I know every family has its crazy moments but I sometimes wonder whether my life isn't particularly crazy.
Two weeks ago I was sitting in the waiting room at the children's extra reading classes and the ceiling fell on my head. Just on my head. No where else in the waiting room, but directly on my head. Besides being damn sore, it also broke my laptop's keyboard. Because obviously I was working on my laptop while I was waiting for them.
I've had a particularly stressful week with stuff that I can't blog about and then last night Kate tells me that water is pouring through the roof in the bathroom. I look and sure enough, there is water pouring through the light fitting. I thought the geyser had burst and called the plumber. At 5:30pm. The plumber arrived shortly afterwards, climbed in the roof and discovered it was not a burst geyser (yay) but instead the storm had damaged the roof and the water was pouring through the roof on to the ceiling. (Not yay). I am waiting for the insurance company to call me back. My brave, clever, extremely competent husband had to climb up on the roof after he got home from work, in the storm, and fix the roof. I might have a tiny moan about how stubborn he can be now and then, but he has no equal when it comes to DIY stuff. He is clever and handsome and hard working and good with DIY and a good father and husband. He is a hero. I am quite fond of him.
As an aside: If you are ever looking for excellent service from a plumber, please get hold of Drainmen (http://www.drainmen.co.za/index.php). They operate in most areas in the Western Cape and they have always been super responsive and super efficient. This is the third or fourth time I have had to call them in an emergency and they never let me down. And to top it all, they only charged me a nominal amount for the call out. If I wasn't so in love with my husband at the moment, I would have smooched that plumber chap last night for coming out in the storm and helping me out.
(My mother came around to visit in the midst of the ordeal last night - husband on the roof in the rain, 3x kids running aorund screaming, chasing each other, jumping up and down - and asked me if I hadn't started smoking yet, for my nerves. I pointed to my almost empty wine glass and said "this is why I drink".)
Then, today Max and I go to the Vet shop to get dog food and Max wanted a toy, so I bought him a plastic ball that is meant for cats to play with. As we are driving home, he tells me his fingers are stuck. "Fingers stuck, Mama". In the ball. He had shoved both fingers right up to the knuckle in the little holes in the ball. I pulled over to the side of the road to try to get them out, but he said it was sore and started crying. So I told him to wait until we got home.
When we got home, I realized I couldn't take him out the car seat as he was strapped in and the strap went through his arms and his arms were attached to his fingers and his fingers were stuck in the damn plastic R10 cat ball.
I went inside the house to get soap and I tried to put soap on his fingers to try and slide them out. He screamed harder and shoved his fingers deeper in the holes. I had visions of having to take him to the ER, still strapped into the car seat. I ran over to one of Marko's three tool boxes (hero) and thank goodness I found a bolt cutter type of thingy at the top of one. I had to cut the plastic ball off his fingers. Poor child was traumatised afterwards. Party because of his ordeal and partly because I had now broken his new ball.
Sigh. At least I can say my life isn't boring.