The Day So Far

It started at breakfast.

After consuming two bowls of cereal (and working on a bowl of yogurt), Alex announces randomly that he “will throw up again.” Yes, dear boy. It will most likely happen again. “No, I will throw up soon,” he says. Well, I say, I doubt soon is an accurate assessment. “No,” he assures me, “I will throw up tomorrow.” At which point, Erin pipes up, “And I will throw up on Sunday…and Megan can on Monday.” Yes…I see…well, thanks for the heads-up everybody.

And I think to myself…this could be an interesting day. I had no idea.

Megan, Alex and I all have the same cold. It’s not a pleasant one. I haven’t tasted my food in days from the stuffy nose, and the coughing is no fun either. Oh…and it’s making my voice sound funny. Which Erin pointed out during breakfast. Yes, I say, I have what they call a frog in my throat. I should have known better because she spent the rest of the morning wanting to randomly look in my throat for my frog. Even after I explained that it’s not a real frog, I just meant Mommy sounds like a frog…no, she’s still certain that a small green thing will be popping out of my mouth at any moment. Oh, and now she’s got one, too. 

So anyway, we make it to Meijer to buy a few sickness related things (a second vaporizer, for instance, since the two kids who need one sleep in separate rooms, and more tissues). They did great. I even pick up some donuts for our snack as a treat (and because I don’t have much else for snack to give them right now). 

We get home, eat our snack, and I sent them out back to play while I did some cleaning in the kitchen (windows open so I could hear them/keep an eye on them). Oh wait! I have a brilliant idea. I need to clean the boosters and high chair, so I take them all out back, run some soapy water, grab four sponges/cloths (one for each of us, of course), and invite them to help me “clean” the chairs. Of course, the water ended up full of sand and grass, but we did get off more dirt than we put on. I put the pieces on the grass and went to get the hose. 

I rinse off the pieces with clean water, just as Alex announces he needs to go poopy. Which in Alex-speak, means it’s either already there or very close. So I drop the hose, tell Erin she may “finish” cleaning off the chairs to stop her from asking me for the 1200th time, and ran with Alex into the house. As I pull down his pants, a puck of poo falls out onto the floor. GRRR!!!! I pick it up, put him on the potty, and am scolding him for going in his pants when Megan starts wailing from the backyard.

I finish with Alex and run for the back door and see the poor little thing absolutely drenched from head to foot and sobbing uncontrollably about it. I call in both the girls, trying to manage all three at the same time: Alex, sit there for another minute, you need to finish pooping/Megan, you’re fine/Erin, leave your shoes on, yours aren’t wet, I’m only taking off Megan’s so I can get her pants off/Alex, give me a second/Megan, sweetie, Erin is sorry she got you all wet, calm down, baby/Erin, why did you get Megan all wet?”

Of course, I’m saying all of this with no voice and no hope of being heard over all the ruckus, and then through it all comes Erin’s response: “Well, I was trying to clean off Megan’s snot with the water, but it didn’t work.”  

That’s right…she sprayed her sister in the face with the hose…trying to clean off her snotty nose. At that point, my rising irritation vanished — it just wasn’t that big of a deal. Alex will get the potty thing eventually, Megan was no worse for the washing, and Erin, sweet Erin, was just trying to be helpful. And all of the sudden, the humor in the whole episode hit me and I hugged Erin, sent her to get some clothes for Megan, cleaned up Alex and then we all got re-dressed and went back outside to play.

We came in after a while to have lunch, which the kids ate and then we started the nap time process. More pottying, diapers, all favorite toys accounted for, etc., etc., etc.

I closed their doors and headed downstairs to eat my (still tasteless) lunch and then decided to actually get back to my original plan for the day: cleaning the kitchen. I started unloading the dishwasher, went upstairs to scold Erin and Alex for still being awake (though when I walked in, Erin melted into giant tears because “Alex had yelled at her” to stop talking to him so I had to comfort her, have Alex apologize, make sure she understood that she was NOT to talk to him anymore and then exited again), and finally got back to my dishwasher, mildly annoyed that half of its contents did not get clean and needed washed again. I scrubbed things up and started to reload. I cleaned out the drain (man that’s a lot of water in the bottom that didn’t drain), ran the garbage disposal to make sure nothing was blocking it (oops, almost chewed up a Gerber spoon that had fallen in), checked for water under the sink (none), and tried to start the load anyway.

Nothing.

And suddenly I realized…sometime during our Meijer run…my dishwasher died. That’s why the first load hadn’t finished properly (thus the unclean dishes), that’s why there was water in the bottom of the dishwasher that wouldn’t drain, and that would explain why the button pad on the front has an odd black residue around and between the buttons. Oh, crap.

And at that point…I conceded defeat. I texted Eric to tell him about the dishwasher. And came upstairs to blog about our day so far. Because it has definitely, definitely been a day to remember…

Happy Friday!

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