independence comes at a price...

Here's a picture of the Calvinator exercising his rapidly-expanding list of skills. He can now feed Jude a bottle, open the fridge to get his milk, and is learning to go potty by himself. It's the pottying that can be unpredictable. Yesterday while doing our normal go-potty-before-naptime routine when Calvin noticed a floating reminder of an earlier success in the day...not sure whose it was, but that's not important. Calvin felt compelled to flush while on the pot. Instead of flushing down, it filled up the toilet, alarming Calvin and putting a halt to our little practice session. I got Calvin off, went to grab the plunger, when I heard the toilet flush again.. knowing how full it was, I sprinted back to a gushing fountain of a toilet to plunge with all my strength so as to minimize water spillage...but it was too late, a few gallons were already on our floor, spreading everywhere quickly. I dropped the plunger and ran this time to get towels...a big bath towel, then another and another...feeling almost under control, I heard Cami squeal from downstairs and yell up to me saying, "Mom, where is this coming from?" I ignored her at first assuming it couldn't be as bad as what was in front of me...but hearing the spattering water onto our main floor made me realize that our little clogged toilet problem was ballooning into a nightmarishly expensive problem...all because Calvin flushed. Out of sheer panic I dialed the overpriced plumber number that was on our fridge and began to tell them about our little disaster...you see, our plumb line has been through a lot...or I should say a lot has been through our plumb line...including a small washrag, foam bath toy, an unknown quantity of hair things, and recently a cardboard toilet paper tube...just to name a few. I am convinced that some of these items may have never exited our house...but that's another story. While I was on the phone I realized it wasn't the plumbing, but a very bad leak through the floor and ceiling beam that might require one of those water damage control companies to come out. After a few phone calls, I located one that would come out and assess the damage for free. After poking around with the moisture meter, he told me that fans blowing on it would be good enough. Praise the Lord! I was truly thankful about this, since it would cost $100-200 per day to use their special drying equipment. And that is why we put up this lovely teetering fan elevator...because our accident-prone family needs another deathtrap in the most-often-used walkway of our house.