Flash Flood

Sometimes I feel guilty about how much time I let Katie spend entertaining herself. I've developed a sixth sense that's mostly based on sound. As long as I can hear what Katie is doing, it's almost as good as seeing her. I have a razor-sharp awareness of unfamiliar sounds (like something breaking, or ripping, or foreign objects being scribbled on the walls). Ditto anything to do with the toilet. If she so much as touches that thing, I'm there in an instant.

And that is how I get through my day, especially now that I haven't enough energy to do anything besides sitting down. I let Katie play and I check in on her periodically. But then I watch Anthony or Grammy with Katie, and they seem to do a lot more active playing. I rationalize that they don't have to watch her for 12 hours straight. I wake up with Katie and I put her to bed, so I've learned to pace myself. But I still feel guilty, like I'm being lazy.

Well, today I wasn't being lazy. I wasn't lying in a hammock, eating bonbons. I wasn't watching soap operas or reading romance novels. I wasn't painting my toenails (ha, like I can even reach my toes these days!). No, I was simply trying to have five minutes to myself in the bathroom. Is that so much to ask? If you're a mom, you know what I'm talking about. I never dreamed I'd be going to the bathroom with an audience. And most of the time it's fine - I tell myself that it will help Katie to potty-train if she watches me. But sometimes, I just want to be alone.

Today was one of those days. I sneaked upstairs to the bathroom and perked up my ears to listen in on whatever Katie was doing. At first, all was well. Then I started to hear some weird sounds. Weird sounds are never good. This sounded a little bit like dripping. Oh dear. But I shook off my feeling of dread. Then I heard Katie's "frustrated" scream. It's a little more high pitched than her usual screams. But I figured being frustrated for 5 minutes wouldn't kill her. Then I heard a real cry, but it didn't really have that much urgency. When Katie hurts herself, there is no doubt. The entire county can hear her. And then I heard a sort of splat, and an even louder cry, and that's when I gave up on my uninterrupted bathroom time.

I hurried downstairs to find Katie crying, naked, in the middle of the biggest puddle of water I'd ever seen on the kitchen floor. It clearly started at the fridge water dispenser that I'd thoughtlessly left unlocked, and it reached nearly from one side of the kitchen to the other. It was a LAKE. It was creeping under the baseboards under the stove, leaking under the fridge, and had almost made it all the way to the pantry. And Katie was right in the middle, getting frustrated because she kept slipping and falling down. I just stood there, mouth agape, for several seconds. I literally didn't know where to start mopping it all up. I took off my socks, waded over and picked up Katie, and went in search of a couple of old towels that we use for big messes. It took two full-size bath towels to soak up the water!

And this was all fun and games until I realized that our kitchen floor might be permanently ruined. We were stupid enough to put hardwood flooring in our kitchen, and even stupider to use an engineered wood instead of the real thing. This stuff has a pretty thick layer of real wood on the surface, so it's supposed to be much more durable than what you find at Lumber Liquidators. Even so, you're really not supposed to dump gallons of water all over it. I see quite a few areas where it's warped. I pray that leaving the windows open helps it dry and that the warping goes away, because I really don't want to explain all this to Anthony. He may be the world's most understanding husband, but he's still not going to be happy about thousands of dollars' worth of damage.

Sigh. I wonder exactly how she caused the flood? She was naked, so I wonder if she took me seriously all those times I joked about the water dispenser? She likes to press the valve that makes the water come out, and I sometimes say, "It's a good thing that's locked, or you'd be getting a very cold shower right now!" Maybe she was hot?

Never a dull moment around here!