Mayhem and Mishaps

Wow! What a Saturday we had! It all began Friday night. I had put a load of laundry in the washing machine before going to bed to get a head start on Saturday's chores. Saturday morning, Chris was the first one out of bed and he headed to the shower. In our house, if someone has just flushed the toilet or is running water, then we only have enough shower pressure to wash your toes. So when he started the water in the shower he yelled into the bedroom, "Is water running somewhere?" Knowing that the rest of us were in bed, he logically concluded that something was wrong and headed downstairs to investigate.

The next thing I heard was, "Amy get down here!" To make a long story short, the water inlet valve in the washing machine quit working and therefore the water had continued to flow up and out of the washing machine ALL night long. I usually curse the trapdoor under the washer that goes into the crawl space (we think) because it makes the washer uneven so it shakes the whole house during the spin cycle. But Saturday morning I was thanking God for it because 95% of the water went down below the house.

Anyway, in my hurry to run downstairs I had grabbed the baby so he wouldn't roll off the bed and took him with me, but had not grabbed my glasses. On my way back upstairs to get my glasses I noticed a beautiful red heart, a few red X's and miscellaneous other drawings on the hallway wall that hadn't been there when I went to bed the night before. Apparently while I was putting the baby to bed, Alex decided that paper wasn't good enough for him and crayoned all over the walls going up the stairs. So after I finished mopping up the mess in the laundry room, I got out the Magic Eraser, and a pair of rubber gloves and put Alex to work on the walls. Thankfully the Magic Eraser worked with a little added elbow grease from me. I would have expected that out of him when he was 2 or 3, but he is 5 years old and old enough to know better! Later on I also discovered a nice red X on my off-white pillow! Although I'm thrilled he's finally interested in coloring and artwork, he was seriously warned that he would not like the consequences should it happen again... and they will be much worse than losing TV and computer for a day.

Previously I posted about our new pet hamster, well, we have another new pet... a parrot. Marigold is a rainbow colored baby parrot. We have to take Alex's word on the rainbow colors, because we have yet to actually see her with our eyes. But I do know she has been very well taken care of so far, including getting tucked into bed and being sung to each evening. An imaginary parrot is one thing, but no matter how hard we try, we have not been able to get Alex to accept the imaginary part of it. To him, she is very real! I'll have to ask him tonight if she has met "the boys". Ever since he has been having meetings with his superhero friends, the boys have not come around. In fact, I'm not even sure they came back from Wisconsin with us. We had a lot of fun when they were around. Looks like I have a mystery to solve!