When it rains...

When it rains, it pours - and quite literally this morning.

On Saturday mornings Dwight plays basketball at the gym.  Today he happened to leave his phone behind.  But no biggie.  We never call him there anyway.

The morning was plugging away rather uneventfully until I discovered the girls playing in the upstairs bathroom with their kitchen toys.  This is a big no no in our house.  They're not supposed to play with their kitchen toys in water because we've had several ugly incidents in the past.  So I unhappily scold them and tell them to clean up the water they've spilled on the floor.  In the meantime I hop in the shower and throw Kardynn in the bathtub (which is where all the girls are supposed to be headed, as soon as they finish cleaning up the mess).   Annika saunters into the bathroom and informs me that Kiersten has made a big mess.  Kiersten comes bursting behind her, in tears, saying the bathroom is leaking.

Uh oh.

I reacted poorly.  I might have cursed.  I'm not sure.  But I definitely pounded the tile with my fist.  Not a graceful reaction.  I jumped out of the shower, grabbed my towel and ran down the hall.  At this point, water is pouring out of the bathroom.  The hall carpet is getting wet.  There's water an inch deep all over the bathroom and more pouring over the sides of the toilet.  I grab the plunger and manage to get the wad of toilet paper on its merry way.  (Later the girls informed me that when the wad of toilet paper wouldn't go down, they just kept flushing.  Naturally.)

I'm madly trying to soak up water with all the towels we have...and hopping mad to boot.  Eventually I get the water soaked up reasonably well.  I transport sopping wet towels from the tub to the laundry room and start load number one.  And then I jump back in the shower.

Breathe.

I tell the girls to get in the bathtub and we resume our morning.  I explain that I hope they've learned to not keep flushing the toilet.

The day will get better, right?!

Just now I discovered the puddle of water on the floor in the kitchen.  I unscrewed the vent (water poured out when I did that) and discovered that the puddle is on the other side.  Of course it is.

Is it time to page Dwight at the gym?

Hot Dog

O told me he wished that he had gotten lunch at the cafeteria today because it was hot dogs.  I explained that those hot dogs, unlike the ones we have at home, are made from real meat.  He said, "Oh..." and then added incredulously "are they made from dead dogs?"

Kardy-isms

Kardy was just explaining to Dwight that someone could not go to work if they did not have "a work necklace" (a badge).

Yesterday she was asking where Dad was - was he "at work" or "sleeping"?  So I love her take on Dwight's life.  He goes to work at the gym and he comes home and sleeps.  *haha*

Water

I'm not really a PDA kinda person.  My husband and I can probably be sickeningly sappy but we tend to keep it to ourselves.  But today I just have to put it out there how much I appreciate my guy.

Sometimes I think about the enormity of the decision I made at the tender age of 23.  I guess I have to credit good instincts because I'm pretty sure I didn't know what I was doing.  But thirteen years later, I occasionally reflect upon it and am amazed by my good fortune.  Maybe I used up all my good luck on that one thing.  I dunno...but whatever it was...I'm pretty grateful.

Today my guy called me to remind me to drink water.  I won't get into all the specifics of why that's a very sweet gesture...you'll just have to take my word for it.  And sure, he does lots of other sweet stuff too but that phone call put a smile on my face and for once I decided to blog about it.  I mean, you need to know that we can be mushy gushy, right?!  Seriously, he's a great guy.  I'm pretty darn lucky.

Swimming Progress

After my triathlon relay, I decided I wanted to learn how to swim correctly.  So two days later I was at the gym for my first swim lesson.  Ironically my swim teacher is someone who taught my kids at another facility, several years ago.  That didn't make me feel the least bit silly...no...not at all.  But I'm totally putting my ego aside and just going for it.  And it's great.  I've already learned so much in two lessons.  My swim teacher is awesome.  And she does a great job juggling the wide range of skill levels in our adult swim class.

Yesterday was swim lesson number two and I'm feeling really good about my progress.  At one point my teacher told me my freestyle looked almost perfect.  Yay!!  So now I just need to practice, practice, practice!!  I'm trying to focus on keeping my arms straight and keep my side breathing smooth.  It still doesn't quite feel natural to me but I'm getting there.  Yesterday I had an AHA moment when I thought maybe I would "take a break" and swim with my head out of the water.  When I went to try it I realized that swimming with my head out of the water now feels incredibly awkward...after just two lessons!!!  Wow!!

After my lesson I stayed for another half hour practicing my stroke.  At one point someone hopped into the lane next to me and started cranking out laps.  I always feel a little intimidated when a proficient swimmer gets in the lane next to me.  But at one point when I stopped to catch my breath, I watched her and realized that she was making some mistakes - mistakes that I've been making up until now too.  It felt awesome to KNOW that...I actually know a little something about what I should be doing.  Having said that, she still looked pretty good to me and was clearly swimming with ease.  Meanwhile I felt like I was inching across the pool because I'm struggling to get it all together.  I'm just trying to go slow and focus on getting everything right.  So I was shocked when at one point I ended up next to the lady in the other lane and I realized that I was very easily maintaining her pace.  It felt to me like I was going really slow but I was actually going just as fast as she was. I think maybe I was a little frenetic in the past...so now that I've become more efficient, it feels calm and slow and easy but I'm probably going just as fast as I had been in the past.  *haha*

TB

We were on the elevator yesterday and Kardynn got excited when she saw the alarm button.  "Taco Bell!"

It's Baaaa-aaack!

We have a little girl in our house who desperately needs to nap. She's taken maybe half a dozen naps since the end of May...and this is a VERY BAD THING. For a while I thought maybe she was just giving up naps early and while that sucked for me, such is life.  But it has become increasingly apparent that she NEEDS to nap. She gets so grumpy.

The problem started when she stopped sucking her thumb in May.  Since then it's been nearly impossible to get her to sleep during the day. At first it seemed like she was okay.  But she's not.  So last month I really started my campaign to get her back to napping.  I tried laying with her (which in reality was pretty much me trying to be a straight jacket for her because she was not going down without a fight). That was no fun and it didn't work anyway.  Well, it worked once when she finally wore herself out but the rest of the times she wore me out first.  I tried bribery. That didn't work. I tried lulling her to sleep in the car...and in the stroller. None of that worked. So now I'm trying the only other thing I could think of. Eight months after having taken it down, the crib is back. *fingers crossed*

Crib, originally uploaded by hezro.