The Boys' Measurements I Posted About -- THEY'RE GONE!!!!!!

I sit here with the mascara still running down my face.

We still have contractors at our house who needed to do some touch up paint on one side of the garage where some extra caulking had to be done. We went with this professional contractor business as opposed to a one-man company (we've been there before). In my previous post I told the story of how Hubs showed the contractor the molding at the end of our garage where I've measured the boys for the past FOUR YEARS. The contractor acknowledged that it was special stuff and he instructed the crew not to paint over the whole section. Here is the photo again from my last post:
Today I get home from work and I park in the driveway (usually I pull into the garage). The Hubs comes out to greet me and glances to the left at the molding in the garage and says, "Holy Shit (first time I've sweared on my blog) I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!! "

The new, darker colored paint for the molding on our house now covers the FOUR YEARS OF GROWTH measurements of our three sons. Here it is NOW:


I could not believe it.

I'm ranting and raving in the driveway, the boys come outside, and as the shock wears off the tears are spilling and I got so angry. Hubs called the contractor and got the secretary and told her the upsetting news and I'm yelling in the background. Then I went to the computer and emailed the contractor the photo that shows how nicely they had originally left it, letting them have a visual of the 4 years of memories that I could have saved another way and let them know I was working on a compensation figure.

A few minutes later Hubs found the contractor's cell phone number and called him at home--he'd already heard. Hubs says, "You've got kids, right? Well, you don't even want to talk to Michele right now. In fact she was so thrilled how it was originally handled that she even took a photo and she has a blog and wrote about it."

Contractor told Hubs whatever they need to do to fix it, to make it right....they'll do.....and that the leader guy would come over to try and remove the paint for starters. I don't think so--the markings were in pencil. It blows my mind that someone took the time to mark this off and now someone else on the crew paints over it.

Of course in the scheme of things I am happy to have healthy boys who can stand and be measured every couple months for the PAST FOUR YEARS, and I am so happy to have a blog to make it all feel better. The boys have just now tried to make me feel better by saying they will all get measured tonight on an actual board.

I am so upset. I should get the Nobel Peace Prize if I can refrain from assaulting the painter who did this. What was he thinking???!!!

I loved all of your comments so much about the sentimentality and the family rituals of marking the kids' growth.

One day they will be grown up and live somewhere else and they'll be the heights they end up being and they will live their lives not knowing and not caring too much about how tall they were in 4th grade or 6th grade or how the Youngest was the same height in 3rd grade as the Oldest was at end of 4th grade, etc. It won't really matter in the big, big scheme of things. But I am very upset. And now I am going to seriously market a shiny, painted white, tall board for families to use to chart the kids' growth so that moving homes and painting over walls will not break hearts, amongst all the growing pains.

Will keep you posted.
Update: It has now been an hour since the phone calls and the foreman leader guy is over here at 7:00 p.m. getting the paint off. Too bad I didn't use a permanent Sharpie pen for my markings.