Ahhhh . . .

This morning Cute Big Baby's mom brought him in nearly 30 minutes late. She said they'd had a rough morning and I assumed that meant the alarm hadn't gone off or the car wouldn't start. I was close. They had a flat so Cute Big Baby's daddy had to run to Wal*Mart for a can of Fix A Flat - which I didn't tell her is the bane of existence to every tire mechanic. (Paul sighed when she said it, but I don't think she heard him. He knew that eventually that tire will probably make it into the shop for him to deal with.) Then Cute Big Baby was chasing her through the house playing and he crashed into the table leg. The child had a goose egg the size of a ping pong ball on his head. Oy. I've had mornings like that. She flitted out the door, leaving me with a baby who wasn't happy with the morning's events to begin with, plus she was leaving him with me and I had suddenly become the Antichrist in the child's eyes. Usually he lunges from his mommy's arms into mine every morning and greets me with hugs and pats, but oh no, not today. If the child had had access to a flaming torch and a pitchfork I'm pretty sure I'd be dead right now.

He doesn't cry like normal babies. This has something to do with the fact that he's not the size of a normal baby. He's HUGE. Proportionately huge, not just fat. So his cries aren't high pitched and baby-sounding, but instead they come out sounding like a wounded yeti. He did his yeti cry for 20 minutes, through breakfast and two phone conversations before I'd had enough and gave that child some Tylenol. Then we snuggled on the couch.

And of course, Cute Little Baby was seeing snuggling and he wasn't involved, so he crawled over and held his adorable pudgy hands up to me and well, I can't resist that. CBB was totally claiming territorial rights to my lap and upper body and refused to allow CLB anywhere near any snuggling appendage or surface. The fight was on. CLB was clawing at CBB's face, CBB was grunting his dissatisfaction at that which led him to head butt, which in turn made his ginormous goose egg come in contact with CLB's forehead and well, if it hadn't been so dang amusing I'd have cried with them both. Finally a partial peace treaty was reached after the tears subsided and both pursued the cuddling, wallering and general meelee that is known as "I can snuggle better than you and I am out to prove it, so there." I love my job.

--------------------

Kady is battling allergies and a sinus infection something fierce. The purple circles under her eyes last week had faded, but came back again last night. I have been worried that she would go into a full-blown asthma attack while we were without a nebulizer, but yesterday I finally got to the medical supply place and got one, so let the wheezing come. I am now prepared. Not that I want the wheezing to come, mind you. I'm just saying that now I'm only moderately worried. I hate the middle of the night wheezing, gasping for air, crying and screaming between gasps, that is a sudden asthma attack. It's scary for her and scary for me to be woke up like that.

--------------------

A few nights ago Paul went back to the big bathroom to shave. Normally he shaves in the Tinkerbell bathroom, but for some reason he didn't that night. He wasn't back there long and when he came out, unshaven, he said, "Don't use the sink in the big bathroom." I asked why and he informed me that the pipe underneath the sink had rusted through and water was just going down the drain into the cabinet underneath.

Now, nearly 2 years ago we discovered that the pipe was leaking at the joint and I had to empty the cabinet of all towels and washcloths because they were continually wet from the dripping. Ew. He was going to repair it, but the pipes looked rather thin to him and he was afraid that if he went to wrenching around on them they would burst up in the wall and we'd be in a world of hurt. So what does a redneck family do in a situation like that? Well, I'll tell you what this particular redneck family did - just leave the cabinet empty and ignore the rusty pipe. For two years. Oh, occasionally I'd ask if he could fix it and he'd shrug and grumble and then the conversation would be dropped.

Shortly after we moved in, a friend discovered that the faucet in the bathroom exactly matched the faucet in her tub and asked if I would be willing to sell it to her. You betcha. I HATE that faucet! The knobs are hard to turn for the kids and invariably the little ones leave the water running at least once a day. She bought me a new faucet and said there was no hurry, but when we were ready to replace it she'd take the old one. We've been in this house 4 1/2 years, people. And Ginger has waited oh so patiently for the faucet.

The big bathroom is our main bathroom. The bathroom where the kids and I shower and get ready. The bathroom that company uses. It's a pretty integral part of our daily life. For four days now it has been out of commission. Only the sink was unusable, but Paul isn't the neatest person when it comes to repairs and he had scattered blackened, rusted metal all over the bathroom which I did not want tracked into my carpet, so we've pretty much stayed out of there. Last night I met him on the road when I was headed to town and he was headed home. He had the necessary piece of pipe to finish the job and I sweetly asked him if, while he was in the plumbing frame of mind, he could install my new faucet as well. He agreed to it and I was ecstatic!

Then I got home last night to discover an even bigger mess in my bathroom and no new faucet. I asked him why there was no new faucet and he said, "You're not getting a new faucet because the sink is rusted through, too!" Yeah. He wasn't happy and neither was I. But I, being the sunshiney person I am, said hey, no big, we'll just get a new sink and put in the new faucet and all will be right with the world. But alas, no, it is not to be this way, thus sayeth the gods of plumbing. The vanity top was cut specially for that sink and the sink is set lower than the counter top. You just don't drop a new one on there and call it good. Which means, we have to install a new vanity and sink, plus put in the new faucet. It started as just a measley rusted pipe!!!

So when Mom called today to find out if I liked my new faucet I told her that there was no new faucet and would never be a new faucet because life sucks and I must've killed a bunch of cute fluffy kittens in a past life because all I wanted was a stupid new faucet and now my entire bathroom is USELESS and I don't have the money to fix it! The sunshiney attitude from last night was gone this morning. But my mother, the angel from heaven that she is, called TradeX in Joplin and found a white marble-y vanity top that you purchase by the foot AND a white sink to go with for $65. She was going to call some friends that do cabinets and see if they could just real quick-like cut a whole for the sink in it if we haul it out to them in the next day or two and if that happens, we'll have a new countertop, sink and faucet by the weekend! Which is good, because Jen and April's GS troop is invading our place for a haunted hayride on Saturday. We'll need a working bathroom to accomodate an extra ten little girls, who more than likely will need to pee at least once during the evening, especially after we scare them with the hayride. And I am not going to clean my bedroom enough to allow company to traipse through to use the Tinkerbell bathroom, even though it really is pretty cute.

It's Whiney Wednesday, I just realized. Eh. Go back up there and read it in a whiny voice and there - you've got my WW post.