Two days ago I spent an hour or more mopping the kitchen floor. My pristine white-linoleum-days are gone. Now I am happy if I can achieve a dullish grey even with a good amount of bleach. There are nicks all over the floor where the children have dropped knives in the process of emptying them from the dishwasher. It's a pretty frightening sight to see Meggy casually walking around with three knives the size of her arm in each hand shouting, "Knives comin' through!!". Ella is much more cautious and will take them one at a time from the dishwasher to the drawer about six feet away.
Little Mark used the potty on his own today. He pulled off his pants and made some poop. With great fanfare I congratulated him, flushed, and gave him his reward. I then went upstairs to sing his praises to the rest of the family. As we were all upstairs, he took this opportunity to flush his pajama pants down the toilet. When I returned, I found the foyer and hallway flooded. With horror I looked into the bathroom as little Mark was pulling his pants out of the toilet. The bathroom rug sat atop the water like a raft, while toilet water artistically flowed over the edges of the bowl like mall fountain. We did our best to shop-vac the water up, but towels did the best job.
On a happy note, I had been meaning to mop the hall and foyer, but LMark expedited the work for me. Moreover, without my new washer and dryer, taking care of the towels would have been a two-day job. With these new appliances, the 14 towels are almost dry.
Rose is sick upstairs. Since initially writing about the stomach bug we picked up in Greenville, there have been only one or two days where someone hasn't been exhibiting symptoms from one end or the other. Ella was sick when we missed the feast of the Apostles. The Sunday following that Rose stayed home with a sick Meggy. We almost missed St Elizabeth day because Ella and Meggy were sick early that morning (tandem vomiting). Max was throwing up yesterday morning around 5:30. And now Rose is sick again. I can't think of what the kids might be eating on a regular basis to get them so sick--so we'll just continue to blame it on the cousins.
We're leaving for Charleston & Savannah tomorrow. I won't be done with the Deathly Hallows by then, so I'm looking forward to reading it on our trip.
