The Gas Man and the Urinator

What a lovely title...we've gone from "Rosemary and Honeysuckle" to that. How to begin??? Yesterday I was sweeping, while M'Apples was napping. I'd run and not showered, and was pushing the nap time limit...trying to sweep up that last room before I jumped in the shower, praying that Mary Aplin would stay asleep. As I bent down to sweep up my last pile, I smelled the unmistakable odor...of propane gas. Jeremiah was supposed to have a late night, but I tried to call him anyway. Of course I didn't get him, so I gave myself the, "You're a big girl, you can handle this, you don't need your husband (or your Dad for that matter)."

So I looked up the Alagasco telephone number and put in a call. It was really pretty painless, and the girl told me there would be a technician out within the next 2 hours. In the meantime, she told me to leave on any appliances that were already running and not to turn on any new ones. There went my shower, since we have a gas water heater. By this time Mary Aplin is awake and Pace is begging for the pizza and movie night I'd promised her since Daddy wasn't coming home until late.

I waited almost an hour, still no gas man, its 6:30 and Pace is starving and growing more cranky by the minute. I decide to go ahead and go get the pizza and movie...its only 5 minutes away, the gas man has my cell phone as a contact, and we'll be right back. I order the pizza, and as I am strapping M'Apples in her seat, he pulls up. I unload the girls, go back inside my house which reeks so strongly of gas that I'm worried we might blow up if I cough, and he tells me that, "No, I cannot leave him there alone...because there are clothes-n-stuff in the house." This made me a little worried that maybe he had some sort of strange clothes fetish and might really not need to be left alone to run amok in our clothes?

I watch as he does his inspection. Bless his heart, he was really sweet and trying so hard to find the leak, but our house is almost 100 years old and you can't haphazardly tug wires and spray soapy water all over the place without doing some serious damage. I, however, kept my mouth shut and an hour and a half later he left, without even charging us, saying that he felt like everything was safe now.

By this time, Pace is pretty much beside herself, begging for the pizza and movie I'd been promising all afternoon. We load up again. Dash to Blockbuster (where I got caught in a theological discussion with a guy from our church) and then to Pizza Hut (where my Hawaiian style pizza had turned to cold plastic).

When I get home Jeremiah is there and wondering why the house is so hot? He is also begging me to not put the Cinderella movie in since its already 8:30 and he wants us all to just eat quick and head to bed. I look at Pace, remembering all the promises, and tell him that now is not the time to cross me. We're watching that movie if it kills me. The DVD won't work, Mary Aplin is screaming at Jeremiah (who is trying to give her a bottle so she can go to bed), and I am pretty hacked about the fact that I am consuming all the calories that pizza has to offer, even though it tastes congealed.

We do eventually get the movie going, our mouths fed, the girls to bed, and as Jeremiah and I plop in bed we look at each other and realize that we are both slightly glistening. (Remember, I still have not had that shower!) Jeremiah goes down to check on the air conditioner, and sure enough its iced over. That gas man, with all his pulling and spraying, managed to break the air conditioner! We just turned it off and closed our eyes to sweat away the night.

5:45 am, BOTH girls wake up. This is pretty normal for Mary Aplin, but Pace--and after we'd all gone to bed so late? I tell Pace that its just too early, and she better head back to bed. "I can't Mommy, it's wet."

"What do you mean, it's wet? Why is it wet?"

"I tee-teed in it..."

"Just climb in on Daddy's side, while I feed Mary Aplin. GO BACK TO SLEEP."

"But Mommy, the sunshine's awake!"

"It's just barely awake, Pace, so close your eyes."

Miraculously, both girls fell back to sleep and I slept until NINE O'CLOCK this morning!!! Woo Hoo. I haven't done that in at least nine months. My eyes fluttered open on their own, and I rolled over to see my little sleeping angel...To find her laying spread eagle with no diaper on! Well, good morning to you too Pace, I laughed to myself. I snuck out of the room, deciding it wasn't worth waking her to put a diaper on.

I was pulling the sheets of Pace's bed, talking to Taylor about what wedding stuff I needed to work on next, and discovering that Pace had tried to hide the job with some of her decorative pillows--which meant they had to be washed as well, when she walked in the room.

"Mommy, I didn't mean to wet Daddy's bed." I just started laughing and headed into the next room to strip those sheets as well.

Now, I am sitting in a very hot house, with Pace sleeping on a bed with no sheets, trying to cool myself by eating straight out of this TUB of ice cream at my side. Sounds like a great way to lose those 5-10 lbs I keep saying I'm going to lose! But when your house is this hot and you have that much mess to clean up, you have to do something to make yourself happy :)

(That picture was Mary Aplin's first time in the big girl tub, and their first bath together.)