You know those moments in life where everything seems to be right and you feel really good about yourself? This blog post is not about that feeling. It's about that feeling when you have spread yourself too thin, taken on too much and feel like you are near drowning in responsibilities...
So there I was. It was a typical weeknight. I had an exhausting day at work (mentally exhausting - hard to be physically exhausted from sitting at a desk all day), picked up the kids and were feeding them leftovers as the hubby was out of town so while they were eating I can do fun tasks like empty the dishwasher, go through the mail, take out the garbage, etc. The youngest finished with his dinner first and wanted out of his high chair to take a bath. (He's obsessed with playing in the bath lately.) The oldest was still eating so I put the youngest in the bath and relaxed on the bathroom floor. The oldest came in to take a dump, decided his little brother looked like he was having too much fun in the tub and decided he wanted in, too. The moment he got in the tub, the youngest flipped his lid and tried to do what he could to beat up his older brother before deciding he couldn't handle sharing water with his brother any longer and got out of the tub. So I took the youngest to his room to get his p.j.'s on. Of course there were no clean p.j.'s in his room so I had to dig a pair out of a laundry basket of clean clothes I hadn't put away yet. By this point the youngest was running around the house naked. I got him back to his room and wrestled him into a diaper which is very similar to wrestling a crocodile. I made several attempts to get him in his p.j.'s, but he kept escaping and eventually said "screw it" and put him back in his highchair.
About this time I hear the oldest calling for me. Mind you - this was not a panic call, just an ordinary holler for Mommy. I get to the entrance of the bathroom and this is where time stood still. Either that or I had a minor seizure from what I saw. Boy Genius decided playing with the 30 different bath toys in the tub wasn't fun anymore, but you know what would be fun? Filling up cups of water from the bath tub and pouring it into the basket that holds the bath toys that was sitting on the bathroom floor. The most important fact about this toy basket is that it has holes on the sides so it will not retain water. This is a little science lesson I thought my 5-year-old already understood, but obviously I was incorrect. There was nearly a half inch of water on the bathroom floor. The rug was completely soaked as well as the towel that had been sitting on the floor for him.
It was one of those parenting moments where you have to jump into action to deal with the situation which delays your anger at the child. So while I'm cleaning up the water, he's standing in the tub repeatedly saying "sorry". Because if he says it enough maybe it will make all of the water evaporate sooner?
"Cody, this is really really bad. Do you understand how bad this is?"
"Will Daddy spank my bottom."
"Your father is out of town, he has an allibi. You need to worry a little less about him and more about me and the fact that there is a hair dryer in this drawer and you're still standing in water."
"Are you going to use the hair dryer to dry up all the water?"
"Forget the hair dryer - I'm trying to. That's a science lesson for another day."
I finally got the bathroom cleaned up - about 6 beach towels later and with both kids in pj's took them to the basement to see how much damage had been done there. The bathroom where he was playing God and I guess I was supposed to be Noah is on the main floor of the house. Our basement is unfinished, but we do have a family room area set up down there, a bar, poker table, pool table - your typical man cave. Except it is a man cave that has been taken over by children's toys. The water didn't stop in the bathroom, it came down through the floor soaking an area of the basement.
To give you some perpsective of how much water he poured out of the tub in a remarkably short amount of time - there was a box of large legos in a container that was half underneath an end table in the basement. It has a few tiny holes in the top of the container. There was water covering the bottom of the container.
He is still alive and has been on probation this week. Any violation of his probation prohibits him from playing at a friend's house today, going to a birthday party this afternoon and another birthday party tomorrow afternoon.
I will admit he has been a pretty angelic child since the incident. Good to know watching mommy have a nervous breakdown has some effect on a child.
1 comment:
Molly, you can't leave kids alone in a bath, even if there is just a little amount of water. A kid can slip and fall, get knocked out and drown. It happens all the time. And yes, I realize the irony of someone who once took like 30 killer bees in D Town telling you what's safe or not.
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