Two Years Old... And the Four O' Clock Crazies...

Oh, what a day.  Actually I should say, what an hour, because four to five was once more the hour when everything in this house went completely wild and I attempted to call Paul to beg him to come home from the library ten minutes early, only to discover that in the midst of all the craziness, my phone had broken.  Sigh.

It went something like this.

Someone small was feeling particularly naughty.  I didn't realize this.  I was in the kitchen putting the finishing touches on dinner (actually I was making a special treat for after dinner on this last night of break) and I could see the small naughty one through the kitchen door.  Her back was to me.  And then another member of the household pointed out that not all was well and that something had happened that involved the need for serious amounts of disinfectant and baby wipes and a thorough scrubbing of everyone involved.

I rolled with the punches though, put down the bowl full of batter I'd been filling with water, and came to the rescue.  No big deal, I found myself saying.  These things happen (especially between the hours of four and five when everything goes crazy).

Oh!  Look how little they were!  And not yet sneaky!

I cleaned up the small naughty one.  I cleaned up the mess.  Things were under control, I thought, as I scrubbed the floor with a clorox wipe.  And then I heard the sound: running water.

I didn't realize right away what had happened.  I looked up and saw that the front of the sink was clear and dry... and then I saw it.  The mixing bowl had tipped towards the back and leaned up against the side of the sink, above the side of the sink.  Disaster.  I glanced down and saw the water flowing down like a water fall above the dish washer.  It continued on, ambling across the blue linoleum in an arc, past the bassinet where Patrick had just begun to cry, soaking a sock someone had left in my kitchen (who leaves their socks in the kitchen?!?!?!) making its way towards the refrigerator, which is apparently the lowest point in the room.

My phone was sitting in the middle of the puddle on the counter.

Turning off the water I picked up the phone and began to do damage control.  I moved my camera. I alternated between moping the water off the floor and trying to stop the waterfall that was still spilling over, despite the fact that the water had been turned off.  I slipped and skidded several times, as my slippers apparently weren't made to operate on wet linoleum.

Finally, realizing the amount of water involved, I picked up the phone and called Paul.  Nothing.  I tried again.  Again nothing.  I'd actually been pretty jovial up until this point, but now I was annoyed.  I ranted and raved and sent an email.  I was pretty sure he was screening to get in the last few minutes of studying.  After an attempted call to my parents (because somebody needed to hear about the craziness as I went through an entire roll of paper towels), I realized that the phone wasn't making any sound at all.  Then I recalled where I'd found it... in the water.

I went back to moping and received a text back from Paul that said he was coming home (my phone can still text).  I gave up moping and picked up Patrick, who'd begun hollering fearing I'd forgotten him amid the floor waters.

You probably think that that's it, right?  I know I did!  What else could possibly happen?

Well.  Upon arriving home Paul noticed that there was a large puddle of applesauce that the same small, naughty person had dumped on the living room floor (I'd given this particular person a squeeze apple sauce packet as a treat), apparently before doing the other naughty thing I'd caught her doing.  The girls play table had been in the way so thankfully, I hadn't stumbled across it before that point.  Paul cleaned it up and I went into the kitchen with Patrick to finish dinner...

Taking a deep breath I went to the oven to pull out the brownies that, let's face it, no one in the house really deserved, and found that they were still raw... because I'd never turned the oven on (it had still been warm when I'd opened it from our dinner which was done early).  I dropped my phone, which showed two missed call that I couldn't answer, into a bowl of rice and hoped that it worked.

Turning on the heat for the brownies I dished up dinner and finally sat down on my chair in the dining room, only to discover that someone small and naughty had gotten a hold of a can of nearly empty sprite (that I'd bought to make my favorite sweet rolls) that someone else (who won't be named, but who spent the day in a quiet library and not a mad house) had left on the dining room table after lunch and that same small naughty person had emptied it into my chair (I'd seen her with it and taken it away from her... but apparently not quickly enough...) where it had congealed over the course of the afternoon.

And then it was time for Daddy to take them upstairs to get ready for bed while Patrick and I cuddled on the couch and I wrote this post...  Thankful that we had all survived a day with the craziness that is being two years old.

Hoping the typos aren't too terrible... my brain is honestly too tired for proof reading at the moment... and there are still snoods to be sewed before bedtime!