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

[MrsAidanTurner]

In holiday let. I was upstairs putting clothes away and I could hear pitta patta up and down the living room downstairs. I knew 3 year old was busy with something...

I went downstairs and saw she had been running to the basket of plastic condiments, tomato ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise and was taking them to the the window seat to open and squirt them on it 😱 then running back for more. She had been quite the busy bee. A large mushy yellow, red pile of slime.

[leanneth]

My son has a habit of emptying boxes- Lego, kitchen toys, little books- honestly in a couple of minutes he can cause the need for half an hour of clearing away!

[BlackberryandNettle]

We've had tissues - entire box empties and ripped by 18 month old dc1. Dc2 at arounf the same age smeared sudocrem all over multiple other bottles on bathroom shelves and across the shelves themselves. Most gross - dc1 had a phase of removing getting naked in her cot at night - poo party all over cot and child discovered after one afternoon nap 😷 Most recently dc2 had scribbled on the wall, which fortunately needs redecorating anyway, with biro. All their own pens are washable and the one time he decorates the wall, it's with a biro 🤦

[buckley1983]

I popped into the kitchen one afternoon to start dinner - leaving my son in the lounge playing quite happily - I came back in less than 5 minutes later to check in on him - he grinned up at me as I walked in & I thought 'Wow, his hair looks weirdly sleek' - usuallya a mound of fuzzy curls.. split second later I spot the open pot of vaseline on his lap - vaseline, all over his hair & face - that was fun to wash off!

[EddieVeddersfoxymop]

I went out to hang the washing outside when my DD was 2. Left her happily splodging paint at her easel. Came back in and found she had rollered her face with paint. That wasn't enough though, she rollered her face with the blue paint which as we all know does not come off! She was like a Smurf for about 3 days.
I'd like to add that she replicated the look again when she was 5!!!!!!!

[disneydatknee]

When my son was potty training we put a potty in his room at night as he was always stroppy about being taken to the toilet when half asleep and would refuse to go anywhere but his potty. Well, woke up one morning and he had flung a poo over this stair gate into my bedroom which was opposite his. And yep, I did step in it. He also egged my kitchen floor while "we" were napping. Fell asleep cuddled on the sofa and he snuck away and trashed the place! He's now 9 and I like to remind him of these stories when he moans about helping with the chores.

[defineme]

There was the paint ourselves in sudocrem and roll around the floor one or the open the science kit and spill blue chemicals...that lasted longest as the carpet is still faintly blue years later!

[KavvLar]

One of my DC at 3yo. I had left her in the garden happily sprinkling the flowers with the hose, as she had done many times before. Ran upstairs to grab something. Literally gone for two minutes. Came back to find her inside the house, covered in thick suncream WITH THE RUNNING HOSE STILL IN HER HAND. I have never seen anything like it before or since, the cleanup was something to behold.

[JoanFrenulum]

There was the time a certain older brother taught the two youngest that if you wet toilet paper and throw it good and hard, it will stick to the ceiling...cue a whole afternoon with the two DD playing happily in a room with ensuite, and the subsequent horror of discovering dried toilet paper lumps stuck to walls, ceiling, window...I think the room was eventually redecorated because home-made paper pebbledashing just didn't look good.

[Hopezibah]

entire contents of the sand pit brought inside and splatted all around the walls and ceiling! STill not quite sure how he managed to make that much mess in such a short time

[OhNoGroken]

My nine month old surprised the cat who made an emergency escape up the chimney. My baby and my toddler both tried to follow the cat up and then ran around excitedly. As it’s so sunny both were smothered in factor 50 and the grease made the soot all the more difficult to get off!

[Goingovertosusanshouse]

Lego, always bloody Lego!

[duck22]

One of the worst was probably when my son managed to get into the cupboard get a bag of flour, drop all over the kitchen flour covering himself in the process and the walk away with distinct footsteps following him

[MummyBtothree]

Black shoe polish all over my rather expensive cream rug!

[Bellyscreen]

Literally five minutes before we had to leave to take one of them to the GP (non urgent appointment) they both had hand soap in their hair - ‘shampoo’, they said

[Giggage]

DD managed to get make up all over the brand new carpet at 4 years old but the worst was Ds.

He was into everything, and I mean everything...kitchen cupboards especially.

One day, he's in the kitchen, "helping" to feed the dog by getting the dog food out of the cupboard. Instead he takes out the cooking oil and drops it.
It was a just opened, big bottle, it went every where. I ran over to pick it and him up, slipped and twisted my ankle. The dog then started to lick up the oil and my face.
Ds, covered in oil slides to his great delight into the hall and the livingroom with its cream carpet while I try to get up and push the dog out if the room at the same time.

I had a cream carpet in the living room. Mum said I would regret it and I did.

The dog then promptly threw up over that same carpet having followed Ds everywhere as he usually did.

Where am I? In the corner of the hallway, crying from pain from the ankle, to the left, the greasy livingroom, a queasy dog who is now lapping up his own vomit, to the right the oil slicked kitchen. Just as (then) DP walks into the house. The look on his face still makes me laugh now.

That kitchen was an icerink for days even with every detergent applied to help clean it.

There's been other incidences thanks to my son but that was is very prominent in my mind.

[fishnships]

Scribbling all over their bedroom wall in felt tip. Even the specialist paint to cover it, didn't quite!

[Mamabear1986]

With 3 boys, I have had many messy moments... the most memorable ones are:

Fake tan mousse squirted all over the bathroom. Including my eldest sons face, body... EVERYWHERE. Even his little todger got a tan.

Lavender bedtime lotion all over the bigger boys bedroom floor. Let me tell you, they didn't sleep any better that night for the amount of lavender going about!

Lipstick all over my NEW cream bedding

Glitter all over the fridge

Polystyrene balls from packaging all over the livingroom. I still find those bloody balls now!

The entire clean washing from the machine, on the floor covered in pee!

[HirplesWithHaggis]

Moving into a new flat, absolutely empty, awaiting the furniture. Friend with 18 mo toddler came to help. We went to the kitchen to make tea, having brought those first essentials with us, leaving small child unsupervised in a totally empty room.

Turns out small children can make quite a mess in a totally empty room when there's an open fire and chimney.

[Happyhippy45]

Sudocreme all over face, hair and bed. Definitely a design flaw there.

Turned back for a minute and dd had smeared her paints all over her face, hair and table.

Received a lovely food hamper. Dd and DS ripped it open and there were packaging peanuts all over the place. Took weeks to find them all.

Dd and DS asked if they could have "a bit" chocolate. They found the bar with nuts in (not the one meant for them.) Sucked chocolate off the whole bar and stuffed the unwanted nuts down the side of a cream grey couch in a rented furnished house.

Dh insisted that dd and DS upset stomach/flu would be settled by a glass of Coke. Cue projectile vomit all over the same cream couch and cream grey rug in rented furnished house.

Dd and DS eating dinner at their small table while I was in the kitchen. Open plan so I could still keep an eye on them. They were getting on so well and laughing and giggling and having a great old time.
Soon discovered they had decided to throw mashed potato at each other and smear it on the window. It took months to get it out from all the grooves and from behind the radiator.

[ifigoup]

Potty training. We are down at the bottom of our garden where there is a shared access lane. DC, aged 2, who is naked except for Crocs, does the world’s hugest sloppiest poo, which runs down his inner legs and onto his feet and shoes, then walks in it. Flies immediately swarm everywhere like, well, flies to warm shit. I screech and can’t decide whether to hose down DC or try to pick up the huge poo first. The lane is overlooked by all our neighbours’ houses...

[PickledLilly]

Lets see, we had eleven smashed eggs, a whole tube of sun cream and a nappy removal incident. That was just this week. It’s my second child, I should have learned by now .

The worst of it was as I discovered he’d taken his vest and nappy off and smeared shit EVERYWHERE and frantically started trying to clean the worst of it up, the poo coated little piglet looked me in the eye and widdled on me.

[Phillipa12]

Ds2 climbed up on the kitchen counter and got a tub of ds3's prescription baby milk powder down. They then preceded to open it and empty it over the floor and make snow angels in it......all whilst i popped to the loo. That milk powder is very sticky! Oh and ds1 was obkivious to the whole lot as even thoughhe was in the same room his head epwas stuck in his ipad.....

[BlueEyedBengal]

My eldest now 27 yrs old when he was 4 yrs old I caught him painting our black brindle staff dog white with the paint that my d h had left in the tray out in the garden. I stopped him and asked why? and he said that he wanted a white dog and thought he could paint the dog. She was so soft she stood there and let him do it , it took ages to wash off but she was fine thankfully.

[crumpet]

A spray can of silly string. All over the upstairs. Over the windows, in the bath, in the loo, on the bed and carpets... there was nowhere left untouched. They had worked hard in a very short space of time to cover so much ground.