When It Floods, It Barfs

Sundays have been kind of crazy around our house lately with Aaron attending the singles' ward. The last Sunday in October was especially crazy because I went visiting teaching and was visit taught as well. We were also invited to dinner at a fellow bishopric member's house. Right in the middle of a game called "Word on the Street" (which was really fun, btw), we heard our phone buzzing with a call. We ignored it since we were engaged in a fierce battle. But when the phone rang again, we decided to answer. That's when the craziness of Sunday really began.

It was Heather on the phone telling us that the water heater had broken, and our living room was flooding. Aaron and Dave went to our house to help. I waited at our friends' house with the kids. About 45 minutes later, Dave came home, and I went home with the kids. All of our stuff had been  moved out of our living room into our bedroom except for the couches which the bailers smartly put on top of paint cans.

The flood was discovered when Heather and Jason couldn't get any hot water. They came downstairs to ask us about it/to look at the water heater, and Heather heard gushing sounds from behind our door. We got call #1 around this time. Heather and Jason got their shopvac out, but it was small and not doing the trick. So Heather went and muscled her way into a closing Home Depot and bought a big shopvac. Then Dave and Aaron arrived and the cleanup continued. By the time I came home, things were under control, but the carpet was still completely soaked. Aaron skimmed over the carpet with a cookie sheet to wring out the water while I vacuumed. That seemed to help, but not enough. Heather's friend with some sweet connections brought over two industrial sized fans. We left those running all night.

Speaking of night, the fun did not stop there. Scotty slept downstairs in his room while the rest of us slept upstairs in Emma's room. We had the baby monitor upstairs to be able to hear Scotty. He woke up around 2 am saying, "Drink.'' When I opened the door to his room, I smelled a strange smell. "Surely, this is just a soggy carpet scent,'' thought I. But, alas, the smell was from barf, not soggy carpet. Scotty was sleeping in his own vomit and politely requesting a drink.

As awful as it is to clean up barf, there is some wonderful bonding that happens when you are cleaning up your own child's barf in the middle of the night. Your little child is so sleepy and sad and dirty and vulnerable, and you're there to help them. You clean up that nasty, stinky substance because you love these kids, and they depend on you.

Cleanup was harder than usual, though, because there wasn't any running water. We couldn't turn off just the hot water, so we had to turn off all of the water to the house. So I had to clean Scotty off with wet wipes. He still had crusty barf particles in his hair all night long.

I cleaned Scotty up the best I could, and put him back to bed. I was still feeling some warm fuzzies from bonding time with Scotty when Annie started barfing upstairs. Luckily, she didn't barf on any of Emma's ponies or barbies that Annie had put around her little fake bed. We cleaned up Annie and got her settled again. It seemed that Aaron and I had just laid our head down on our pillows when we heard the tell-tale signs of Scotty barfing again over the baby monitor. And sure enough, Annie barfed one more time before the night was through. Luckily, Annie is now self-aware enough to aim for a barf bowl. So that cleanup wasn't too bad.

After Annie's last barf, Aaron and I laid down and laughed until we cried. The situation really was outrageous. Displaced flood refugees with barfing children. It was just so funny. Maybe you had to be there. Be glad you weren't there.

The next day we hung out with the Lewises who were so kind and gracious to host us. In the evening, we decided to take our crew up to Aaron's parents' house. But we had dinner with the Lewises before we left. Annie had barfed a few times during the day, but Scotty had not. Then for dinner he was being extra picky and not eating anything. The rest of us finished our food. Then Scotty started crying. I knew he was going to barf. I knew it in my mother's heart, but my brain somehow didn't get the message. I went to pick Scotty up, and he barfed all over me. I tried to catch it with my hands and my body so it wouldn't get on Heather's carpet. That attempt met with minimum success. Scotty and I cleaned in the bathroom which now had running water. When I came out, all of the barf had been cleaned up and Heather and Jason were being totally cool about us living in their house and spreading disease in our wake.

We made our exit as graciously as possible and spent the week with Grandma and Grandpa. The most exciting result of this adventure was that we got new carpet in the basement. Thank you, Aunt Kathleen! We were very excited about that. When we pulled up the wet carpet, look what we found!

My mom chose this carpet when she lived in the house 25 years ago. This is family history carpet!

So this is a faithful narrative of all our dealings with a broken water heater.