Broken.

One of Evan's friends commented on his wall on Facebook, that it seems like we've had a lot of hardships these past few days.

Um...no crap.

Let's start with Friday.

Friday, at around 2:45, I am sitting on the couch crocheting, with my lovely cat Roosevelt sitting next to me, wondering when my baby is going to wake up. We're supposed to leave in 15 minutes to pick Elisabeth up from school. Roosevelt, who'd been in a deep, kitty cat sleep, suddenly bolts upright and starts looking around like he can hear something. I listen, and hear something that sounds like my washer. Stupid cat, I'm just doing laundry. Then I remember--I haven't touched the laundry at all that day. Then I think, hm...must be a street cleaner. But that's dumb, because they don't clean the streets with water. So, I start to go to the dining room window to see where the noise is coming from outside. As I pass the open basement door, I realize that noise is much louder IN THE BASEMENT. I run downstairs to see what can only be described as an indoor waterfall that has sprouted from the corner of my basement's ceiling. I say a few choice swear words and frantically look around to see how deep the water is and what it's going to ruin. I start pushing boxes as far from the water as possible and fly upstairs to call Evan while screaming at the cats to quit trying to kill me by running in front of my feet.

I call Evan and start yelling insanely into the phone that there's a flood in our basement, that a pipe has burst, that the water is going to ruin my things, etc., etc. Evan asks if I've turned off the water. No. That would be smart. I am not smart, I am frantic. He tells me to look for a red knob and to turn it off. I walk over to Basement Falls and cry out, "There are no red knobs. Just yellow ones!!" Evan tells me it doesn't matter what color they are, turn them off. (Remember, not smart, just frantic). I turn both knobs and the water magically stops gushing. There is much happiness. Evan tells me he is on his way home, to call our landlord and let him know what's up, and to make sure everything important is out of the water's way.

I call the lovely parents of one of Ebeth's friends to ask them to bring her home from school for me and start making phone calls. I go to wash my hands and realize that we have no water. (Duh. I know. I turned it off. Not smart.) So, I start calling plumbers. Did you know plumbers are expensive? Did you know that plumbers charge overtime when you have an emergency that takes place on a Friday afternoon? Yeah, well, I sure didn't and about crapped my pants when I heard some of their hourly charges for coming to my house to give me water. Holy cow. So, I book an appointment with one of them (who said they wouldn't be there till midnight. Ugh.) and I accost Evan as soon as he walks in the door about what the bill will be. He grumbles and makes his way into the basement. I am bemoaning the fact that I can't wash my hands, use the toilet or shower, when Evan asks if I turned both knobs off in the basement. Yes! Of course. Well, you see, I only needed to turn off the one connected to the burst pipe. Which happened to be the sprinkler system's pipe. Which means I did not need to turn off the water to the house. Listen, I am no plumber. If I were, we'd have nicer things because I would be making TONS OF MONEY ON OVERTIME. So, I call the emergency plumbers and cancel my expensive appointment. We no longer have an emergency.

Evan begins cleaning up the mess in the basement and I start trying to find someone with a shopvac so we can clean up the puddles as to avoid our house smelling of mold. That's when I hear yelling and lots of bad words. I immediately think that Evan has been attacked by some evil monster (still in flight or fight mode, people) and run to the basement. Evan is all sorts of red in the face from anger. "What's wrong?" He dropped his phone. Face first. Into the puddle of water. His phone is a blackberry. Awesome. Evan never drops his phone. That's usually something that I excel in.

So, we rush to take his phone apart and start blow drying it. Poor Elisabeth and Julia are fending for themselves with Sesame Street playing in the background and crackers being thrown to them to keep them quiet. We read on line that Evan should put the pieces of his phone in rice to dry it out. Evan does so and declares it will sit there for 48 hours. So be it.

We end up finding someone with a shopvac (the same people who picked Ebeth up from school) (they are totally getting a thank you note with a tin of cookies) and get the mess cleaned up.

Saturday and Sunday are spent with little to no drama. I am sick out of my mind on Sunday and we also end up visiting Santa. Nothing too drastic.

Monday, Evan is sick. Sorry, Evan.

Yesterday. Oh, yesterday. It started off normal. Julia and I ran errands all day. We picked Ebeth up from school. We came home and the girls were watching tv and playing with the cats. I called Evan to find out when he's coming home so I can start supper. I am putting away the clean dishes, when I hear a THUD and Julia starts crying. Ebeth says she rolled off the couch. I go to pick her up and Julia is hysterical. She's crying much harder than normal. I check her over and see nothing out of place. I cuddle her on the couch and she starts making these weird crying sounds whenever I touch her right forearm. I call Evan. I tell him I think something is wrong with Julia's arm, that she won't stop crying and that her cry isn't the normal "Julia-is-a-whiny-baby" cry. He tells me if I'm worried to take her to the ER. I give it a few more minutes, but then Julia is holding her right arm to her. I decide to take her in.

So, we travel to the ER, and Elisabeth is quizzing me on if she gets to sign Julia's cast if her arm is broken. I tell Elisabeth not to broadcast to the whole waiting room that Julia may have broken her arm. Seriously, the girl did not look like it was broken. She was moving it just fine and was running around the waiting room giggling. Nice.

We get her in, Julia screams and cries whenever a nurse comes anywhere near her, and finally the doctor looks her over. She says that Julia seems to be okay, but because she's so young and can't talk, she wants Julia to get some x-rays. Evan goes with her to get the x-rays (which Julia did NOT enjoy, in case you were wondering) and the doctor comes back to say that, yes, Julia did break her arm. Right above her wrist. They tell us she'll need to get a cast at the orthopedic office the next day, but they'll put her in a splint for now.

And here she is last night...




The poor, poor baby. :(

I took her in today, and they did more x-rays (still didn't like them). Instead of a cast, they gave her a brace to wear for 3 weeks. She should heal just fine, since she's just a baby and their bones are better at healing. She's doing much, much better than we thought she would be. She slept well last night and is currently taking her long afternoon nap.

If things could stop breaking until after Christmas, that would be fabulous. Thanks.