Rains Came Down and the Floods Came Up

Some nights I stay up late just writing this blog for you. It drives my sweetie crazy because when I don’t get enough sleep I get ornery. But if I don’t spend time forcing a particular story from my brain, I don’t get any sleep anyway because it rattles around in there until I spit it out. So Friday night was one of those nights. The Autism stuff is such a huge part of our lives that its story was itching to be told. I finally forced myself off the computer and up to my nice soft bed around 2:30 a.m.


The baby fussed a few times and demanded her middle of the night snack…she’s getting really chubby, by the way…but by 9:00 a.m. I was still snoozing soundly when the door slammed open. Ten-year-old Crafty was responsible, "Mom! Get up and bring some towels! We have a flood in the bathroom!" She grabbed an empty laundry basket and headed back down the stairs. In my dazed and confused nightmare, I reached for my bifocals and knocked them to the floor. It took me a minute or two to locate them and clear my head. We do not live in a floodplain!

I pulled on my clothes from last night, grabbed a pile of towels and headed down the stairs. I nearly crashed into the Dog Walker as he brought the shop vac in from the garage. "Dad’s downstairs," he said before I asked. "It’s raining in the storage room." Crafty was busy trying to soak up the water on the bathroom floor with towels that were already more than saturated. "Toss that wet rug in the basket," I suggested. "I’ll go start the washer." That was dumb! Laundry baskets have holes and I totally underestimated the amount of water one rug could hold. When I picked up the basket, water ran all down the front of my shirt and shorts. Did I mention that it was the toilet flooding? Yeah. Not clean water…

After I got the washer running I grabbed a few more towels from the laundry mountain and made my way back to the flooded area. We spread them out on the carpet all around the bathroom door. Then we did a new kind of potty dance by stomping all over them to help pick up the excess water. My sweetie, Teach, and the Dog Walker were dragging heavy Christmas boxes out of the storage room. Cardboard was soaked and so was the carpet in the downstairs family room. We only finished that area this past summer so my sweetie was more than a little stressed.

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"Get the fans!" he hollered. The kids set them all up in various spots on the wet carpet. We danced some more. As it turned out, the little fans weren’t enough to do the job. My sweetie headed to Home Depot and rented a couple of their industrial strength fans to blow away the rest of the water. They were loud and noisy, even for my house, but they seemed to do the trick. I rounded up the kids and headed them all to the van to get them out of the house. I didn't want to take any chances by leaving them stranded in a floodplain!

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 Time for details on the new contest! We thought it would be fun to give away some cute kids stuff for Easter. We have one box for boys and one for girls. If you are the winner, you get to choose. Prizes retail for about $25.00 and include things like Barbies and Hot Wheels sets. It will definitely arrive in time to assist the Easter Bunny. Now, there are three ways to get your name entered into this random drawing. First, everyone on the followers’ list will automatically get one entry. Then, if you leave a new comment on any post you will receive a second entry (limit one entry from commenting). And, if you link your blog to mine (leave a comment directing me to your blog so I can visit), I will enter you again! The contest begins at this very moment and ends on March 25, 2011 at midnight MST. Remember to leave me your contact information so I can find you if you win. Good luck!