"T" is for Toilet

I thought I should probably get right to the point and start making things now that I have this blog to document my progress. So, this afternoon, while Zeb was napping in the stroller, I opened up the fabric cupboard and got to work thought about what I'd like to make first. I've been meaning to make a set of alphabet beanbags for several months now. Luke and Jaz are fairly obsessed with learning about letters and reading and writing, and I thought we could probably think up a few fun games involving the beanbags (if I ever got around to making them). My original fantasy involved finding 26 different types of printed fabric, one for each letter in the alphabet. The "A" fabric would be dotted with apples, and the "B" fabric might have balloons on it while the "C" fabric could be covered in cars, and so on and so forth. This is why so few of my ideas actually make it past the idea stage. Because clearly, once you get through with all the apples, balloons, cars, dogs, elephants, frogs and houses, etc., it's going to be hard to think of something that starts with the letter "Q," let alone find a fabric covered in miniature quilts.

These are the kind of things that keep me awake at night. Really. I lie in our huge nest of a family bed, with peaceful, sleeping bodies all around me, and obsess over what kind of fabric might best represent the letter "X." Maybe skulls and cross-bones? Like for X-ray? Or would that be too confusing? Would Luke and Jaz then think that "X" was for "skeleton," or might they get even more confused and think that "X" was actually for "pirate?" This is the kind of thinking that can drive a sleep-deprived insomniac mama crazy. So I've decided to put an end to that idea and move forward with a simpler version of the alphabetic beanbags. Please take a moment, though, and appreciate just how fabulous it would have been if I'd been able to pull it off. Instead, I am planning on making the whole set out of only 4 different soft, flannel fabrics. Stay tuned for more details.

Lena is away and won't be back until after bedtime on Thursday. She's gone to someplace in New York for a Forestry Conference, where she will be presenting a poster about her research. The kids and I decided to mourn her absence this evening by eating "breakfast for dinner," a concept that horrifies my sweet love and is absolutely prohibited when she's home. So I made Belgian Waffles from scratch, topped with maple syrup and whipped cream, with chicken apple sausage and applesauce on the side.

While I was making this masterpiece of a breakfast dinner, just when my hours of preparation were about to culminate into a perfectly-timed, hot-off-the-waffle-iron meal, I heard a series of squeals and shrieks from the other room. Jasper was yelling in his most excited and animated voice for Lukas to come quick.

"It's an EMERGENCY, Lukas! You have to SEE this!"

And then moments later, Lukas calmly appeared at my side in the kitchen, where I was whipping the heavy cream to perfection.

"Um, Mom? Um, I think there's an emergency happening in the bathroom. The toilet is, like, overflowing water all over the floor."

Much to my shock and horror, the toilet was, like, overflowing water all over the floor. It was pouring out of the bathroom and into the front hall. It was like a cartoon of a toilet overflowing. I'd never seen anything like it before in real life. Water was literally gushing out of the back of the toilet. I joined in the scream fest and added to the flood by trying to flush the toilet again. Bad idea. We raced upstairs to our better-equipped bathroom, and I told the kids to grab as many towels as they could. We ran back down, and threw towels over the floors in the bathroom and the front hall, and I plunged the toilet, and finally there was calm. We all peeled off our cold socks and rolled up our pants so that we wouldn't feel the wet cuffs against our bare legs. I realized that the waffle iron was beeping in the kitchen. I feared the sausages were burning. I began to transition from panic about the toilet overflow to panic about a ruined dinner. Meanwhile, my three children were all grinning. I don't know that I've ever seen them quite that giddy before.

"I am definitely going to share about this at meeting tomorrow."
"Can we do this again sometime mom? Can I overflow the toilet again?"
"No, this is not the kind of thing that we ever try to do on purpose."
"But that was SO funny, Mom! Remember when you were screaming and running upstairs to get the towels? I thought the water was never going to stop! I thought it was going to keep flooding the house until Mama got home!"
"Pleeeease Mom, can we do it again, Please?"

I hope not. But we can relive the experience over and over and over again, like we did at dinner tonight. And, despite the unappetizing discussion of the Great Toilet Water Flood, the food was delicious.

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