When Husbands are Away

Well, I’m definitely ready for Gary to get back from Ukraine.  Just one more day!  Yesterday was one of those days where you say, “Of course, this happens when Gary is gone.”  I woke up at 3:30 am and couldn’t go back to sleep until 5:00.  Ethan woke up an hour earlier than normal and was screaming, so it wasn’t where he could just stay in his crib for awhile.  I thought that I would get him out and let him play some while I went back to bed, but as soon as I got him out he signed to me that he was hungry.  So much for my idea.  Little did I know that this rough start to the day would be how the rest of my day would be. 

We have to add water to our hot water heater about once every week or two.  So, yesterday morning I added some water.  When I tried to turn the knobs back off, they just kept turning and turning and turning.  And, of course, the water kept filling and filling and filling.  Finally I got the knob turned all the way and the water stopped, but it had filled the heater way too full.  I didn’t know how to empty the water, so I just hoped that it would be fine.

After Ethan’s snack I took him in the bathroom to wash him up and the floor was flooded.  I immediately got a mop and bucket to clean it up.  As soon as I started mopping Ethan came in and slipped in the water landing on his bottom.  He wasn’t hurt, but I did realize that I would need to put a gate up to keep him out of the bathroom.  Well, he didn’t like that one bit.  He normally plays while I do things around the house, but for some reason he was quite upset over this.  He just sat outside of the gate, watched me mop and cried the whole time.

I mopped up 2 bucketfuls of water.  It was still leaking, so I put some tupperware type containers on the floor to catch the water.  I ended up having to go in and empty the containers about every 10 minutes before they overflowed, and since they still didn’t catch all of the water, I would have to mop up about 2-3 cups of water from the floor.

When I put Ethan down for his morning nap, I decided to get a shower in hopes that it would use up hot water and would cause the water level to go down.  It did cause the water to stop coming out for about 20 minutes, then it started leaking out again.  So, I called someone to call a repairman.  The repairman already had a full schedule and didn’t even say if someone would actually come out and definitely didn’t give a time.  I figured that it would cost a lot of money, and since I didn’t know when someone may just show up, I couldn’t go to an ATM to get money.  So, I asked a friend who lives behind us if they had money that I could borrow.  Thankfully they did.

In the meantime, I had invited some moms over for a salad lunch and had debated cancelling it.  I didn’t, but wasn’t able to get the patio and outside chairs cleaned up like I had planned to do during Ethan’s morning nap.  So, we just ate inside.  That worked well since I had to keep running into the bathroom to empty containers.

So, 8 hours after I found the bathroom flooded, the repairman came.  It took him about one minute to fix the problem, and I felt really dumb.  I had turned the knob completely the wrong direction, so it was tight, but tight the wrong way.  After the water was everywhere I had even gone in to double check that the knobs were tight.  It didn’t even dawn on me to try to turn them the other way.  After all, I had been doing this for 2 years.  Ahhh!  Pregnancy brain!  I just thought, if Gary had been here, he could have come home from the office and would have probably thought to turn the knob the other direction.  Thankfully, the repairman only charged $15.  That was a lot for the little time, but he made the trip out here too.  If I were in the States someone would have charged a lot more for this type of thing.  Now, we’ll have to wait and see how much our water bill is. 

My back hurt yesterday due to having to mop and bend over to squeeze the water out, etc… so often yesterday.  Thankfully, Ethan slept in later than normal today and when he woke up he stayed really quiet for a while.  So, I got to sleep in.  I actually could have slept longer, but someone called and woke me about 8:30.

Well, I didn’t have the best attitude about this yesterday when I was having to constantly go into the bathroom and empty containers and mop the floor, but I do remember thinking at one point that I was thankful that I could even stand long enough to do that and thankful that I wasn’t nauseous like I have been.  Had this happened while Gary was in Bulgaria last month I don’t know if I could have physically done it.  So, I do have many things in this situation to thank God for.

I left the mop and bucket in the bathroom.  After breakfast this morning Ethan went in and started “mopping” and then carried the mop and bucket around the dining room.  I guess he watched me mop so much yesterday that he wanted to do it too.  Here are a few pictures that I took of him “helping out”.