Local flooding

and not from the noreaster that recently hit our area over the weekend. No, this was the 2 YO type. Apparently, he feels that his working mother doesn't have enough to occupy her time and shouldn't have a minute to park her arse to do anything selfish!

I was in the living room, checking my e-mail after having worked with 5-12 year old kids all day... about 150 or so today, taking DS2 to the pediatrician to have his strange reaction checked out (more about that later) Both boys were with me at the doctor. The day was long for all of us. At that time DD was home with DH eating pizza. We arrived about 5:30 and DH promptly left. I digress. So I'm sitting checking my mail from the past 2 days when DS1 calls from the kitchen, "Mom, you better come quick. We have a problem here. It's an emergency." So up I get and run the 25 feet to the kitchen. I see water pouring in on the kitchen floor from the powder room on the other side of the kitchen and I hear the toilet running as if it's flushing continuously...... ummmmm, I'd say there's an emergency!

I splash through the water, the meantime, DS1 is running butt naked and crying frantically cuz he has to go to the bathroom. "Go upstairs" is my response. DS2 has drug a chair over to the counter with the pizza box and is helping himself to a slice, DD is standing on a chair screaming some unintelligible sounds that I still have no idea what meant. I make it back to the bathroom and open the tank which is almost empty... hmmmmm Guess I should turn the water off to the tank, so that was next. Now to clean up the floor. Where o where could the shop vac be? Oh where o where could it be??????? Quick call to DH... Of course, in the garage, and full of dry dirt... wonderful! Naturally, I didn't discover the last fact until I had carried the thing back to the house (did I mention our garage is detached??) so back I go to dump the dirt in the garbage can.... lug it back inside and attempt to put it all together. For some reason, there was no suction. I am still clueless as to why but after I cleaned most of the dirt and dust from the filter, the suction seemed to improve immensely. hmmmmmm

I put the contraption back to it's 'working' state and try the suction again. Voila, Houston, we have hit paydirt and the water begins to miraculously disappear off the floor and into the shop vac.... or so I think. How foolish I am! No, I look back and now there is a yellowish/brown water on the floor behind the shopvac... hmmmmm Turn it off again, take it apart, dump the little water that is in the conatiner out and try to discern the problem. I still at this time, have not determined what caused it, but temporarily abated the leak from the shop vac back to the floor, long enough to suck up the remaining water. Get a rag towel. Dry the floor, Dump the shop vac, rinse it out. Take it out to the garage to have DH pulling in and proclaim, "so what is the problem" "Oh, nothing dear. Just a little water play that got out of hand" Smile turn and storm away!

Return to the house, (now well past my children's bedtime) and tell the 3 to arise from the basement. Their father is home and he can deal with bedtime. Back to the toilet, DS2 has recently learned to use wipes. now I use cloth diapers, so normally we use cloth wipes, but we have flushable ones for the older 2 kids sitting on the back of the johnny. Well he was wiping himself (apparently mom didn't do a thorough enough job?) and putting the 'used' wipes in the hopper. I'd say he used half a box (they tell you not to try to flush more than 2 at a time) I pull the wipes out of the bowl with the bowl brush, put them in a platsic shopping bag (guess it's good DH 'forgets' the cloth ones we have whenever he does the grocery shopping) Put that out in the trash. Try to turn the water back on tp to the tank. I must have had Herculean strength when I turned the valve off to get the water to stop running from the toilet. Cuz now I can't budge it... great.. one more thing for the grown up male of the house to be annoyed with me about... because Lord knows I don't do enough!

ERR... guess there'll be no knittng tonight. Could have been worse, I could still be doing our taxes!