The Smell

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at my sister-in-law's house today.  Good food.  Great company.  I love Thanksgiving.

We drove home tired and worn out.

We unlocked the door.

And the smell hit us.

A terrible, dirty, week old dishrag smell.

Then we remembered the flood that happened yesterday.  

And the water in the carpet.

And the fact that I forgot the carpet shampooer.  (Which wouldn't have worked anyway since the water had all ready soaked the carpet and the padding.)

And so we started ripping out carpet...

(Why I took pictures of the carpet being ripped out, but never took pictures of the actual mess to prove why it happened...I have no idea.  But, you tell in the picture, the darker part of the pad was soaking wet!)

The Flood

This morning was going to smooth to be true.

The kids and I all woke up in a great mood.  We had just finished breakfast and the boys were at the table coloring and Lauren was in her high chair coloring as I was cleaning up the kitchen.  There was no yelling or arguing.  The kids were laughing.  The TV was off.  Colors weren't flying all over the kitchen.  It was so peaceful.  

And that should have been my first clue.  

As I was finishing up dishes, I kept hearing the toilet in the kids' bathroom running.  The handle gets stuck sometimes and I kept thinking "in a minute I'll go fix that..in a minute."  

Well, a minute later (or twenty) I went to go fix the handle.  But, as soon as I stepped into the hallway, my feet splashed.  

The toilet overflowed...again.  And this is where I remembered that Sean said Nathan had stuck something down the toilet and we never looked to see if anything was in there.  

But, this time...THIS TIME...I discovered that the whole time I heard it running, it was spilling over water.  

Water in the bathroom.  Water in the hallway.  Water in the closet.  Water soaked into BOTH of the carpet in the kids' rooms.  Water EVERYWHERE.  

I grabbed every towel I could find.  I yelled for Sean to go get every towel from my bathroom.  

That was a mistake to call the kids because as soon as the boys discovered what happened, they decided it was so much fun to start splashing in the water.  

I soaked every towel in the house.  I rung them out and dried them and soaked them again.  And then again.  

I pulled out the wet-vac and started sucking up water.  I dried the towels and soaked them again.  

Using the wet-vac I worked and worked until my arms were so sore and I couldn't get anymore out of the carpet.  

I finally gave up and made plans to get the carpet shampooer from my sister-in-law tomorrow.  

Tomorrow.  Thanksgiving Day.  Oh man, I gotta start cooking!

For Someday

Any time my kids do something that make me want to laugh/cry/scream/pull my hair out/smile/get a full time job and put them in daycare, I am always given the same wonderful words of wisdom from many people in my life: SOMEDAY you will miss this.  SOMEDAY you will laugh about this.  SOMEDAY you will want this back.  


And a few somedays later, I always do.

So, I am writing this post for someday, so that I can read back and laugh about it.

Today was one of those crying/screaming/pulling my hair out days.

My husband and first child share the same birthday.  Since my husband hasn't really celebrated a birthday in the 6 years since our son was born and he is turning 30 this year, I wanted to do a little surprise dinner for him.

So, last night I made sure the house was spotless.  This doesn't happen very often.  Not at all, actually.  My plan was to get up early this morning, finish up some laundry, get me + all the kids ready, and when my hubby came home from work, take him out to a nice dinner...where all our family would be waiting to surprise him.

I opened my eyes this morning to see my two boys sitting on the edge of my bed watching cartoons.  My two boys that were covered head to toe in white powder.  I laid my head back down on the pillow with a sigh.

Then as I thought to myself we don't have any baby powder, I sat straight up in bed.

I asked my oldest what was all over them, which he replied "powder", like duh, mom.

As I was still half asleep I told him to go get the bottle of powder.

Imagine my freak out and great panic when he brings me a bottle of COMET.  Yes, the cleaning, scrubbing kind of powder.

They were COVERED in it.  I jumped out of bed and immediately put them in the shower.  While they were rinsing off, I called poison control.  As he was laughing his head off, the man from the poison control assured me that my boys would be fine.  Just some very dry itchy skin.

After getting them all cleaned off and lotioning them down like crazy, I wrapped them in towels and headed to their room to get them dressed.

I stopped at the edge of my bedroom door.

My ENTIRE house was covered in Comet.  From the front door, all over the dining room, through the living room, and stopping at my bedroom.  The floor was solid white.

This is where I screamed.

I tip toed through the house with the boys and got them dressed and sat them at the kitchen table and threatened them not to move.  Then, I had to get my baby girl up and put her in the high chair with her breakfast.

Then, I swept.  And swept.  And vacuumed.  And mopped.  And mopped.  And mopped.  And mopped.  FOR THREE HOURS.

My mom showed up to save the kids  help me.  She brought a steam cleaner for hardwood floors, so I steam cleaned and then steam cleaned some more.

About 5 minutes after all the floors were finally clean and I had let the kids move from the kitchen, I hear Sean yell "Mama, Nathan put something in the toilet and there's water in here!"

I ran into the bathroom and found myself standing in ankle deep toilet water.

This is where I pulled my hair out.

After cleaning that mess up, my dear husband called to tell me that he will be working late.  As in, probably all night late.

This is where I cried.  And sobbed.  And cried and sobbed some more.

After the day that I had, and all the surprise planning for his birthday, there was no way he could not come home all night long.

I hated ruining the surprise for him, but he must have heard the desperation in my voice and was maybe a little worried about the kids' safety, but he came home...On time.