Shorts

Tell me if this has ever happened to you.  You are sitting on the couch reading Little Critter books to your children when you suddenly hear water gushing in your basement.  At first you are in denial and then you rush downstairs to see that, yes, it really is true.  All of this comes at a very bad time.  Your husband is still in bed recovering from a difficult surgery.  You are exhausted.  You are not sure whether you should sit down and cry or tell your children to get on their bathing suits and have some fun.  

We got four buckets to catch the water.  The kids thought it was great.  I called the plumber.  He came within the hour and told us it was a problem with the dishwasher, not the plumbing.  His rationale didn't make sense.  Since there was no way that Kevin could get on his hands and knees to investigate, Father-in-Law came to the rescue.  He found that a paintbrush had gotten caught in the trap underneath the sink and was causing water to back up and and flood the dishwasher and leak through to the basement.

Note: Do not ever call plumber "Rick" again.
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May 2012 will go down in infamy.  If a rough surgery and plumbing issues weren't enough, we also got sued.  The day I got served summons, my first thought was: "How appropriate.  This is already the worst week of my life.  Why not get sued, too?  Awesome."

Fortunately, my husband spends all day, every day, defending lawsuits.  He said, "Do not worry."  Also, fortunately, our auto insurance company hired a really awesome trial attorney to defend us.  Our attorney was incredulous at how little property damage there was as a result of the auto accident that prompted the lawsuit ($185), and how much medical damages the plaintiffs are alleging ($475,000).

Life is never dull.
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Recently I decided the two older girls needed new electric toothbrushes. As soon as I saw the packs of toothbrushes, I knew there would be a problem.  No, actually, there would be a near-war.  There was only one girly-colored toothbrush in each pack.  Do the toothbrush manufacturers really think that all families have one boy and one girl?  What about the two-girl families?  I bought the packet that had one pink toothbrush and one green toothbrush, and I braced myself for a battle when I got home.

I put the toothbrushes in a paper bag and told the girls that they had to close their eyes and pick a toothbrush from the bag.  "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit," as Clara's teacher Mrs. Hicks would say.

Despite the prepping and the speeches I gave them about being content with whatever color they got, World War III did in fact nearly break out.  Thankfully Kevin was home to help with the aftermath.

These little things really matter when you are four and six years old.
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My parents and two younger siblings are in town and it has been wonderful to have them here.  We have enjoyed the visit and the extra sets of hands to help!  I have even slept in a few mornings.  Yay!

In the midst of this crazy time, we also had another distraction.  We participated in Lemonade Day, which is a program to teach business skills to kids. We had a lemonade stand last weekend and it was fun.  Although, since the kids participating were all under the age of eight, it was a lot of work for the moms too.

I plan to write another post about this sometime soon.  It really was a great learning experience for Meredith.

Our major contribution to the lemonade stand was making all the cookies.  I had some of the kids come over to our house to help make the dough.  Two of the kids were four and the other two were six and seven.  The four-year-olds started playing "sandbox" with the flour at one point.  They each wanted to have a turn cracking eggs into the bowl.  Sophia, age 2, was also along for the fun.  She kept trying to lick the sugar off the counter and begging to help with every step.  We tripled the recipe, twice.  So, we ended up with 58 giant sugar cookies.  I think I deserve a medal for having survived this experience.

Sometimes I think I do everything the hard way!
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Did I say that May 2012 will go down in infamy?  There is another reason. I have been very fatigued and nauseated with morning sickness this entire month.  Yes, we are expecting #4.  Someday I will be very happy about this fact.  Right now I am still trying to survive!