How many of you have read this classic children's tale? I have felt like Alexander two days in a row! Let me describe to you the events that led me to these emotions...
Wednesday morning
I wake up and look at the clock. It's almost 9am. This is awesome! Of course, both babies wake-up right then as well, so I jump out of bed, get Tessa up first so I can get her breakfast going and then attempt to shove a bowl of oatmeal down my throat so I can feed crying Siah. Good thing I am a fast eater! So far, it's a normal morning...
Figuring out how to get a shower in is not always easy with two kiddos. Tessa has been under the weather the entire week, so she ends up acting like she is ready for a nap within 2 hours of being awake (this means she is throwing fits every few seconds). This is not a guarantee she will take a nap-in fact, I doubted she would. But I lay her down anyways. I put Siah in his bouncy chair and place it in the bathroom. Our nifty apartment washer forces us to hook a hose up to the bathroom sink, which prevents the bathroom door from being able to close. I have learned the hard way that the shower steam sets off the fire alarm...not fun! I did not want the fire alarm to go off and wake up Tessa-so I un-hook the hose, shake out the water, and lay it on a washcloth outside the bathroom door.
Did I forget to mention the washer is soaking a load of cloth diapers? Normally they wouldn't be soaking...but I had to pause the cycle because Tessa was going down for a nap. Our washer and dryer are right in front of her bedroom. And the washer is LOUD. So the washer is full of pee water.
Fast forward to end of my shower. I am so happy that I get out and find no sounds coming from Tessa's room. She is asleep! Woo-hoo! Siah is beginning to cry though, so I hurry and get dressed so I can pick him up before his cries wake-up his sister. As I step out of the bathroom, I feel my foot sink and water rise up around it. I close my eyes, sigh, and think to myself, "Why?? Why can't I have any common sense?? I am so stupid! Of course the water can drain from the washer out of the hose...why didn't I think of that?" I open my eyes and survey the damage...the carpet is soaked through from the bathroom to our bedroom, about 5 feet. And I find that areas that appear to be dry on the surface are not...as soon as I step on them, water seeps from below and drenches 4 pairs of socks.
And it stinks. Like pee.
The primary thing on my mind is the fact that we are hopefully moving out in a month and do not have any significant carpet damage to pay for. Until now. I have no idea what the water is doing to the carpet right now. If it has seeped all the way down, I just know it's not a good situation. I try to dry it all up...I packed up all of our old dirty towels, so I first have to search for them in the boxes that fill our living room. All of our cleaning rags are in Tessa's room, where the rest of the laundry is that I never finished putting away. So I use whatever I can find. I go through five big towels, 10 washcloths, and 5 dish towels. And the carpet is still wet. I get out the cleaner and spray the area down in hope of getting rid of the pee...Total, I spent about 2 hours on my knees soaking up water and scrubbing our carpet, praying every minute that the babies would stay asleep long enough for me to finish.
And Tessa slept longer than she had in a couple of weeks! Praise the Lord! So, it was not a completely terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day...but it was a terrible, horrible, no good couple of hours. It made it worse that I felt so stupid. I really do lack common sense. It's a curse.
The rest of the day was fine. And then this morning happened.
I woke up to the baby at 8:30. Then I hear Tessa as well. The routine from the day before ensues. I open the fridge to pour Tessa some milk...and I see that the entire bottom shelf is covered in apple juice. The apple juice I had opened in the middle of the night and drank from twice after that. I knew laying it down on the bottom shelf after opening it was dangerous. So I made sure to tighten it really well each time I got it out. Apparently the last time didn't work so well.
Now I have two hungry babies and a huge mess. I put a dish towel over it (why not add to the huge load of towels from the day before?), pour Tessa's milk and leave it. Only to find when I come back to it that the juice is now dripping down into the drawer and all over the floor. Ugh! I get Tessa her breakfast and hope that it will keep her occupied while I clean up. I feed the baby sometime in there.
There is a huge bag of potatoes, drenched. A bag of bread, a sweet potato, and a couple of rubber maids. The bag of potatoes is the biggest problem. The bags have those little holes all over both sides. So every single potato is covered in apple juice. I am pretty distracted from Tessa, but am trying work fast so she won't get into the juice that is all over the floor and be covered with stickness. I check on her when I am halfway done, only to find she has decided to not eat her mandarin oranges-it is much more fun to squeeze each of them over the floor and throw them down.
She is covered in stickiness and so is the carpet. Sigh. This is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad morning. And now I feel stupid again because it's all my fault. My husband is allergic to apples. I know for a fact he didn't touch the juice before leaving for work!
How did the rest of the day turn out? Just fine so far. Not easy, as I am still getting used to being the mother of two, but nothing else huge has happened yet. It's almost 5pm. But I am humbled, two days in a row. And I pouted both mornings that so much time was taken away from my day by things I could have prevented.
What cheers me up? My babies! Or my big girl and my baby boy. Things get tough around here, but I am so abundantly blessed, even in the midst of those Alexander moments! Here is a photo to brighten your day-I know it helps to brighten mine:
