Fish Poop. In the Living Room.

In case you haven't noticed, I really haven't been hurting for topics to write about lately. In fact, I have a whole long list of things to write in my head. There's the post about the first gymnastics class, another gruesome tale from the Fishtank of Horrors, a couple more staycation photo posts and stories, and a few random tales of Toddlerdom. What I'm saying is that I'm really not hurting for blog fodder these days, so why exactly was there a puddle in my living room today?

Allow me to start at the beginning. As is required of all first days back from vacation, today at work was chaotic, to say the least. Around 1:00 I decided I was going to go loopy if I didn't step out for a minute, so I figured that I would run home, grab a Bagelful (highly recommended, btw), and make a quick run to the bank. All was going according to plan--I had a warm toasted Bagelful in one hand, the check that needed deposited in the other, and I was cutting through the living room to go back out to my car, thinking cheery thoughts about how nice it is to be able to run home from the office in less than ten minutes.

Then there was that damn puddle. Right in the living room.

I looked at the puddle. I looked at the dogs. I looked at the puddle again. It didn't look like the kind of puddle that I could blame on the dogs. Nor the cats. It looked sort of . . . splashy. So I looked up. There were droplets of water hanging from the ceiling. I tossed by Bagelful to the Bulldog and darted up the stairs, silently hoping that I had left a faucet running or something equally simple to fix.

It was not to be. There was no water in the bathroom.

There was a LOT of water in Alexis' room.

Water that belonged in the Saltwater Fishtank of Horrors.

I yanked the plug on the filter for the aptly named Tank of Horrors, hoping that the motor had not already burned out from the lack of water cycling through. The tank was down to perhaps 1/3 capacity. I assumed that a hose had come loose, spraying water around (it has happened once before, but was caught immediately). I quickly began grabbing towels to clean up the mess. Alexis' room has laminate flooring from Ikea and it is far from being water resistant so I scrubbed and mopped and wiped, hoping to dry it all out enough to keep from having to replace the floor.

Once I finally had the worst of the lake cleaned up, I surveyed the damage. Alexis' sheep-covered wool rug from Pottery Barn was drenched, but probably salvageable. Her bed was splattered, but not anything that new sheets wouldn't fix. Two books that had been on the floor were ruined. Cry with me on that one, y'all, because of all the books to have get ruined? They were her two favorites--Knuffle Bunny and Knuffle Bunny, Too. Some clean clothes that I probably should have tucked into the closet weeks ago were damp, but not horribly so. The floor seemed remarkably unbothered by all the moisture. The dresser that housed the Tank of Horrors was filled with water, but seemed to be holding up.

What wasn't holding up was the Tank. It wasn't a loose hose. Instead, there was a crack running all the way from the top to the bottom of one of the front corners. And Yippee Yahoo Yay! It was still leaking.

Half a roll of tape and several towels later, I had to go back to work and hope for the best until somehow a new tank fell out of the sky.

Those things aren't cheap, yo. Neither are the fish. The biggest worry, however, was the coral. There's a lot of valuable coral in the Tank of Horrors, and I'm really freakin' attached to it. I have approached coral like I do gardening and have only bought less than perfect or very small pieces at a great price then hoped that they would grow nice and big and healthy. So far, it has worked. Several corals that I paid $10 for have tripled in size and would now sell for well over $50. So you see, there is no abandoning this project at this point.

I made a bunch of phone calls and was able to confirm that the tank is still under warranty. Except, I bought it online, so a replacement would have to be shipped and only after I provide a copy of my original invoice, photos, Social Security Numbers, and probably a blood sample from my first-born son. So I called Mr. Husband and told him to go buy a damn new tank and that we'll leave the warranty battles for AFTER all the critters are safe and sound.

We spent the entire evening moving everything to the new, not cracked, tank. I have no idea who will or will not survive the transport; setting up a new tank and stocking it with fish and coral the same day is not exactly a bright idea. But, it was that or continue letting Lake of Horrors spread throughout the house.

I have absolutely no idea what made a tank that has been set up since February, has never been moved, and was perfectly stable crack. Nobody was home when it happened, the door to the room was closed, and nothing has been changed up there in quite a long time. I can only guess that it finally cracked under all the pressure of needing to leave up to its name--The Saltwater Tank of Horrors.

PLEASE let the new tank not follow in the footsteps of the other . . . I really don't need the blog material.

Breaking Out the Curses

This past week, Alexis has been a little sh*t. You know I don't normally swear around here (and am slightly editing because) this whole shebang is for Alexis and I don't really want to argue with her some day about whether or not it's OK to say whatever word (Ha! As if there is any way out of that lovely discussion!). Frankly, that's the only word that describes what she's been doing lately. She's been a little sh*t.

Long, long ago, in a land very near here, there was a child who was a fabulous sleeper. Her Mother had been very regimented about the whole Stay in Your Bed and Don't Bother Me at Night Law of the Land and it had worked. Weeks would go by with the child peacefully sleeping through the night and leaving the parental units alone between the hours of 9:00pm and 6:00am. It was a blissful existence.

And then came Christmas.

Christmas where the little family spent a week in a hotel and the simplest sleeping arrangement was to have the child sleep in the big bed with the parental units. Apparently the sweet child grew very in love with this arrangement because upon the return home, she refused to sleep through the night and she refused to stay in her own bed all night long.

Months went by and the Evil Mother battled the child night after night after night after night before finally deciding that letting the kid wander into the Parental Unit's bed in the middle of the night was preferable to dying of sleep deprivation.

And so it came to be that Alexis ended up in our bed every. single. night for months on end.

Every night. For months.

Until this past week.

Suddenly, on Day One of the Staycation, Alexis stayed in her own bed. Sleeping. Until 8:30. Why yes, she didn't just stay in her bed all night, she SLEPT IN.

Be still my heart.

On Day Two of the Staycation, she did it again. And again on Day Three. And Day Four. In fact, she slept late IN HER OWN BED every single day of Staycation.

The little sh*t KNEW we didn't need to get up and thought it would be fun to screw with us.

Mr. Husband has to be up at 5:30 tomorrow morning, and I have to be up at 6:15. $100 says Alexis wakes up screaming at least four times and ends up wrapped around my head like a Toddler Helmet before 2:00 am.

The little sh*t.

Burgh Perfect Staycation Step #5: Go Look at Dead Stuff

During the Staycation, our mission has been to do things we've never done before. On that list was to visit a few of the Carnegie Museums, and we decided to knock out the one with all the dead stuff: The Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

Before we saw the dead stuff, we gazed upon many many many rocks.

You just know that somebody saw me taking this photograph and was screaming through the security camera for me to get my kid's grubby hands off the glass. So, so sorry. (Not really.)

Then we moved on to the dinosaurs. Well, the adults moved on to the dinosaurs. The Toddler discovered TVs that changed the screen when she touched them. So she touched them a lot. A LOT.

I'm pretty sure these two would totally be making out, if only they weren't, you know, dead.

Do big horns mean . . . never mind.

These are all insects that are common to Pennsylvania and I'm pretty sure our cat Coal has eaten each and every one of these things at some point or another.

Thank ye gods of gross insects that THESE aren't the local insects because I'm positive that the giant disgusting beetle is bigger than Coal Kitty.

Someone who works at the museum has a morbid fascination with all things gross. This photo is of a hunter getting chewed to bits after killing something or other.

And this one is of the Toddler staring at one of the violently dead things, thereby ensuring a lifetime of nightmares. Thanks, Museum Workers!

This was easily Alexis' favorite display because you can't really see the plexiglass until you are right up on it and Alexis really enjoyed running into it a time or ten.

LIE ALERT! Whoever typed up "Rock Dove" and hung it above this stuffed thing was a GIANT liar. That is a rat with wings, also commonly referred to as a pigeon. Calling it a dove is like calling a Bulldog a butterfly. A BIG FAT STUPID LIE.

This little house had an animatronic lady in it who sang and told stories. Alexis developed a weird sort of crush on her and kept trying to help her find her baby and feed them all corn.

Seriously. She's trying to find corn for the baby here.

The people at this museum have issues. Serious issues. We got yelled at for Alexis being on Mr. Husband's shoulders and we got yelled at because she tried to touch the polar bear. HELLO! Children can't touch that which they can't reach. Shoulders=Good. Things at Toddler reach level=Not good.

In the itty bitty teeny tiny kids area, all things reachable are touchable, so Alexis did get to touch a bear without getting my head chewed off. Of course, she thought the fake grass was more interesting.

My favorite part was the architecture room, except for the whole thing where there were 4,285 signs saying "Do Not Touch." Does anyone realize how hard it is for me the Toddler not to touch things that are that enormous and right at her hand level?

This was a VERY cool display--it's a wishing wall. Each of the hundreds of brightly-colored ribbons has a wish printed on it. The wishes come from visitors who request whatever, the museum prints it up, and then you can walk up and pull a wish out of the wall. Alexis picked one that said, "I wish I had the freedom to choose my own religion." For what it's worth, she should have picked a different one. Alexis absolutely has that freedom.