Crappy Day

I had not slept in three days. My baby had yet another ear infection and was waking up every hour. On top of that, I was still fighting the über-cold from Hell. The only thing that got me through the previous night was knowing that at 6:30 am in the morning the doctor would put tubes in her ears and her suffering would soon be over. And, hopefully, mine too.

The procedure went well and we were back home by 9:45 am. By 11:45 am, the twins were playing happily in the basement and my baby was still sleeping in her crib. I decided to sieze the opportunity to enjoy a nice, quiet lunch complete with a brownie for dessert. About halfway through my pasta, twin number one waddled into the room and informed me that she had an accident. The kind of heavy-weight accident that is no match for feather-weight Elmo undies. (Sigh.) No sooner did I say, “OK let’s clean you up,” then her co-twin appeared and informed me that he too was poopy.

Oddly enough, I lost my appetite after that. Now I was doing laundry. As I was emptying the twins' hamper into the washing machine, I was met with another surprise: one dirty, used, blue Pull-Up. It smelled something fierce and I yelled louder than a drill sergant! After I finished that load, I decided that I might as well knock out another one. And run the dishwasher. It was a few hours later when I noticed that none of the water was draining. It had backed up into both our upstairs tubs and the toilets wouldn’t flush. I was positive that a certain mischievous little boy had (yet again!) flushed something down the toilet that didn’t belong. Once it was a plastic, travel size bottle of hand sanitizer; another time, a plastic tub toy. What was it today?! I asked him repeatedly, but the boy swore up and down he didn’t do it. Yeah, right!!

Since my dear sweet hubby would not be home until 3 am, I called for reinforcements. A few attempts to snake the object from the outside clean-out valve proved unsuccessful. Time for plan B: Remove the toilet from the hall bathroom and snake it from that end. Hmmm. . .someone didn’t think this plan through. Now all the water in the pipe behind that toilet was flooding the bathroom and the hall. Said reinforcement was yelling for towels.

After that mess was somewhat cleaned up, more attempts to get the object out were made from the clean-out valve in the basement. No luck. Plan C: dig up the pipe outside and see what could be done. By then it was dark so we called off Operation PLEASE GET MY TOILETS WORKING! until the morning. I still needed to go to the pharmacy to get my baby’s post-op prescription so we all piled into the car. On my way there, I called for other reinforcements to help me clean and dry the carpet in the hall. This is when I had my meltdown. I was exhausted and all I could do was cry. I pulled it together and went inside the store. The cashier’s over-enthusiastic inquiry as to how I was doing today was met with an icy stare. I had no words.

Back at home, my troops rallied and we got the hall cleaned up and two out of three kids in bed. Unfortunately, the little one fell asleep on the way home from the pharmacy and had absolutely no interest in going to sleep at bedtime. Finally, at ten o’clock everyone else in the house was asleep. I drowned my sorrows in a pan of brownies then fell into bed. It was a crappy day, both literally and figuratively.

AFTERWORD
I’m happy to report that the night went much better with tubes in the ears. She only woke up once and quickly went back to sleep when I gave her more ibuprofen. In the morning, my hubby and my dad dug up the pipe and found the problem: settling. The dirt had shifted so much that joint fitting stretched and the two pipes weren’t lined up anymore. Seriously?! I ate crow for lunch and apologized to my sweet, angelic little boy!

Oh, and scrubbed tubs, floors and toilets and washed towels. :(