Who Knew Toothpaste Would Cause Such a Problem?

With four kids using one bathroom, you can imagine that it's not the (ahem) most spotless place in the house.  But, what has really been bugging Chris and I  are the 'trails' of toothpaste we found all over the counter and sink.  And then there was the 'toothpaste crud' which COVERED the top of the tube of toothpaste.

You know, something akin to this:

Crusty, sticky, nasty toothpaste EVERYWHERE!!

For some reason we were out shopping, and the subject came up (probably because we had to buy yet another tube of toothpaste for the kids because shockingly, they were out.  Could it be because there was more toothpaste on the counter, sink and tube then in the tube itself?!?!)

Anyhow....I digress.....

Chris said: "Who makes a mess with all the toothpaste?  It's disgusting!!"

Instantly, four little voices popped up:

"Not ME!!!"

              "I didn't do it!!"

                         "Don't look at me!!"

                                      "It's Aidan's fault!!"  (that one's Quinn.  EVERYTHING is Aidan's fault!!)  :-)

Somehow Chris kept his calm, and started talking about how we were going to solve this problem.

"What if we had a competition?" I helpfully suggested.

"But how will we know who's making the mess?" Chris countered.

A pause.

Then Aidan piped up: "What if we gave everyone their own tube of toothpaste? At the end of the month, whoever has the messiest tube has to buy everyone a new tube of toothpaste."

Well I'll be damned.  The boy was onto something!

So off we went and bought 4 tubes of toothpaste.  When we got home, I wrote their names the tubes and gave them to them.

Know what?

It worked!  Yep, no more toothpaste crud or goop, and the tubes are almost sparkling clean.  Who knew?!?!

Now if only we could come up with a way to get them to rinse the sinks.......