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Dec
15
The more of your comments I read on the issue of Small Children and Weddings, the more I became filled with a righteous fist-pumping sort of “YEAH THAT’S WHAT I BE TALKIN ABOUT” sort of fury, and when JB finally arrived home from his endless, snowy drive back from Bend on Sunday I practically kneed him in the balls as soon as he walked in the door and demanded to know what the hell he’d been thinking, the whole internet thinks it’s bugfuck crazy to bring a baby and toddler to a formal evening wedding.
I didn’t even really need to plead my case, as it turned out, because in the hour or so before Dylan’s bedtime the combined force of both children, excited by Daddy’s Triumphant Return from Mancation — Riley chattering nonstop and running back and forth in little demented circles, Dylan screeching and trying to climb up his pantlegs and leaving snail-trails of snot all over JB’s shirt — wore him out so thoroughly all I had to do was lean over and say, “This? This is what I’ll be dealing with, as the officiant says Do You JB’s Brother Take This Woman Etc and the room is filled with a hushed, reverent SILENCE. While wearing an EASILY-STAINED DRESS MIGHT I ADD,” and he acquiesced.
The plan is to secure a babysitter for the entire event, excepting a potential brief cameo appearance before the ceremony for the beshitted photos — although I’m lobbying for an entirely childfree evening because, among other reasons, I think certain people are forgetting that the wedding and the photos are about the happy couple getting married, not so much a stand-in opportunity for a family Sears portrait studio visit.
The way things are going, Dylan won’t be very photogenic anyway. Not only is he kind of blotchy and scaly from having his nose wiped every two minutes all day long (an activity he enjoys every bit as much as I do, which is to say oh my god with the flailing and back-arching and squealing), but his face is banged up from 1) falling cheekfirst into a tile step on Saturday, and 2) well, this happened yesterday and I’m still kind of recovering, but basically I put him in the carseat on the dining room table, unbuckled him, turned for one second (I know! OH I KNOW) to help Riley with his coat, and baby and carseat pitched forward and fell all the way to the hardwood floor. It all happened before I could even take a breath, it seemed, and suddenly he was sitting upright next to an overturned carseat and screaming like hell, a red bump rising on his forehead and abrasions across his cheek.
Oh the poor kid. First there was the Stroller Tipping Incident, and now this.
And then, just like a couple hours later? I was on the phone with JB when Riley came running up to me howling in dismay, his mouth full of orange mush, and after a panicky flurry of making him spit in the sink, rinsing out his mouth, and wiping his tongue with a paper towel, I determined he’d reached into a drawer that has been known to contain M&Ms and popped a small round object into his mouth, only it wasn’t a piece of candy, it was a fucking MOTRIN.
So! A banner day yesterday on the parenting front. I have now cleaned out the drawer o’ accessible drugs, vowed never to put the carseat on a table ever again, and watched in the mirror as five million new gray hairs sprouted right before my eyes.
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67 Responses to “Blue ribbon”
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I think that qualifies as a Totally Shitty Day. Hope you had a stiff drink once the boys went to bed and managed to unwind what mut have been a million knots in your muscles from all of that stress.
Sorry, perhaps a “stiff cookie”, not a stiff drink. Whoops!
Legend has it that the carseat-on-a-table thing happened to me when I was a baby. I’m now a perfectly happy nineteen-year-old of above-average intelligence taking a study break from finals to read your blog. So, I mean, I wouldn’t do it again, but I think Dylan’s gonna be just fine. Don’t beat yourself up too badly. As for Riley… that experience would turn me off M&M’s for life. Or at least a week.
My two year old ate my birth control pills last week. I was working at the computer when I heard a suspect, “Yummy!” from the bathroom and there she was, covered in slimy, blue gunk from the pills she’d popped out of the blister pack. I can’t believe I just left them on the counter! She was fine, but man do I hate those “I just failed at parenting” moments. Oh, and just yesterday my husband kind of dropped a 4-litre milk jug on our baby’s head. Not even kidding. He was hoisting her carseat into the car and also holding a milk jug when I slipped and smacked (the side of) her head.
I won’t call social services if you don’t.
Gawd I am so glad my are older. Been through all of that and it’s not fun.
I feel ya. Just two weeks ago my son lost part of his finger playing with a Bowflex in our garage and three days later swallowed a plastic toy propeller. MOTHER OF THE YEAR, right here.
The carseat thing is rumored to have happened to one of my brothers, my sister AND me.
Also, let us not talk about my childhood obsession with mouthwash that led my mother to discover me drinking NAIL POLISH REMOVER out of the cap — just like mouthwash! — thinking it was Scope.
Not that this makes you feel any better, nor will it make me feel okay when I do it to my kid (because oh, I will!)
You poor thing.
Ack. Ack!
That’s frightening.
It happened to me one time. I think I was 14, and I was baby-sitting. The baby was still buckled in the seat though. And landed face down.
I walked the kid down the block to my mom, because I didn’t know what to do.
Never mind comforting the kid, trying to figure out if anything was broken. Or even stopping the bleeding on the tiny forehead cut. Nope. Walk outside, down the street.
So see? You could have taken him to your mom.
I’m not even sure why the baby was in the carseat… it’s not like I could have taken him anywhere. I was 14.
This too shall pass. And be one of those stories you use to embarrass them when they date. LOL
SO glad to hear the new babysitter plans for the wedding! So that’s one less worry. Now let’s focus on what’s really important: what have you decided to WEAR!!??!
About the wedding, glad we could help ;-)
About your day, that BLOWS, and you’re due for about a week straight of nothing but sunshine and happy smiles!
I’m glad JB saw reason about the wedding! I didn’t comment on that one, but I think you are completely in the right. You should be enjoying it, not wrangling, right?
And the incident you describe with Dylan on the table — that exact thing happened to my little brother when he was a baby. Although we did have to go to the ER for stitches (his lower teeth bit through his upper lip!), he turned out just fine and is a non-disfigured and (mostly) upstanding citizen these days. I was only about 7-8 at the time, though, and I still remember how scary it was. I’m glad Dylan’s OK! Hope your day improves.
Oh my. That definitely gets a “Mother of the Year” award (I gave it to myself a while back ;) ). All kidding aside, there is a 6 month period in Peanut’s life (with photographic evidence I might add) where I honestly thought someone was going to call Child Protective Services on me because she couldn’t go a day without bruising herself… ::sigh::
As for the wedding, I’m really glad that you guys decided to get the sitter (and hopefully go completely child free). I say, whoever wants the kids in the picture will have to get them, make sure they’re neat and ready and return them to the babysitter. Why should you ruin your dress?
You practically KNEED HIM IN THE BALLS = tears of laughter rolling down my face.
Oh man. That’s a rough weekend right there. Hope you can sneak away now that JB is home for a little alone time and mental rejuvenation.
I am not even permitted to hint about the time my husband nearly dropped our newborn daughter face first onto the bathroom tile. He gets all pale and begs me to stop talking…and that happened three years ago.
Wow, yeah, I missed the whole no-babies-at-a-wedding band wagon, but I’m totally on board with this. So on board in fact that I generally would apply the same rule to pretty much any adult function. You don’t take babies, or children, or anyone at all who isn’t legally allowed to vote and have casual sex to an adult function. I find this especially annoying when you’re doing something fun, perhaps an outing with your friends, and all of a sudden someone’s punk ass devil spawn is skull fucking your whole get up and like some kind of shit covered cherry on top, they glare at you if you behave like a NORMAL adult would in an adult setting because it’s your fault that their kid is being poisoned by heathen behavior, not theirs.
Take for instance, a movie. I understand that baby sitters are expensive and all that crap, but if I’m out watching a movie that’s completely made for adults, or at least wayward teens, and some bastard brings an infant into the movie to shatter my otherworldly experience every sixty seconds like some world war air-raid siren, I should have the right to punt their baby out the emergency exit and judo chop their wind pipes so I don’t have to hear any bull shit from the parents either. Or even worse, people who take their children to eat at a bar during dinner hours (let’s say seven to ten) and expect everyone around them to refrain from smoking, cursing, or being drunk. Screw you asshole, the only time you should bring your kids to eat at a bar is right around the time those kids have their own kids and hire a baby sitter to keep them at home.
I realize that horror movies and bars aren’t quite the same thing as a family wedding, but still, leave them at home. I’ve been to a lot of weddings, and in a lot of weddings, and even officiated one, and the only thing worse than loud children (on a wedding scale of course, pretty much everything besides the reception sucks, this is relative) is the brides mother, and if it were up to me, people would have to leave them at home too.
PS – You’re not raising little girls, injuries are good for the little men. If you can, start them on a diet of beef jerky and wolf blood mixed with rogaine, and roll them in broken glass every couple of hours. If they bleed, their man pelts aren’t thick enough, so pour some vinegar on them and toss them in a dryer full of river rocks and rabid lobsters. It’s really the only way to raise bad ass mofo’s like JB. (ask him, he’ll tell you)
Re comments helping you out. I’m glad the Internet is good for something! Though if you’d posted the same thing at ParentDish you would have gotten completely opposite reactions i.e. NOTHING MUST COME BETWEEN THE CHILDREN AND YOUR ATTENDING TO THEM 24/7, not even a wedding. :)
Thank goodness Motrin tastes like vile crap and not Smarties eh? :) Ah, don’t beat yourself up. Once kids are up and literally running helter skelter, it’s nearly impossible to have all the bases covered. We are only human after all. (Love the description of a snotty Dylan using JB as a climbing expedition.)
Cooking dinner the other night, turned to discover my youngest (17 mos) daughter had fished an ALMOST empty detergent bottle out of the recycling bin, removed the lid, and up-ended over her mouth it to drink the last drink the last dregs of detergent. Cue the frantic scrubbing out of her mouth, and the growing of new grey hairs for me.
Honestly, my first daughter never did this stuff, why now?
My mother of the year story: I fed my 18-month old rotten raisins (yes they can spoil, no I didn’t know that either) THREE times in the same day before I realized they were the thing that was making her projectile vomit repeatedly.
And thank jebus on the wedding sitter situation…what a smart, smart man JB is.
The Boy tried to eat a GLASS bead on a garland last week at my folks’ house. He was right in front of both me and my husband, between us and the TV, but still managed to grab it and bite. We didn’t have a clue what was going on until we heard, “CRUNCH!” He thought the whole episode was hilarious, but my husband and I both were having heart palpitations while we fished glass bits out of his mouth.
And he has two new mystery bruises.
I keep trying to tell myself it’s good for them. Live and learn, trial and error and all that, right?
You should have kneed the prick in the nads just for suggesting taking the kids to the wedding. What a moron!!!
My mom dumped me on my head in a seat when I was a wee lass and I turned out absofuckinglutely FINE. It’s all good.
I once left a sippee cup in the car for a couple weeks and it got all moldy in the bottom. So I put it on the counter with a bleach solution soaking in it. I’ll just say that again: I put BLEACH solution in the TODDLER’S CUP and put it ON THE COUNTER. So he grabbed it and he drank it. And he was FINE, except for all the barfing. And I was fine, except for the huge “Let us help you stop neglecting and abusing your child” packet Poison Control sent me as a follow-up.
Also: I found out the cup was moldy after giving the child a drink out of it and having him say “YUCK! YUCKY!”
I tend to not pay much attention when I talk. I went to eat with a friend, took the baby along. We got back into the car + were on the way home when I felt someone staring at me. . .
I looked behind me when we got to a stoplight + Hot Pocket was peeping over the back of the carseat! I forgot to lock her in the seat, just plopped her in there! I was gabbing when we were getting into the car. . . oops. Hence why I do not talk on the phone + drive.
I a SO lucky there wasn’t a cop behind me!!!
Oh, man, I think it’s therapy to read everyone’s bad parenting moments. Kids drinking bleach! Kids eating birth control pills! Kids falling from tables! I’ve had plenty of these types of moments myself, but thankfully they’ve all (for now anyway) receded from memory… which means I could pretty much put my toddler in front of Porkies tomorrow morning with a vat of cotten candy and still feel like I’m superior! =)
OMG I just remembered my Stroller/Head Incident, 2008. *SHIVER*
If the bride and groom are close to the kids, I think a cameo appearance might be a good thing. I would have been very disappointed if my nieces hadn’t been at my wedding. While they were older, I would have been willing to deal with stuff that happens with small children to have them be a part of the day.
Oh man, the kids falling because of something you *did* is the worst. When I was a nanny I left the gate open at the top of the stairs and only noticed it when I heard the “bam, bam, bam… WHAAAAAA”. And it was one of the days the mother was home. I felt terrible.
Also, I began my life long career as a faller when I was 18 months old and fell from the top of a two story deck, onto the ground and rolled down the hill into the street. But I was totally OK (no broken bones or anything! and mostly still am!
When I was three, I grabbed a glass left on the coffee table and gulped down about a third of a cup of bleach. My aunt had left it there to make a quick run to the kitchen. I am magically still alive and well (after some hospital time).
Crazy shit happens.
Well, MOST of the time I’m a perfect parent, (ha) but this one time I watched helplessly while my 2 year old daughter grabbed a thermometer off the kitchen table, popped it in her mouth and bit the fucking end off. It was all sort of in slow motion, with me lunging through the air toward her and underwater-mooing, “noooooooooooooooo…..”
So guess what, they don’t put mercury in thermometers any more! And the guy at poison control is REALLY NICE! And yeah, I still felt like the most incompetent mother on the planet. It’s okay though – I have really good insurance. Which I will need for all her therapy.
My kid fell down the stairs. Wooden stairs leading to a wood floor. From all the way at the top. Three times. And then we moved – the count might’ve climbed higher.
My husband and I “miscommunicated” dosing instructions and time and ended up giving the kid 2x doses of medicine for like, a week. And crazy-might-make-him-sleep-intead-of-breath kind of medicine.
I still sometimes find bobby pins on the floor sometimes. Usually very near electrical outlets. I don’t know how they get on the floor. Are they falling out of my head when I’m not paying attention? Why won’t my hair GROW OUT already?!?!
So, here’s to doing our best! Hope Dylan’s face heals quickly, and that you post a pitiful picture of his tiny contusions.
When I was little (four or five) my mom left a bottle of dish soap on the coffee table and my brother and I dared each other (I think. I don’t know of any other reason why we’d voluntarily do it) to drink various portions. Neither of us felt very good and when we were both vomiting/otherwise producing bubbly excretions my mother put the puzzle together. You know what’s worse than drinking soap? Expelling soap. That is one of the only things I remember from that age.
OMG! It’s Bad Parent Storytime!
One time someone (not me, I wasn’t even there) wasn’t watching (DAD) and the baby (in one of those walker thingies, do they even make those any more?) and he went careening clear off a three-step deck. Whoopsie! He was fine, thanks to soft grass and his hard head. Kids fall and get hurt a lot: our homes, yards & playgrounds are all fraught with danger. As vigilant as we are, shit happens.
My proudest moment? I was driving somewhere with the baby (1 1/2 at the time) in the carseat in the back, and he started crying, and what could I do while on the road? Not much, except get annoyed because he was being such a pain in the ass.
Yeah, until I got home, took him out of the carseat and there was a huge bite on his little leg and a DEAD BEE where he had been sitting. And then there was that other time when he (same kid) got stung ON HIS LIP by ANOTHER BEE which had flown into his soda can. The boy doesn’t like bees to this day.
Oh Linda – hang in there. It happens to the best of us.
I sprouted gray hairs last week when my 19 month old daughter came running out of the kitchen brandishing a large kitchen knife she had somehow grabbed off of the counter. I was in the middle of making dinner and turned around for a second to help my 8 year old with his homework and there she was. Laughing with weaponry.
I thought I had it pushed back far enough, but surprise! It wasn’t and it is still a mystery how she got at it.
She very willingly (and gently) handed it over, but I swear my hiney tried to turn its self inside out the entire .3 seconds it took me to reach her and grab the knife.
Good for you. I’ve attended two weddings this year. One without the kids and one with them. NIGHT AND DAY!
I’m not sure what it is about that second child, but I can tell you that:
1. Our first child fell off the sofa a total of one time.
2. Our second child fell off the sofa, um, probably close to ten times.
I KNOW. Could it possibly be that child #1 causes a bit of a distraction, taking your attention off of child #2? I have to think so.
One of my earliest memories is reaching up (waaay up — I was two or three) and getting a fruit-flavored Cert off my dad’s dresser. Only this time, instead of the Cert I had snitched a few days before, I grabbed what I (much later) realized was a Maalox tablet. Yuck! As disillusioning as a swig of vanilla extract.
We all have those kind of days. Try and take a deep breath and give yourself a break.
In fact you were outnumbered for the whole weekend – you were doing an outstanding job if that’s the worse that happened.
I’m solo parenting all 4 kids next weekend and I’m counting it as a win if no kids are injured badly enough to need to go to the hospital.
Plus upside – you have the baby sitter battle won – now you need to share the details about the dress!
This is such a perfect illustration of why moms have to be easy on themselves. You can be Supermom non-stop for months, years but 2 seconds of inattention and your kid nearly kills himself. NO ONE and no amount of effort can match the kamikazi instincts of small children. Its an unequal match.
So glad JB gave in and you’ll get a sitter. That would have been so unfair to you, not being able to enjoy the wedding.
My son scooted himself off the changing table when he was 3 months old and i will never forget that thud on the hardwood floor. The first baby never did that!
Wow, all of these stories are making me shudder! I suppose, the few episodes I’ve had so far with my daughter are not soooooo terrible. I fell off some type of baby seat put on a table at 3 months of age. my mom says she ran to the hospital (which was across the street luckily) in her bathrobe, in the middle of winter. when she got there, they told her to feed the baby, cause i was hungry. and as soon as she did – i stopped the hysterical crying. and all turned out ok.
I was in church a few months ago and some couple came in with a baby in a carseat and two other little kids. The mom or dad put the car seat on a little shelf on the wall and BOOM! that freaking thing fell right over. The mom scooped up the carseated baby and the dad got the other kids and they all swooshed out of church and I thought I was going to die of nervousness. I was crying (!) and really, not for the baby, who seemed to be fine but for that mom and dad because that is the shittiest feeling in the WORLD. My daughter is even crazier than my son and she went head first off of our bed the other day. Thank God it’s carpeted and not super far but man – what the hell, baby? What’s with the death defying every day? This morning I was on the computer in the kitchen and I heard her babbling away in what I thought was the other room but it was UPSTAIRS, where she crawled to see my husband and son. Every.Single.Day it is something. It sucks but it’s true – I feel like I have 100 heart attacks per day with these people, and who has time to clean every inch of the house, to get rid of *everything* that could possibly hurt them when they are all up in your pants legs all the time? Worst Job Ever.
But hooray on the wedding!
After begging to sit in the back of the sanctuary at my stepsister’s evening wedding when Sam was just around 26/27 months old I was told emphatically that we MUST sit with the family. Well, during the “I Do’s” Sam piped up with his own I DOOOOOOO I DOOOOOOO I DOOOOOOOO! Most thought it cute. Grandmother of the bride ( not MY grandmother) turned and gave myself and my baby boy the worst death stare/snotty old upper crust glare I have ever encountered. We opted out of the reception after we left the church bathroom where we spent the rest of the ceremony.
My sister however saved the day when she told the pompous old bitch, rather loudly, that she need to adjust her wig because it was askew, infront of most of the wedding party and guests!
“I think certain people are forgetting that the wedding and the photos are about the happy couple getting married, not so much a stand-in opportunity for a family Sears portrait studio visit.”
Holy God, yes. This is why my MIL kept insisting that we order tuxes for my husband’s nephews to wear to our wedding. Our wedding in which all of the men were wearing *brown suits* not black tuxedos. She went so far as to place an order for the frickin tuxes. For her grandsons, one of which wasn’t even in the wedding!
There I was, a bride-to-be, battling with passive-aggressive MIL-to-be, and freaking the fuck out about looking back at my wedding pictures and cursing the fact that these boys were wearing these tuxes that I hadn’t wanted. Yeah, it’s not a big deal, but I knew it was a power struggle, and she only wanted a cute photo op and didn’t care what it was that my husband and I wanted. (The mother of the boys was just as bad, since they always take a picture of their family unit at every family wedding, despite their frequent Sears portrait adventures).
I finally grew a pair, ordered some BROWN suits for the boys online (which were way cheaper than the tuxes–see? Am considerate!), and called my MIL to tell her to cancel the tux order. It was a minor battle, but damn, it got under my skin (you don’t say, Gaby? You’ve babbled enough).
Anyway! Yes. That sentence obviously stood out to me. Good for you for keeping the bride and groom’s wishes a priority.
My mother decided the pretty pink liquid in the bowl in the sink MUST be for drinking – so pretty! – turned out to be the home perm treatment that her mother was applying to one of her sister’s heads. That was a trip to the ER for sure.
My brother and the neighborhood boys thought it would be really neat and fun to run a belt through bro’s beltloops, then hoist him into a tree by that same rope. Apparently belt loops are not meant to hold against the weight of a 6-yr old, and my mother looked out the window to see her son hanging from the front tree with a slip-knotted rope around his armpits…and slipping farther and farther up.
Both still alive and well, and no worse for the wear.
I’ve been to weddings with kiddos, and the biggest problem is when parents sort of refuse to leave the room if the kids start fussing. I’m all for having babies/children attend things as much as possible (so they learn how to behave in public) but it’s an inexact process at best – if the parent is outnumbered, parent gets to say NO! :)
I could imagine the sound of the gray hairs popping up on your head: poink! poink! poinkpoinkpoink!!!
And having dumped my unsecured infant out of a carseat while walking up the front steps of our house, I know well the near-miss crisis parenting stress. Good thoughts to all.
OMG Woman, I swear you and I are living parallel East Coast / West Coast lives! I’m right around the same exact level of kiddie development with my 3 year old and 1 year old, and am suffering from the same seemingly endless ways in which my children inadvertently attempt to do themselves in (and yes, some are from my somewhat questionable parental blunders). Please just know that you are SO not alone.
And good for you on the wedding…that was a nightmare in the making.
Its something new every day isn’t it?! You are not alone!
My did ate an entire jar of glycerin suppositories – I mean the entire jar. She shit like a goose for a week….
Yay on the wedding decision! Shitballs on your “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.” Ever read that book to your boys? It’s a good one! Reason #8934 for you to have the girls getaway spa day you talked about. Massages anyone?
Oh some of these comments are hilarious! I don’t have children but I was told by my mom that my dad was throwing me up in the air as a toddler. Good times right? No. Not really. Not when he slams your head into the ceiling!
I had days like that myself. All the more reason why you have earned a baby-free night at that wedding…Glad you are getting a sitter.
Take a deep breath…
Please tell me a massage is in your very near future! You have more than earned it.
Oh man. I’m sorry about your exhausting day. In other news, Lily, head of the massage department at the downtown Gene Juarez, 206-320-6000, is very good at hot stone massages.
Why do kids eat things like Motrin, suck on bleach caps and nail polish remover caps, suck down detergent, dirt, bugs,- whatever – but God help you if you try to feed them green beans. Not That – NO – ANYTHING But THAT. Do green beans and other vegetables taste like poison by comparison?
J, Miami
OMG I need a nap after reading this.
Wow! I’d definitely need a hot bath and a bottle of wine after that day!
I know you probably get more advice than you need, but for that constantly running nose, try Children’s TYLENOL® Plus Cough & Runny Nose. That stuff works!!!
I had to call poison control today because my 22 month old put Boudreaux’s Butt Paste on a toothbrush and put it in his mouth. Fortunatly the poison control guy was very nice about it and reassured me that he gets calls like that all the time. Of course now they have all my personal information and I am sure I am on some DFCS watch list. Awesome.
Hang in there!
Seriously, I don’t comment very often but read religiously. I even check back every few hours to read your Twitters… (okay, do I sound obsessive now??) anyhoo….I laugh my rear off every.single.time. I also have a 1 year old son and soon to be 3 year old son and I CANNOT tell you how reassuring it is to hear so many similar things happening to you, that happen here. I have never gone to a “mom’s group” etc..etc.. but I always felt that maybe hearing that all of these stages are typical would be such a relief..but girl, your blog totally does that for me. Thank you!!!
A shit-tacular day indeed. I am planning a wedding in June and the fiance and I decided we don’t want “formal” pics. So you could bring your kids to my wedding…I think tantrum throwing would make for awesome conversation years down the road. It would also be good ammo for you to use on your kids.
Apparently when my grandmother was 2 weeks old, in a picturesque European city, there was an earthquake, and my great-grandmother’s reaction was to run outside. Like, without the baby. I’m not yet a mom, but when I heard this story last night, it felt rather…foreshadowy.
I can help you with the water stain problem from your leaking roof. (from the daily piffle) JB probably already knows how to do all this, and it might be more complicated for y’all up there in the arctic tundra, seeing as how it’s still in the sixties here. (I don’t have much experience with cold weather repairs, or cold weather for that matter) Anyway, he’ll need to fix the roof leak first. Hopefully he went up in your attic and located the leak when it happened, if not you’ll have to wait for another rain, or if your water hose isn’t frozen he could spray down the roof for a while and then go check to see where it’s coming from.
Hopefully it will be seeping in from a nail or screw hole left during construction that never got sealed again, they are very easy to miss. If so get some roofing sealer, it comes in caulk tubes and looks like tar, and just squeeze out a healthy dollop on the leaking spot. Generally that will fix any problems, but you’ll need to do this when the roof is dry and preferably over freezing so the roof caulk can get a good seal and cure properly.
Once you have the leak fixed, you’re gonna have to prime the spot on your ceiling. (I’m assuming it’s on your ceiling and not your wall) I recommend KILZ, it’s the best primer evah! roll or brush on a fairly thick coat, the thicker the better. Normally a thin coat will need two coats to fully cover water stains, and a thick will only need one coat. Also, I recommend oil based KILZ over water based, because it seems to have much better stain blocking power.
Depending on what kind of paint was used when your ceiling got painted, sometimes KILZ will blend right in with the paint and no more work is necessary. If it doesn’t just get some flat white ceiling paint and touch up the spot with a coat or two until it looks good. If the water stain is on your wall, it’s gonna be more of a pain in the ass. Pray to whatever God you believe in that you have some paint leftover from the original project, because color matching from an existing wall is a somma-bitch. If you have leftover paint, KILZ the spot and paint it however many layers you need until it blends in. If you don’t have any paint left, prepare for a bad time.
You’re gonna need to see if you can peel of a section of paint near the stain, but not in it, so you get the proper shade. Latex paint will sometimes work with you if you soak it down with a wet rag a couple of times so it gets soft. If that doesn’t work you’re gonna have to cut out a section of the damn wall, it’s nice if you can just get a surface layer and not completely puncture the drywall, and save that to take to Home Depot or Lowes for a paint match. Then you have to patch the hole with joint compound. (a sorely disappointing product name if ever there was one) I’m sure JB knows how to do that. Patch it, sand it, prime it, (do NOT skip the damn primer, nobody ever listens to me on this shit, and for real, it will take five or six coats of paint to cover the spot, and you will still see it, and I will call you an idiot for not priming it the first time like I told you) and paint it the wall color. Good luck and God speed.
Yay, you won the babysitting/wedding battle! And after the day you had, I’d say you deserve a child free night. One where you can just, oh I don’t know, maybe not mow down your dinner at Mach 3 because there’s a three foot tall elf at your elbow demanding cheese and juice and I-wanna-watch-Polar-Express-Again-for-the-eleventy-hundredth-time-and-when’s-Santa-coming-where’s-my-cookie? You could actually chew your food. Hey! I think I want to come with you. Think there’s room for 2 more on the guest list?
Now, enjoy sitting in an actual chair for an actual length of time without having to stand and hover over a carpet-eater, wobbly stander, face planter into that there toy-er. Have a glass of soda or a nice iced tea and DON’T SHARE IT WITH ANYONE. Maybe even a piece of cake. Get down with your bad self.
How appropriate that I read this entry today…..after calling Poison Control about some weather strip self stick foam that I found my 15mth old enjoying last night *sigh*
I just wanted to say, thank you for posting the bad days along with the good. I recently came across your blog, and so many parenting blogs are all sunshine…it really helps to hear another mom going through the good AND the bad, especially when I’m going through one of those emotionally raw Depressing Parenting moments myself and wondering how I’m going to get through the exhaustion of it all!
Oh hell. The falling off the table thing sucks. Poor you!!