A mom has shared a snapshot of the scene that greeted her when her toddler son was left alone for a matter of minutes.
Having a toddler-age child is thought to be among the most stressful periods in a parent’s life. In 2018, a survey conducted by Care.com of 800 parents and non-parents found that more than half of parents said they considered the ages of 0 to 4 to be the most stressful, with kids aged 3 considered to be the most difficult.
Mandi Casteel from East Tennessee, has a 3-year-old-son, Briggs, but doesn’t necessarily prescribe to the idea of it being an especially difficult time. “Briggs is a very intelligent, very funny 3-year-old,” she told Newsweek. “He is always exploring and testing how things work.”
That desire to test and explore means there is rarely a quiet day at home for his parents and when things do go quiet, it’s usually an ominous sign.
That was evidenced one recent evening. “Briggs had just been helping prepare dinner when he disappeared,” Casteel said. “His dad, Jarrod, and I were talking about our days and cooking dinner when we realized he was being very quiet.”
Jarrod was dispatched to find Briggs who, according to Casteel, had only been out of their sight for about “3 minutes.” It turned out that was more than enough time for him to get to work on something very unexpected in the dining room.
When Jarrod discovered what Briggs had been up to, he tried to keep it quiet from Casteel. “I had had a pretty long and tiring day so Jarrod told me to not come into the dining room,” she said. “But I had to look.” Casteel said that when she did eventually see what had happened, she “couldn’t help but laugh.”
“He had found his finger paints and had gone to work redecorating,” she said. “I was pretty impressed with the orderliness of the handprints on the wall and how high he was able to reach up the wall.”
Jarrod set to work cleaning the paint off the floor, walls and Briggs while Casteel finished off dinner. Briggs, for his part, was “proud of himself and his artwork.”
“He still talks about how pretty it was,” Casteel said.
Casteel ended up filming a clip of the fallout from Briggs’ brief foray into the world of expressive art, with the resulting footage posted to TikTok under the handle life.with.briggs. It’s a channel that celebrates Briggs. While some might grimace at the idea of a toddler doing a little redecorating, for Casteel and her partner, it’s something to laugh about and cherish. He won’t be a toddler for long.
“Briggs is a true social butterfly who has a knack for connecting with people from all walks of life,” he said. “He thrives in social settings and has never met a stranger—everyone is a potential new friend in his eyes. He enjoys making people laugh and lighting up any room with his playful antics.”
Parenting a 3-year-old might be stressful, but it remains a time to cherish and from the sounds of it, that’s exactly what Casteel and her family are doing.
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