Notes and Tomatoes

Oh the trouble those kids got into last night.  It was not a good evening, but I'll get to the no fun part later. 

 First, not long after I got home from work yesterday afternoon Eva came and passed me a note: 

Faith is here?  "Yes, Eva.  I know Faith is here."  I wasn't sure what that "G" was about, but whatever.  I didn't think too much of it.  A few minutes later, Faith came and asked me if Eva gave me the note, because she is *hungry.*  Oh!  "Faith is HGRE"  Hungry.  I totally see it now, although I believe we may need to work on her spelling and also the concept of keeping a whole word on a single line.

And another.  I'll just tell you while it actually reads, "Let th cats aut," this one is supposed to say, "Let the cats out."  Yes, DJ still makes the cats live in the basement and yes, the kids and I still let them out when he's not around.  :)

Faith's pre-kindergarten photo this morning for day 29.  Yes, I still take her picture (twice!) every single day before I send her off to school.  I will continue to do so until she makes it impossible.  My very unrealistic goal is to have a picture of each of the three kids, on the front porch, every morning before school, every day kindergarten through high school.  The last picture will be cap and gown just before we drive off to graduation.   I'm trying.  29 days in, and I'm still doing well.  Why?  . . . I have a project I'm working on.  That's all I'm saying.  You'll see the first installment at the end of her kindergarten year. 

 Oh, look.  I started letting Faith ride the bus again!  She's been begging me.  However, if she's going to ride the bus, I make her take a Target sack with her.  You know, so she can puke in it.  Miss Kelly didn't look very excited to see her on the bus again a few mornings ago.

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Would you like to know why we had a bad night last night?  Lots of reasons, really.  The kids *screamed* at me for about three or four hours, straight.  I do very well with constant demands, questions, "I need this, I want that," but when three kids start screaming for hours on end, I don't hold up so well.  Anyway, I was at my wits end by dinnertime, which of course, made the following even more unbearable.

DJ had a client give him a few of the season's last tomatoes yesterday.  You know, the little, golf-ball sized tomatoes, bright red and extra delicious?  Faith and Cawood both LOVE tomatoes, so I wasn't surprised when that little boy of mine asked for one.  And another.  And a few minutes later, another. 

All three tomatoes I rinsed in the sink, but with the third tomato, Cawood yelled at me, "No rinse it!  I wash in toilet!" 

Gross Cawood!  Faith and I both scolded him and told him it's yucky to wash your food in the toilet.  Of course by this time I'm worried it's too late and he's already eaten two tomatoes that he's washed in the toilet. 

I busied myself with something and the next thing you know, it's bath time.  I took the kids upstairs and found a tomato in the kids toilet.  Yuck.  I fished it out, threw it away, grabbed some toilet paper to wipe the water I'd dripped on the seat and went to flush it away.  The toilet filled to the brim, but did not overflow.  With a few minutes, the water level receded. 

I did the plunger thing.  Nope.  Still clogged.  I asked Cawood (although I already knew the answer,) "What's in the toilet?"  He answered, "Three tomatoes."  Well, I'd already fished one of them out, so really just two.  We don't have a snake, so we'll have to work out how to fix it later (maybe, buy a snake?)  Anyway, I told the kids not to use the toilet. 

An hour later, I was in the bathroom and saw that Faith had pooped in there.  Faith very rarely flushes, which was a good thing in this situation, so it was just floating along.  "FAITH!!!!  Why would you use that toilet!?!?!? Do not touch it!  Do not go into that bathroom." 

So what did she do?  She waited the 30 seconds for me to walk away and tuck Cawood into his bed.  She went into the bathroom to flush away her poop. . . and she overflowed poop water all over the bathroom floor. 

So a toilet clogged with two tomatoes ended up with poop overflowing all over the bathroom floor, DJ mopping with bleach water and (finally!) someone (DJ) thought to turn off the water to that toilet.  Problem officially on hold. 

There he is.  Guilty as charged, giving hugs and kisses as I walked out the door this morning for work.  It doesn't matter how much mischief they manage the night before, they're still pretty cute and fun the morning after.  Oh!  But there is a bright side to all this: those tomatoes I thought he was washing in the toilet and then eating?  He totally didn't eat them.