughter in the living room, with some colouring in to keep her entertained, whilst I peeled the spuds. I walked back in to her having coloured in his very expensive fireplace... I was stood there in disbelief, when he walks through the door. I just turned round looking very sheepish (ironic as we were having lamb). He asked me what was up, and I just turned back to the fireplace, and a toddler covered in felt tip. He looked at the fireplace, me, and then my Daughter (who's just giggling away may I add...) I don't think I've ever seen him so livid. Poor bloke had to spend the entire evening sanding the thing down. Needless to say not even my famous roast could save the day!

Emptying the cereal cupboard. The contents of the boxes all over the kitchen floor - cornflakes, Krispies, muesli and ready brek everywhere. Easy to sweep up though!

A box of shredded paper packing material sprinkled through downstairs, which doesn't sound that messy and I even half ignored, but that stuff is immune to both hoover and brush

Tub of Vaseline and a laptop.
But she still reminds me of the time I spilled some lentils on the floor when she was 18months old ‘remember the time you spilled the lentils Mummy?’

Oil based face paint all over cream carpet which runs through entire house! Not good!

My daughter was 2 when my husband left the biggest pot of sudacrem they do on the side and she got hold of it while we were all upstairs getting ready for a day out.......she was a big white walking mess! It took ages to shower her off

I’ve kept the picture for her 18th

My eldest son and daughter used to go into the bedroom at my nan and grandads house cover each other in talc and come in to us shouting we are Casper.they had been watching too much Casper the ghost cartoons.they had used my nan's best powder puff and covered the room and them in tac. My nan used to see the funny side of it luckily.

My son left a chocolate bar (given by my MIL when I was not in the room) on the radiator, it melted all down the wall and over the carpet I found it a day later and it looked really disgusting and took ages to clean off. It is really hard to clean chocolate behind a radiator and the stain on the carpet underneath looked like poo!

Painted the lounge in sudocrem whilst I popped into the kitchen for a moment. I didn’t know DC could get the lid off!

Ds pulled down our Christmas tree smashing decorations all over the floor.... just so that he could get to the chocolate hanging just a little too far out of his reach 🤦🏻‍♀️ wouldn't have been so bad but it was Christmas Eve!!!

When DS1 and DS2 were about 2 and 4, it was summer holidays they'd been out in the paddling pool so were in swim trunks (or quite possibly starkers) I'd brought them in out the sun for a while and they were painting in the kitchen.

I was washing up with my back turned. DS1 is autistic and often talks his thoughts. He said I'm painting my brother. I said 'that's nice darling' and carried on trying to get the dishes done. It was nice listening to the boys gigglesasthey buried themselves for a rare two minutes.

When I turned round DS1 was litterally poster painting DS2 - who had a grin on ear to ear.

went into front room, opened nappy which was full of shit and smeared the contents all over the cushions, sofa, carpet, walls and self.

destroyed my £2k laptop by tipping a bottle of facial toner into it (rendering me unable to work for 10 days!), followed by smashing the ipad screen with a rock the week after!!

My granddaughter got her hands on a tub of red paint while her mum answered the phone to me. She thought she was helping by painting skirting boards, walls and carpet all in 5 minutes. Oh and herself. What was going to be a quick job turned into costing an arm and a leg.

The one where Ds2 reverse engineered the roller blind in his bedroom. Caught him just as he was ripping the last bit of fabric off the tube at the top.

Daughter and cousin got hold of the sudocrem when they were 4 or 5. They were covered head to toe in it, all over the carpets, their clothes, in their hair.

Once dd age abt 6 did all the jigsaw puzzles and insisted she kept them out until they were all done. There were about twenty puzzles ranging from 20 pieces to 100.
I popped out the room for a minute and when I came back she had broken them all up thrown bits everywhere, scattered it everywhere muddled them all up. Took me over an hour to put them back in right boxes.

Drawing on the wall with a wooden banana. As you do. Fixing that involved repainting the wall..

While supposedly sleeping in his cot DS removed his nappy and painted the contents on the wall. We were staying in a holiday villa at the time.

My daughter tried to clean the bathroom. It turns out half a bottle of washing up liquid is a lot harder than you think to wipe up!

Poo explosion smeared on the couch!

3 year old took great care in scooping out handfuls of Nivea and meticulously smearing every window pane with a thick layer so you couldn't see out. We have old diamond pattern windows so it was a tricky job but she was very thorough! 🙈

Sudocrem.

Sudocrem all over her hands. Sudocrem in her eyebrows. Sudocrem all over her lovely new dress. Sudocrem smeared through her fine, tangly hair. Sudocrem smothered over my beautiful new textured curtains. No fucking nappy rash though.