Mum’s parenting hack goes wrong leaving bathroom and kids coated head-to-toe in green paint

Donna Evans, 32, thought she’d found the perfect working from home hack to keep her kids busy while she took a Zoom call.

She dressed her daughter Hallie, seven, and son, Isaac, three, in swimwear, put them in the empty bath with some paper and water-based paints, thinking she could easily wash them when the call was over.

The teaching assistant had tried it before and it had worked perfectly as it meant any spillages were easily cleaned and there would be no stains on the carpet.

She squeezed a little bit of different colours of paint onto a plastic plate, thinking it wasn’t enough to create too much mess.

But somehow in the short time she was outside the door, they managed to coat themselves, the bath, the walls and everything in reach in a thick coat of green paint.

She’d accidentally left the whole bottle of paint on the side of the bath with her shampoos and her kids had got their hands on the full bottle.

Luckily,  despite needing multiple showers to clean her children – who retained a green tinge for several days – and some time to spruce up the bathroom, Donna, of Cannock, and her plasterer husband, Kye Evans, 33, saw the funny side and are happily sharing pictures of the mess.

Donna laughed: ‘The children are  usually quite well behaved. They’ve done things in the past like draw on the walls, but this is a new level.

‘Hallie had even washed Isaac’s hair in paint! They were covered in it and their skin had a green tinge for a couple of days.

‘I had to laugh though. They were only kids being kids.’

The pair love playing together but Donna said that as Hallie gets older, she loves steering Isaac towards mischief.

Donna added: ‘Now Hallie is a little older, she encourages Isaac, and they have grown slightly more mischievous.’

She certainly outwitted her savvy mum, who prides herself on coming up with tips and tricks to make parenting easier.

‘I thought it was a really great hack, or solution – but clearly it isn’t.

‘I had to take quite an important Zoom call, so I stepped out of the room and sat outside the bathroom door, leaving the kids to it.

‘That way, I could keep one ear out for them and make sure they were okay.

‘I didn’t realise it at the time, but I had stupidly left the paint on the side of the empty bath, with the shampoo and shower gel bottles.

‘I could hear them laughing, but assumed it was just them playing and having fun.’

But going back into the bathroom, Donna’s heart sank when she saw the mess.

Donna continued: ‘I had no idea where to start with the clean-up. They’d got paint absolutely everywhere.

‘Of course, they thought it was hilarious and I ended up laughing with them. They looked so silly, beaming away with bright green skin.

‘I had to fill the bath and rinse off the sides to get the paint away before I could even think about washing them.’

In the end, Hallie and Isaac both needed three showers each – and even after that, their skin had a green tinge for a few days.