Damage

Brain Damage.

It's the only explanation.

Exactly one week ago, (I know it was one week cause it happened when Ethan had friends over last Friday night...) the toilet in the kids bathroom was clogged by a kid who used too much toilet paper. Normally the event ends with a different kid discovering it and then coming to tell me it's clogged, I fix it, and we all go on our merry way. Last week though, kids were quarantined in my bedroom so they wouldn't disturb Ethan's social gathering. And thus no one discovered it and no one came to tell me. But luckily I ventured out briefly to change a light bulb in Corey's office, and there, as I stood high on a stool... I heard an unusual drip drip drip sound coming from somewhere in ceiling... "That is a new sound... and that is a water sound, which is not a good sound..." I came upstairs to the room above his office, the kid bathroom, and saw the clogged and over flowing toilet. Clogged by use of too much tp, eventhough I, as principal homemaking committee chairperson, have tried for years to explain and enforce the proper amount of tp to use... so yes, despite my constant efforts, too much was used and clogged the toilet bowl, causing the water level to overflow - because I haven't called the plumber for that toilet yet and thus it's always running which is why we must take extra care children...  So I got the plunger and plunged and got the towels and soaked up and gritted my teeth with irritation and shortly thereafter I called the children in to show them how to properly flush a toilet and how to hear for the successful gurgling sound of the air going through meaning it all went down, and then you can take your hand off the toilet handle and wash your hands. They all nodded, they understood...

So here I am one week later, woken up at 12:30 in the morning by Joseph, who was still up from working on the ice rink - and he just went in to brush his teeth and stepped onto a cold soaked bathmat by the door, the third bathmat in that room, all 3 drenched, cause the toilet was clogged, and over flowing... again, and cold water was all over the bathroom floor... and I'm quoting Bill Cosby in my head "Didn't I JUST TELL YOU?!?!? Uh huh! Then why didn't you do it?!?! I don't know! Brain Damage!!"

Brain damage that is trying to cause water damage around here. ugh, I'm tired of parenthood right now. I love them, I just need each of my kids to have a pause button that I can click when I need to catch up or when I need them to stop. Stop running, stop fighting, stop talking, stop teasing, stop tickling, stop making a mess, stop...

But, as I let out big sighs and shook my head in frustration and said freak and "stupid kids!", I did recognize and try to be thankful for the brightside - that Joseph was still awake and caught the watery mess before it continued to run and soak for the next few hours, which is what would have happened had he not still been up.  Boy, it probably would have been running down the stairs. It would have been BAD...

We had another leak this week too - up high in the front room... see the big bump by the beam at the top there?

That was a bubble of water that I carefully popped with a seam ripper, reaching it by placing a tall stool up on the side table... totally safe! Ok, it's on my list this week - "buy a ladder". So this leak was caused by our cursed north facing house draining area on the roof, which I'd say is more accurately described as an un-draining area cause it's a north facing house. So instead of draining it's just a big ice dam area on our roof and I've been cursing whatever idiot designed this house this way when it was going to be FACING NORTH. So the ice trapped it all in and it started to soak and melt down through into the house yesterday... Ugh. House, toilet, all things on this mortal planet... can you all just not get broken or need fixing anymore?

1:20 am Saturday morning... I'm calmed down enough that I might be able to go back to sleep now. Signing off.