Makeup Mess or War Paint

I have said being a grandmother is never boring, especially if you have a 2 year old whirlwind that spends most nights at grandma's house while his mother works the night shift. This particular whirlwind, Devan, helped grandma start her day with a laugh and a reminder of the difference a few seconds can make in life.
I was just finishing up with my blog post when he woke up. He was kind enough to turn on my light for me, and sat down next to me on the bed to see what I was doing. I handed him my granddaughters "Little Foot" dinosaur to play with. I saw him bend over and open one of the drawefs in the nightstand on that side of the bed, but told him to not touch, and didn't think he had. I laughed at him when he picked up the big makeup brush and started tickling the nose and tummy of the stuffed animal he held. I don't recall hearing him unzip my makeup bag, but the next thing I knew I heard him say cute, and he handed me my open lipstick. I took it from him, put the lid on, and asked him where the bag was and told him not to play in it. He then handed me the bag and the open brush to my mascara. I took it from him without even looking at him and started picking up the rest of the makeup he dumped on the bed as he handed me the bag. He handed me the compact and mirror and said "Cutte, Mandma, Cute." When I looked at the mirror to see cute I saw a two year old face covered with streaks of lipstick and mascara, with hands to match. It was one of those moments when you don't know whether to start scolding about how bad he was, or to laugh at how silly he looked, or to cry because you have a horrible mess to clean up, or worry about what his mother is going to do or say if she sees him like this. Because I had just been writing about the calling of being a grandmother I chose to laugh first. He really was a sight. After reclaiming all my makeup and making him sit still on the bed for a minute, I tried to take a picture of him before we tried to clean him up. All six sets of batteries I had recently put in the camera case were dead. (Another of my grandsons frequently takes batteries out of other people's equipment, uses them until they are dead, and then puts them back in the original equipment. He thinks he is being smart and the other person will think they left something on or forgot when they last replaced the batteries.) So we couldn't get a picture even though we tried. So we got up and I took him into the bathroom to try and clean him up. Now we learned how lasting my all day lipstick was. Regular bar soap removed the mascara, but not the lipstick. Dishwasher detergent didn't make a difference, and neither did household cleaner. Since we couldn't remove anything, we decided to eat some breakfast while we waited for his mother to return to see if she had any suggestions. After breakfast, since he looked like an indian with war paint anyway, we pretended we were going on an indian hunt with our bows and arrows to find animals in the woods to take home to our teepee.
His mother finally came home. Luckily she understood that he was a curious 2 year old. Of course she too tried to find out what would remove the red streaks. She tried some face cleanser without much luck, then she tried some toner which helped a little more, but still only lightened the marks. What finally worked was to scrub hard with a cotton ball soaked in fingernail polish remover. He cried and fought saying that it hurt, but she was able to get all but a few streaks removed.
Now I would like to say that he learned to stay out of grandma's makeup, but I can't. He climbed up on my bed this morning and immediately reached down and opened the makeup drawer and started to get the makeup out. He took out the bag pulled out the eyeshadow and started smearing it on his face saying "cute." Luckily today it was something easy to wash off.
He was sad because he wanted to be cute. He wanted to be indian. So I got to play with him and show him we could play indian hunt even if he wasn't "cute" with my makeup on.