Soaking Wet

Trying to keep three little girls occupied and happy can sometimes be a challenge. But today I discovered that it is infinitely more difficult to do this when all your carpets and upholstery have been professionally cleaned, and there is not a single dry, soft place on the entire first floor for them (or me) to sit on.

I had no choice about the cleaning. I'll merely tell you that Beth had some sort of violent stomach upset on Monday and Tuesday, and she managed to completely MISS the bucket with each upheaval. So on Tuesday afternoon I called every carpet cleaning company in the phone book in a desperate attempt to find someone that could come to the house within 24 hours. Luckily I found a great company, and they spent this entire morning trying to straighten things out around here. And Erin spent the entire morning wrapped around my neck, petrified by the loud noises coming from the steam cleaner.

After he left, I realized that the kids could not walk on the sopping wet carpet, couldn't play on the floors, and couldn't sit on the couch. We played outside for a long time, but eventually Erin had to take a nap. That's when Beth and Amy usually watch a movie, but it was quite tricky this afternoon.

I tried dragging hard-backed kitchen chairs into the living room, but the girls lasted about 5 minutes in those. I finally resorted to piling blankets on top of the wet couches, and then piling two girls on top of the blankets. They thought it was a great game. Unfortunately, approximately every 2 minutes one of them would need to go to the bathroom, but would be afraid of the wet carpet. So I carried them back and forth, back and forth...all afternoon. When the movie ended I climbed onto the piles of blankets with them, and we read stories for an hour, until Erin woke up.

Never a dull moment. Never, never. But at least things are clean.