Please don't take food in the living room

I've asked the kids to not take food into the living room. The inevitable spills are SO much harder to clean up out of the carpet, couch, pillows...etc. Our first disastrous spill came when Ethan was still under two. He took the pancake syrup bottle into the living room and made a big puddle. I rented a carpet cleaner after that, but the spot remained mashed for years. You can't see it now, so I suspect it crystallized to the point ants could come carry off what I couldn't get up. I never did see any ants congregating around that spot...so that's purely conjecture.

Pretzels get smashed in the carpet on a regular basis. Fortunately they vacuum up fairly easily ...so long as they're not soggy.

Elle takes her sippy-cup of milk into the living room. Contrary to popular belief they do leak...especially when there is a temperature gradient. In other words when cold milk is left out, it warms up and the air inside the container expands creating pressure which then pushes the milk out when the bottle is sitting on it's side.

sidetrack: Here's a fun experiment for you to try... dip the milk cap in your glass of milk, then turn it upside down on the mouth of the milk jug. You will create a milk seal. Within less than a minute the lid will pop up to release the pressure of the warming air inside the jug. Yes, milk really does warm up that fast when left out. Try it! I dare you!

Popcorn has been the one exception and we fully expect it to wind up all over the room. It's a fun treat for the children when we have movie night.

So, recently Hunter took a can of V8 juice into the living room. Yes, my children are weird. They like V8 juice. Ethan liked it so much when he first started eating real food that he would drink it to the point of throwing up. When I was younger, my brothers and I would drink it on a dare.
But I digress....
Hunter set his can on the arm of the couch. This couch is very old and that particular arm is quite saggy. Well, the can tipped over and made a puddle of V8 juice in the arm of the couch. Michael didn't notice it for a while, so of course it had plenty of time to seep down into the padding and elsewhere. Oh, great. I can just hear it now. "I don't want to go to their house. It smells like rotten vegetables." Fantastic.

We slit the arm open and pulled out all of the stuffing. Michael was surprised that the main support structure was cardboard instead of wood. Well, I guess you'd never know otherwise. I let it go for a while, just slit and flapping open. (don't we look trashy? ...ugh!)

The damage on the walls from the baby gate I can't fix. You know the old saying, "The shoemakers wife goes barefoot"? Well, the same could be said of the contractors wife. Don't get me started.

In Michael's defense he did cut me a piece of wood to go into the arm for a new support and screwed it down so the kids wouldn't put their foot through the repair job and get impaled on one of the furniture staples. That particular spot is a favorite jumping point for the living room swing. (Yes, yes... I know, I can't complain that the kids are swinging from the ceiling when I'm the one who hung the swing in the first place.) I found a sacrificial piece of fleece to act as padding and sewed the slit back up. It's not invisible, but it is fixed and a lot more cushy. I don't mind having a home that is a little patched and threadbare in places, so long as at the end of the day it is clean.

Now kids, PLEASE don't take food into the living room.