Red Cups + Rain Boots = Teamwork

It never fails. When Jay goes out of town something will go wrong. I think my very first blog entry ever was when Jay was in Kentucky and everything was going wrong. This time it’s not quite so dramatic. Not even a big deal really but it was a pretty funny scene.

Before I type this I’m going to ask for no judgmental comments. I quite likely could get in trouble with child-welfare services for confessing this.

With that said, while it’s not an ideal practice and I really try not to do it any more than I have to…I still occasionally have to throw Bryson in the shower with me. Yes…I know that he’s four now & I’m most likely scarring him for LIFE!! Most of you are probably thinking “Hasn’t been a couple of years since she told us that adorable story about him asking if it was dangerous to touch girls there?” Well, yeah, it has and I really try not to practice mixed showering with him but here’s the skinny though. Jay tore our front bathroom apart in FEBRUARY. (you read that right, as in the second month in the year). He assured me it would be completed in a couple of weekends. Well, I know my husband so I took that to mean a month or so. Yeah, 5 months later and I still can’t give the kids a bath. Our back bathroom only has a shower and while they’re pretty mature kids for their age I can’t exactly tell them to go take a shower by themselves can I? Nope. So if Jay’s not here then that leaves me. Okay, I just wanted to get my defense out of the way before I begin our story today.

So, it was community shower time at the Looney house Sunday night. While it didn’t take long to realize that the water wasn’t draining very well, it did take just long enough that I had the kids all lathered up and was half way into the process. So as we notice water pooling around our ankles I try to rush up the shower and this just got the kids riled up so they decided to play chase around my legs while I was trying to speed this up. (All of this is in like a tiny stand up shower mind you). So I finally wrangle everyone to get them clean just before the water reaches the spill-over point. I get out and throw a robe, instructing the kids to stand really still. Well, of course to a 4 year old little boy with a huge puddle of water that can only be interpreted to splash in the water, right? So I fuss and dry up the water in the floor and get the kids dried off and attempt to use the plunger on the drain. Not helping at all. I also had to let Bryson try to plunge it because well, he’s a guy and apparently that attitude of “It’s not working just because a girl is trying to do it” starts early. In his defense, Jay did instruct him to be the man of the house while he was away and to take care of us so I couldn’t let him disappoint his Daddy by not even giving it a go. I know this is shocking but the plunger didn’t work for him either.

Naturally I didn’t have any draino on hand but don’t count me out yet because I’m a quick albeit non-traditional thinker folks. I told the kids to get their rain boots and two red plastic cups. We made an assembly line and my children, in p.j.’s and rain boots, scooped up cupfuls of water from the bottom of the shower and passed them down to me to pour in the sink. They thought this was a grand adventure and problem solved! I put some draino in it the next day and it was good to go.

So while the event started out with me thinking “Classic. Jay’s gone for 5 hours and everything goes to pot.” (Side note: what does that mean anyway…goes to pot?) it ended up being a pretty fun adventure that I’ll remember and laugh about picturing my kids in their rainboots singing about teamwork and thinking their momma is pretty fabulous.