What is this picture of you ask? Well, that's me jumping in our hallway ... and that's water splashing all over the place every time I land. Let me rewind a bit, say a couple of hours. I was actually being productive, which doesn't happen a lot these days. I had the girls cleaning their room, and I scooted down the hall and started the third load of laundry of the day. Then I went back because if there is no supervision, the whole cleaning thing doesn't so much happen real well. It's more like rearranging of messiness. So I was there for a good amount of time making sure things actually were put where they were supposed to go. When they were finishing up the last few things, I walked down the hall to the family room to put in the movie I'd promised them (Muppet's Christmas Carol - my favorite!!). I stepped in a wet spot, but since that's hardly the first time I've had that misfortune I kept right on walking grumbling to myself about who must've spilled a cup of water that they got without asking. Seconds later the girls came running down and stopped in their tracks. "Oh man Mom! I just stepped in something wet ... I think it's a giant pile of spit-up or something. Ewwww." I didn't even turn to look, and replied, "Well then why don't you wipe it up?" She started to I think and then, "Oh man oh man oh man. Mom! I think it's coming from the washing machine!" That did get my attention and as I walked closer every step I took left a wet footprint in the carpet. Not good. I opened the washer and lo and behold it had got stuck on filling with water. There was a good half inch at least underneath it. Sweet! Needless to say, after soaking every towel I own, I finally admitted that it wasn't making a dent in the damage. Noticing that the washer was still dripping I spent the next nearly hour trying to empty it by filling up bowls of water and dumping them in the sink. Meanwhile, Coop was racing home and the girls were reveling in the chaos. Meri was jumping up and down the hallway, trying to make as big of splashes as she could. Jenelle was pacing back and forth wringing her hands, carrying on with a nonstop flow of dramatic, rather obvious and considerably unhelpful exclamations like, "Oh no! This is a big, big problem. I can't believe all the water. Can you Mama? I have never seen a problem like this before. What are we going to do? We can't live like this. Are we going to have to move? The washing machine should NOT have done that. Why is there water everywhere? Oh no, oh no. There is still water everywhere. Mom, it is not getting any better. We need to find a new house that doesn't have water everywhere. Are you going to tell Daddy? I cannot believe this. This is not good." And on and on and on. And now our house looks like this, and will for "best case scenario, the next three days":
I think I counted 12 machines total running at once. I might have missed a couple though. We are grateful at least that we're just renters and so aren't footing the bill to fix it! The only useable rooms are our bedroom and the girls', so we're hanging out back there doing things like this:
Oh and I forgot to add the part of the story where last night after a few hours standing in ice cold water trying to fix it, I had to get the kids out of the house to get some dinner so we went to McDonalds so they could play in this huge play area and maybe salvage the night and end on a good night. But disaster followed us. Right as we got our food they closed the play area for "sanitary reasons." If the gaggle of 7-year old boys were to be believed it was because someone had pooped on the red slide. Awesome. Had to feel for the scrawny, zit-faced teenage boy that got sent up there to clean it up (He kept dropping the cleaner down the slide, coming down to get it and climbing back up again much to the kids' amusement). He's so not paid enough for that. But if anything could make this whole thing any better it would be this:
He's three months old today!!! Can you believe it? And as long as he's fed on time, he doesn't give a rip about wet carpets, bath tubs fell of wet towels, a broken washing machine, the never-ending noise and humidity (it's like 85 degrees in here, no joke) and the general chaotic state of the house. Well, that makes one of us.
What is this picture of you ask? Well, that's me jumping in our hallway ... and that's water splashing all over the place every time I land. Let me rewind a bit, say a couple of hours. I was actually being productive, which doesn't happen a lot these days. I had the girls cleaning their room, and I scooted down the hall and started the third load of laundry of the day. Then I went back because if there is no supervision, the whole cleaning thing doesn't so much happen real well. It's more like rearranging of messiness. So I was there for a good amount of time making sure things actually were put where they were supposed to go. When they were finishing up the last few things, I walked down the hall to the family room to put in the movie I'd promised them (Muppet's Christmas Carol - my favorite!!). I stepped in a wet spot, but since that's hardly the first time I've had that misfortune I kept right on walking grumbling to myself about who must've spilled a cup of water that they got without asking. Seconds later the girls came running down and stopped in their tracks. "Oh man Mom! I just stepped in something wet ... I think it's a giant pile of spit-up or something. Ewwww." I didn't even turn to look, and replied, "Well then why don't you wipe it up?" She started to I think and then, "Oh man oh man oh man. Mom! I think it's coming from the washing machine!" That did get my attention and as I walked closer every step I took left a wet footprint in the carpet. Not good. I opened the washer and lo and behold it had got stuck on filling with water. There was a good half inch at least underneath it. Sweet! Needless to say, after soaking every towel I own, I finally admitted that it wasn't making a dent in the damage. Noticing that the washer was still dripping I spent the next nearly hour trying to empty it by filling up bowls of water and dumping them in the sink. Meanwhile, Coop was racing home and the girls were reveling in the chaos. Meri was jumping up and down the hallway, trying to make as big of splashes as she could. Jenelle was pacing back and forth wringing her hands, carrying on with a nonstop flow of dramatic, rather obvious and considerably unhelpful exclamations like, "Oh no! This is a big, big problem. I can't believe all the water. Can you Mama? I have never seen a problem like this before. What are we going to do? We can't live like this. Are we going to have to move? The washing machine should NOT have done that. Why is there water everywhere? Oh no, oh no. There is still water everywhere. Mom, it is not getting any better. We need to find a new house that doesn't have water everywhere. Are you going to tell Daddy? I cannot believe this. This is not good." And on and on and on. And now our house looks like this, and will for "best case scenario, the next three days":
I think I counted 12 machines total running at once. I might have missed a couple though. We are grateful at least that we're just renters and so aren't footing the bill to fix it! The only useable rooms are our bedroom and the girls', so we're hanging out back there doing things like this:
Oh and I forgot to add the part of the story where last night after a few hours standing in ice cold water trying to fix it, I had to get the kids out of the house to get some dinner so we went to McDonalds so they could play in this huge play area and maybe salvage the night and end on a good night. But disaster followed us. Right as we got our food they closed the play area for "sanitary reasons." If the gaggle of 7-year old boys were to be believed it was because someone had pooped on the red slide. Awesome. Had to feel for the scrawny, zit-faced teenage boy that got sent up there to clean it up (He kept dropping the cleaner down the slide, coming down to get it and climbing back up again much to the kids' amusement). He's so not paid enough for that. But if anything could make this whole thing any better it would be this:
He's three months old today!!! Can you believe it? And as long as he's fed on time, he doesn't give a rip about wet carpets, bath tubs fell of wet towels, a broken washing machine, the never-ending noise and humidity (it's like 85 degrees in here, no joke) and the general chaotic state of the house. Well, that makes one of us.
