Month: October 2006

Yes, we hit another milestone with Hayden today: our first call to Poison Control. (It’s 1-800-222-1222, if you’re wondering.) And it’s a long story: yet another reason why people who get up at 6:45 have a jumpstart on people who get up at 9.

So, first, Ryan gets up a few minutes late for work. I can hear Hayden starting to cry. It’s before 7. Ryan gets dressed and goes out to the front of the house to put on his shoes. He comes rushing back in—the refrigerator is leaking water. Hoo boy. If I wasn’t done sleeping before, I was done sleeping now.

Step one: shut off water to house. Ryan runs out to the shut off with the monkey wrench. I grab all the extra towels in the house and take them to the kitchen. Ryan hurries back and grabs some old, empty detergent buckets we had sitting around to catch the water from the cracked (and still leaking…) tubing. But the buckets were not empty.

The buckets held the rags and towel that we’d ruined in redoing Hayden’s room. No, not with paint or caulk or mud. They were covered in little bits of wallpaper backing. Bits that had covered our floor for months, even after the project was complete. There they are, the evil things, in that picture of the redo in progress. They’re baa-aaack…

Once the water is off, extreme crisis mode is over and plain crisis mode kicks in. In plain crisis mode, it is acceptable to feed, change and clothe your hungry baby. Ryan throws all the shoes out of his closet so he can get to the crawlspace and take a look at the damage down there.

Ryan has to make a couple trips into the crawlspace and one trip to switch the water back on before plain crisis mode becomes not-so-crisis mode. In fact, in my mind, I’m already in We-often-just-live-with-problems-like-no-water-through-the-fridge-door
(But-I-hope-we-actually-get-this-one-fixed) mode. Ryan cuts off the cracked part of the tubing and tries to reconnect it to the fridge; no go. It’s still dripping, so Ryan puts a couple crimps in it and secures it so it’s hardly dripping. At this point, it’s after 8.

Hayden is crawling around, playing. He finds some of the scattered wallpaper bits. He eats one. I pull it out of his mouth. I call Poison Control. They say he’ll be fine. Ryan goes to work an hour and a half late. I still have yet to get all the wallpaper bits cleaned up and call the plumber that lives up the street.

I’m guessing this is why the fridge manufacturer suggests copper piping instead of plastic tubing…

Nonstop (mis)adventures here!