It's only Wednesday???

Okay - this is the week that will not end :) It was supposed to be my "vacation" week - I hired Heather to nanny for the week so I could work on carnival baskets for the auction at the carnival on Sat. I was going to hang out at PV all week with Karen and other volunteers working on baskets, chatting, being creative, having fun... On Sat I called Heather to see what she wanted me to have in the house for lunches and she said to get dinner staples too, she would start dinner - seriously - could my week get any better, a week with lots of adult time, a clean house (I knew Heather couldn't spend hours in my house and not pick it up) and dinner made - awesome..

ummm yeah....

Monday started out wonderfully - Heather came - I ran through things with her and headed to Prairie View. We got a great start on the baskets, creative juices flowing - okay there was the one Dora basket that toppled over and became a thorn in my side but Dawn rescued me and put it back together much more sturdily. Then the phone rang mid-afternoon and Heather says "I didn't do it"
"okay - what?"
"Your sink is overflowing, the dishwasher is running and it is backing up your sink."

This actually happens more often than I would like to admit - not fun but not a huge deal - although this time it was apparently running out of the bottom of the sink onto the floor. But after further conversation we determined that it was no longer leaking and I would deal with it when I got home.

20 minutes before I am supposed to come home my cell rings again.
"It is raining in your basement."
"o...kay"
"all over your computer"

UGH - apparently it drained through the ceiling and down to the basement and onto the computer. Poor Heather - I felt so badly for her.

I got home a little bit later and realized the U joint to the garbage disposal had come off the other pipe and it had run through there into the vent and through the ceiling vent downstairs and onto the computer - I got the u joint back on but we needed to head to dance. When we got home it was dark and I got the little ones to bed and started to conquer the sink issue. First of all I went downstairs to make sure all the water was cleaned up and everything dried - I turned on the light and it started to fizzle at me - okay leave that for daylight. Back upstairs - I took apart the sink and cleaned all clogs out and re-attached everything securely and poured drano down. (Let me add that I am working on Animal Farm questions with JJ as I do all this - plumbing and philosophy, neither of them strengths of mine!!) Then JJ realizes he has to print the homework he has spent ages getting done and needs to be turned in the next day. Ummm - no printer as it was in the rainstorm in the basement. No internet to e-mail it to anyone. I call Karen, leave Bethany and take JJ over to the Millers to print it. We are at the Millers getting it printed and thinking the night is almost over - I think the sink might have a few issues but am hoping for the best. Then my cell rings (seriously I might stop answering the thing) It's Bethany - "Jordan threw up" UGH!!!!! I tell Bethany to get her in the tub and that we will be home in a few minutes and I will deal with it!

In twelve years of parenting I have experienced my fair share of puking episodes - none of them pleasant memories - the next nine hours however take the cake as by far the single worst puking virus we have ever experienced. For nine hours Jordan threw up about every 20 minutes - violently - the first few times, violently enough she puked through her nose. I have not experienced projectile vomiting with the range she had - and I had a baby that projectile vomited. UNBELIEVABLE!!! And of course the majority of my towels are soaking wet from cleaning up the leaking sink!!

Bonus - my sink was fixed!! I decided not to try the dishwasher again Mon night since I preferred not to have it raining in one room and a puking kid in the other :)

So about 6am Jordan and I finally fell asleep - my alarm went off at 6:45am and the day began - (can I just say that I have become way way too old for 45 minute nights????) And funnily enough Heather didn't want to come sit with a possibly puking child!! (go figure - help these days - just kidding) So I spent the day with a cranky toddler and a sickish five year old instead of making baskets and chatting with fun adults :). Thank goodness the puking had mostly stopped and I found Wiggles on Comcast On Demand! (Even Wiggles sinking Mandarin much to JJ's delight - my future Chinese scholar :))

By the end of Tues I had caught up on laundry (and by caught up I mean I was back where I was on Mon - prior to all the wet towels and puked on blankets) I had clean linens on Jordan's and my beds, no one else was puking - life was back on track!! I did have fear about the wisdom of serving homemade pizzas to the kids for dinner - red sauce isn't the best choice of food when there is a potential puking bug in the house!!

Everyone went to bed, laundry got folded, I was about to drift off to sleep about 10:30pm when I hear the water turn on in the bathtub upstairs - my heart sank. The only reason I could think of for the tub to be running in the middle of the night - unless the dog had suddenly grown opposable thumbs and decided to bathe herself - was that either JJ or Jessi had thrown up and then jumped in to get cleaned up. It took all my will power to go upstairs and check - I opened both bedroom doors - Jessi isn't in her bed but there is no sign of puke and no smell. I gently open the bathroom door and Jessi is in the tub. I say, "What are you doing?" (I can't decide if this is hysterically funny or truly scary) - she says "I don't know - I must have sleep walked" Right now despite the obvious scary consequences I have to say that the look on her face and her "I don't know" is still cracking me up - but then I am still a little sleep deprived!!

Then to top off my evening - my washing machine went on the fritz!! It gave me an error code but we have lost the book and I can't look it up because - no internet ( I seriously live a 21st century lifestyle!!)

Tonight however - my house is clean - thanks to Heather, we had delicious dinner - thanks to Heather, baskets are way ahead of schedule - thanks to awesome volunteers and Heather :). And I have exhausted my limited talent in plumbing, nursing, whatever area of expertise it takes to fix a washing machine that is giving you an error code and you don't know the code :), and pseudo carpentry ( I fixed the loose, about to fall apart chair this afternoon - pseudo because it is an IKEA chair so it doesn't really take much carpentry - ir any! Might have been more humorous had I left it however!!)

The end of the week can not possible be as exciting as the beginning but I better head to bed just in case...