Cinnamon and Bitter Orange

There be good news, and there be bad news.

The good news, the kids had the day off from school and Quinn seems to be feeling a bit better. I came home early to watch the kids and work from home for a bit so that Ginger could run some errands and go by the grocery store (you'll notice this teensy weensy paragraph is it for the good news).

The bad news, once Ginger left I let them play unsupervised in the family room and wasn't paying real close attention to them (I could hear them, and they seemed to be enjoying themselves). Not too much later Quinn came running in to get me yelling "There's a spill! There's a spill!" At first I was a bit confused, because neither of them were drinking anything. But he seemed think it was urgent so I ran into the family room with him. What I saw was oil tipped over on top of the CD player above the TV. They were apparently playing with a blown up beach ball (that they had gotten at the school's fall festival) and knocked over a bottle of oil fragrance stuff. This is one of those Alora fragrance oils with sticks coming out of them. The fragrance was "Cinnamon and Bitter Orange". It was pouring onto and then into the CD player. Then dripping off the CD player and onto the TV. Running down the TV screen and pooling up in the controls before spilling over onto a chair cushion and onto the floor. No lie, it was like one of those commercial you see advocating extended warranties. Luckily the floor only got a little on it and the chair cushion took the brunt of it (although I still haven't gotten a good answer as to why the chair cushions were out and on the floor).

While I was a little irritated, I wasn't overly upset (these things are going to happen with kids). The funny thing is just before Ginger left we were talking about what we were going to do with the TV if we bought a new one how that maybe we could sell it. Guess that won't be happening now (unless someone *really* likes the smell of cinnamon). The oil is potent too. The whole ground floor now reeks of this stuff. And I think the stuff must be toxic because it seems to have eaten through some of the plastic on the television (although nothing on the bottle gives any indication that it might be some liquid solvent). To say Ginger wasn't happy when she got home would be an understatement. Not only was she upset because of the smell and the damage to the chair cushion she had just reupholstered (herself) not too long ago, but also because she claims the stuff is suppose to last for about 3 years (although the web site claims it's only going to last for 2 to 3 months, so I don't know why she thought that), and the kids spilled "a year and half of oil". I ended up taking more heat for it though than the kids did. I don't recall all of it, but there was something about 'needing to watch them' and 'being the responsible one'. Oh yea, there was the 'setting a bad example' since I had been playing with the ball that caused all the trouble with Catherine before Ginger left. That'll teach me to come home and try to help out in the future.