Free Family Blog: January 2008

We had a pretty interesting weekend. It was going along well when things started to shift into high gear. On Saturday evening, Marian and I had hired a babysitter so we could go to the Pink Martini concert at the Civic Center. I had especially been looking forward to this concert since I really like this band and we were going to get the opportunity to meet them at an after party we were attending.

However, 18 minutes into the concert my cell phone began ringing. It was the babysitter. I waited for two minutes until a break in the music before making my way out the doors of the auditorium of the Civic Center to return the call. When I called her back she said, "Um, something is wrong with the washing machine and water is on the floor. I tried to turn the valves off behind the washer but I couldn't get them to turn." Oh boy.

I said that I would call a neighbor to ask them to turn the water off to the house in the front yard and we would be home in a minute. The last thing I said is, "whatever you do please try to keep the water off the carpet since it's new." She said, "Um, okay. I will try." It wasn't very convincing. I knew she was doing whatever she could do to control the situation but I also knew by her statement that it was probably going to be more than a small amount of water on the floor.

Marian and I literally ran out of the theater to the car. I called a neighbor and asked him to go turn off the water to the house. He said "No problem at all." Then I called the babysitters father who had called me on my cell phone. He said his wife was headed over to help. Again, I thought it must be pretty bad if she is coming from North Edmond to help clean up our house.

When we pulled into the driveway our garage door was open and I could see into the house. From the street I could see that there was water on the floor. There were 5 men standing over my washer and it seemed like chaos in the house. We rushed into a pretty big mess. Turns out that the washing machine had a broken valve and it did not shut off but just kept filling up. Water was everywhere. There was an inch of standing water in our kitchen on the back side of the island. For those of you that have been in our house you will know that the water had already traveled down a hallway past the pantry and completely filled the kitchen before traveling past the island.

Marian and I quickly began the clean up process with the babysitter, babysitter's mom, several neighbors, plus two men I had never seen before. The carpet (less than 60 days old) in our study adjacent to the washer was soaked. We have a vinyl "wood" floor in the laundry room, hallway, pantry, bathroom and kitchen. Almost every inch of the vinyl floor was covered with water. But, to my surprise it had only touched the carpet in the study. Clark's room is next to the laundry area and the carpet installer had placed a metal divider where the carpet stopped. To my surprise not one ounce of water was in his room. On one side was dry carpet on the other was probably a half inch of water. We vacuumed with three wet vacs, dried with towels and swept up the water. Once a towel was soaked we would pass it along to someone else and they would go outside and ring it out.

After about 40 minutes we got the water up. The floors were mostly dry, except for the water coming out under the baseboards. Then I spent more time with my neighbors assessing the situation. Amazing enough, the neighbor across the street has a side job as a handyman. Even more amazing the two men I did not know were his business partner, another handyman who happened to be eating dinner with him, and his son-in-law. What were the odds on that. We quickly discovered that the water valve behind the machines was frozen open. But the water leak was from the valve in the washer that was also stuck open. We were able to finally get the washer to stop filling the tub and then unplug it. Now the water would not be overflowing anymore.

Then I started asking them what I needed to do next. They said, "Nothing except fix the washer." What, I thought??? Much to my surprise all of that water had been cleaned up and not left a trace of any damage. The carpet in the study was still wet. I soaked up the water with towels and left a box fan on it over night. By Sunday morning everything was fine. You can't even tell that water has been under the carpet. Knock on vinyl "wood" floor as that may change over time.

We were feeling pretty good about our luck. We loaded up and headed to church on Sunday morning. We were planning a Sunday School party after church. Marian had prepared a craft activity for the children of our class and I had ordered pizza for 40 people. We rushed around the church getting supplies. Then we rushed out to the car so I could drive Marian over to the church pavilion where the party was being held. When I started the car, the battery was dead. We looked at each other and smirked.

I ran all the way back into the church about 150 yards to the nursery desk. I couldn't find anyone that drives a golf cart in the parking lot so the woman working the desk gave me the keys to her car. I still don't have a clue what her name is. But I know she drives an Infiniti I30 and keeps it kind of messy. I couldn't believe how trusting and nice this woman was. Anyway, I ran to her car and drove up to mine. Marian had this puzzled look on her face when I arrived. She got in the car with the supplies and said, "whose car is this?" I laughed and said, "I have no idea."

I found a man to jump the car at the same nursery desk. I don't know his name either. I had to leave the van running while going back into church to pick up the kids. Clark was walking as slow as a snail and I was thinking someone was driving off in my van because it was unlocked and oh yeah, it was running. I was late for the party because I had to pick up the kids and get the car jumped before I could drive out to the pavilion but I made it.

After an afternoon of buying a new battery and doing laundry at mom's house we finally laid down to go to sleep at midnight. We had had two "problems" and neither were major and both were solved with little pain. God is good. Our house had one inch of water in the kitchen and you couldn't even tell it now. The car was good as new. Off to sleep we went.

Until 1 AM that is. That's when Clark woke up and started wretching. He's been up for three hours (and so have we) puking his little brains out. Marian called the doctor and was told there is a stomach bug going around and he has apparently picked it up. Great. Our carpet that had been saved after the water finally took some damage since he puked on it. There I was blotting up vomit with a mixture of water dishwashing liquid (according to the carpet brochure). What I didn't know until Marian told me was that the dishwashing liquid I was using had bleach in it. Nice.

I started to think about what a headache this weekend had been but how lucky we were to be dealing with a water leak, minor car annoyance and vomit. We could be dealing with something much more serious like disease, a car wreck or an entire flooded house. We are so blessed. God is watching out for us.

Lastly, the same babysitter that mistakenly put Charlotte into the high chair without strapping her in several weeks ago was the one that was over on Saturday night. Charlotte had leaned forward and fell face first into the hard floor on top of the tray. Her face was banged up badly. This was on the day Clark's tonsils were removed. Only a mere two weeks ago. We knew it was a mistake and we felt bad for Charlotte and for the babysitter. After the water incident she may not want to come back to our house for a while.

To answer the question that is the title of this blog, VERY IMPORTANT with an infant and three year old.

We took Clark to his first movie tonight. We saw The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. Clark loved it. It was a good movie. We got Clark some Reeses Pieces, water and popcorn. He sat there with his HUGE bag of candy, big bag of popcorn and ate like crazy while watching the movie. Every once in a while he would shout out a question about the movie. We would tell him to not talk so loud. He would wait several minutes and do it again. He was so funny we loved it. His first movie was a big success.

After the movie we picked up Charlotte from a friends house and went home. Clark and I dropped off the ladies so we could run a quick errand. As soon as we turned on to Portland I noticed that Clark stopped talking mid-sentence. He started coughing and suddenly he couldn't respond to my questions. The I realized he was puking all over himself. I quickly turned around and handed him a plastic bag I had in the car. We were a few blocks from home so I turned around. I told him to continue to puke in the bag and we would go right home. He continued to throw up in the bag. Once we reached home I jumped out and went back to get him.

He looked up at me and said, "Dad my throw up fell out of the bag." He was holding the bag upside down. Upon further inspection I realized that he was COVERED in his own vomit. His car seat was covered. The back seat of my car was covered. The floor of my car was covered. It reeked and he was crying.

I quickly picked him up and set him out in the garage. Then I stripped him down and took him inside. He jumped into the bath and cleaned up. Marian and I realized that he actually wasn't sick, he had just eaten too much candy and popcorn. I could tell because it was all over my car.

Rule number one when taking a 3 year-old to a movie: Don't let them eat all the candy and popcorn they want. It will quickly come up!

I will never eat another Reeses Pieces again.