Friday, May. 04, 2007 - 6:27 p.m.

One Day I am Going To Look Back and Laaaaaauuugh

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I learned something today. My infant son hates his grandmother.

�You ever have "one of those days?"� No seriously, read me out because I guarantee this doesn't happen to you every day and its worth it.� In fact, I don't know ANYONE this has happened to.� Most of my days are spent cleaning up after the Destructor and the various fur babies in the house.� First thing this morning, as I have the past several mornings, I have had to clean up cat pee from my wood floored dining room, before I even get a chance to pee myself, because my cat hates her litter box (to her "credit" she DOES have a low grade kidney infection at the moment and IS on antibiotics and we all know how cats are when they are sick).� Then there is the wayward poop in the bedroom because, again, she won't use the litter box.� You know what you are getting yourself into when you sign on for pets.� Fine.� I have resigned myself to the fact that I must clean up any and all bodily fluids around here.� This also includes the milk that Travis smears on the floor and other surfaces from his sippy cup, which, let's see, he did about three times this morning.� I have also been trying to get Brady using a bottle because he is 4 months old and has been strictly breastfed.� Well, I've tried all kinds of bottles and nipples and everything from breast milk to formula.� The formula that he refused earlier was sitting on the counter, without a lid, and unceremoniously ended up all over the floor thanks to The Destructor.� All over my wood floor.� Formula does not clean up well.� You must go over it several times to get the stickiness up. Then one of the cats puked, so I had to clean that up as well.� Brady has been crying all morning because I suppose he is in a bad mood because of the very un-mommy-like nipple being shoved into his mouth, and Travis has been crying because he has fallen down or bumped his noggin several times today.� Needless to say, I have been busy, and the kids and the cats and the dog have been driving me crazy, and I am trying to get out of the house to go to a birthday party for one of the kiddos in my moms group. It started at 10:30, which its already almost 11 by now and I am having a hard time getting out the door.

While in here trying to feed the baby with a bottle, I hear the distinct sound of a plastic bowl being dumped onto the floor.� I know FULL well what this is.� Its the cat's water bowl being emptied and dropped onto the floor by The Destructor.� I am now pissed because he KNOWS he is not supposed to touch the pets' food dishes and is punished each and every time this happens.� I do NOT like cleaning the water off of the floor.� The WOOD floor to be exact.� I put Brady down and start walking to the kitchen to go get ahold of Travis and give him a little swat on the hiney and send him to time out because I am PISSED, and know that AGAIN, I have to clean water off of the floor.� Did I mention its a wood floor?� He is of course standing there with a shit eating grin on his face because he KNOWS he's done something he's not supposed to have done.��

I quicken my pace� because he turns to run off, and I unfortunately don't see the water on the floor right in front of the fish tank.� Ever have one of your worst nightmares come true?� Well here it comes.� I slip in the water, my feet flying out from beneath me, fall flat on my ass, and simultaneously hear and feel a crash as my elbow, hand, some part of my arm hits the stand that the tank is on.� I also hear the distinct sound of breaking of glass.� I screamed all-hell-has-broken-loose-bloody-murder because my very first thought upon realizing that my arm/hand/elbow has smashed through the side of the aquarium was that I had been impaled with essentially a glass dagger and it gone through the artery in my arm, and I was going to bleed to death.� Then I realized that I was soaking wet. I quickly inspected my arm and realized that I had LUCKILY not been impaled, but the entire front of the aquarium was indeed shattered and ten gallons of water was now all over my flood.� My WOOD floor.� In addition to ten gallons of water, were also 8 fish, 5 of which are very small as they are juveniles.�� I get up off the floor to get towels.� As long as the fishes' gills are wet, they will be OK.� I just need time to get the soaking water of of the floor and keep it from spreading.� All ten gallons of it.� I grabbed the towels, started dropping them on the edges of the quickly spreading puddle, which at this point covers about 100 sq feet, and then start looking for the fish.� I get them scooped up, Travis is screaming because he is freaked out, I am also calling Tarik sobbing because of what has happened, trying to get my bearings and totally freaked out myself, and the baby is crying because of the noise that has happened.� Needless to say, not a happy or calm time.� Tarik in the meantime has called his mother to come over and help out.� I don't know what she can do honestly, but perhaps watch the kids, because I HAVE to get the water cleaned up and then go buy and set up a new fish tank.� I am realizing as I am cleaning this thing just how lucky I am.� There are shards of glass ten feet away from the tank, and they are dagger like.� There are also dagger like shards of glass still clinging to the frame of the tank.� I literally could have been seriously impaled and injured by this.� As it was, I only had a few minor scrapes, and some bruising.� My back is starting to hurt a bit now from the landing I took and the exertion from cleanup.��

Well, MIL gets here, and both kids are actually asleep.� I am still sopping up water with the 15 or so towels I grabbed, and am sweeping up gravel and glass and whatever else is on the floor from the destroyed fish habitat.� When Brady wakes up, he starts fussing, but its nothing unusual.� But, when my MIL picks him up, he starts screaming.� I am invisibly shaking my head because, well, I knew this was going to happen.� Every time she picks him up or holds him, he starts screaming or crying.� He hates her.� I can tell. Now, I don't know how he is with other people because we haven't really gotten out that much, but for some reason, he hates my mother in law, his grandmother.� I honestly don't think he has this reaction with anyone else.� I suppose though that this is not something that I learned today, but rather something that was reinforced.��

For the record, I did go out and purchase a new tank right away and upgraded to a 16 gallon which is what I have wanted to do for some time now anyway.� And unfortunately, one of my fish didn't make it, and I think its the last fish that I located.� It had somehow ended up on the little rug in front of the back door and the protective slime coating had most likely rubbed off and its gills not stayed wet enough.� Poor little thing.� It took me approximately 5 hours from the time I slipped to the fish being put into their new home.� I'm hurtin' and exhausted.

And just so one can get an idea of the absolute horrible injury I miraculously averted, here is a pic of the tank, with particular emphasis on the daggers of glass.

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