Crazy day!

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Thursdays are always busy right now with soccer season in full swing (all three of the kids playing soccer usually have practice or a game this day), but this day was even more busy than usual.  My Visiting Teachers came over this morning so I spent some time this morning cleaning.  They came and left and then I took MJ and Kay to a neighbor's house so I could go to the dentist (oh what fun!).  It was just a routine cleaning, but I needed the dentist to take a closer look at my mouth so we can keep an eye on any problems and watch out for osteoneucrosis of the jaw (which is a potential side effect of the Avastin treatment that I am on).   So I had to explain the cancer that I have and the treatments that I am under for that.  After I was through there (and thankfully no problems were seen) I went back and picked up the girls and then we came home for some lunch.

 Just after M&M got home from school the power went out in the house.  I had just been trying to make some reservations online to get the older kids in some swimming lessons when everything went dead. At first M&M thought it might be someone pulling a prank on us (the power switch to the house is pretty easily accessible) so I went outside to check the power and it was still in the on position. I then went downstairs to the storage room and checked the circuit breakers and they were all in the on position as well. We looked around a little outside, but how can you tell if your neighbors have power or not during the middle of a sunny day?  I ended up calling DH at work and had him do some looking online for me.  He found through our power company's website that there were some power outages in our area and the cause was unknown.  The estimated time for the power to return was around 7:30 p.m. - it went off around 3:30.  When the elementary school kids got home they said that the power had been out at school as well.  Around 5:00 I went out to the garage to see if I could figure out how to open the garage door so I could get the car out when the light in there turned on and I realized that the power had finally come back on!  Yea! 

Luke got himself ready for soccer practice and got a ride with a friend.  Then I prepared dinner and just when I was finishing the preparations, DH came home from work just in time to take M&M to practice and then stop on the way home to pick up Luke and a friend from practice and bring them home (Blondie had her practice on Wednesday this week).  While he was gone I fed dinner to the younger kids and then DH and Luke ate when they got home.  I then piled MJ and Kay into the car to go with me to pick up M&M from her practice.  We got there a few minutes before the practice ended so I let them play on the playground while we waited.

 We arrived home just as Luke was finishing up his shower.  M&M sat down to have some dinner and I heard Luke downstairs calling for me.  I made my way down there and was about to walk over to the bathroom when I realized that the laundry room floor was completely covered in water.  Luke was calling to me from the bathroom trying to tell me that his pajamas and clothes that had been on the floor in the bathroom while he showered were now completely wet.  I was just standing there trying to figure out what to do and where the water was coming from. There is a second door from the bathroom that leads into Luke's bedroom so I told him to go through that door to his room to get some dry clothes and I ran upstairs looking for DH.  Well, DH was in the bathroom upstairs so I told him that there was some water flooding downstairs and I needed his help when he was through.  I didn't wait for a response and quickly ran back downstairs to try and figure out what was going on.  I grabbed the mop and started mopping up the water in the laundry room and wringing it out into a bucket. I called Blondie over to come and help me while I grabbed a second mop.  I had M&M run upstairs for some towels to dry off some things that had been sitting on the laundry room floor.  Finally I had mopped up enough water that I could make it to the bathroom and opened the door to see the damage in there. The floor and rugs were completely soaked in there. I then opened up the shower door (it is a shower with no bathtub) and there was several inches of standing water just sitting there in the shower - the water was not draining out of the drain at all... I grabbed the toilet plunger and started plunging where the drain was until I was able to get the water to start slowly draining. I then called to Luke and asked him why he continued showering with the water not draining. His response was that he just figured the shower door would hold the water in... (...and then what happens when you open the door with half a foot of standing water being held in by the door????)   Not one of his more brilliant moments...  So all of the flooding was caused by our son showering and the drain being completely stopped up.  After I got the water drained out of the shower I had Luke bring me a screwdriver and I removed the drain cover so I could clean out the drain.  I also noticed that the sink drain wasn't working too well so I cleaned that out while I was at it. In the meantime Blondie and Kitty were mopping for me and I kept wondering why my husband wasn't coming down to help and see what the problem was.  So I went upstairs and found him laying down on our bed with some pretty severe stomach cramps.  Apparently he told me that after I came and found him in the bathroom, but I must have left the room already because I didn't hear him say that. Luckily the floor there in the bathroom and laundry room is tile and none of the water made it to the bedroom or family room carpet so there wasn't any damage done.  And apparently the low point in those two rooms is the laundry room by the washer and dryer.  While we were trying to clean up the water MJ kept trying to play with the water in the bucket and then once I found her sitting in the middle of the laundry room floor trying to play in the water!  Oh what fun she can be at times!