I promise ya'll there is a reason I inundate you with my plumbing woes.  It's not exclusively to torture my one remaining reader.  (Because if I have to deal with it, why not bring you along for the ride?

One of the reasons I write these posts is because I want to document everything.  Just in case.

We might have reached just in case.

When I last wrote, we were looking at leak number 8.  I had a long talk with my husband and a few family members and was strongly advised to put my foot down and demand some other type of solution.  The plumbers have always been professional and seem to do good work so I have continued to trust them to keep their warranty. But seriously.  Eight holes being jack-hammered into my home is more than ENOUGH.

Do I sound angry?  I am.  I have reached the end of my rope.

The plumbers came out to locate leak number eight.  I had decided they could locate all they wanted but I wasn't going to allow another hole.  They always come out one day, do the leak locate and then schedule the repair for another day.  They weren't coming out until noon anyway so I knew they wouldn't do the work that day.  Which is why I told my husband to not worry about trying to be home.

They located the leak in the worst possible location.  My daughters room.

Right away they started bringing their equipment to dig it up.  I was thrown.  I was alone.  I was really missing having running water.

I decided to go ahead and allow them to fix this one.  AND THAT WOULD BE IT.  NO MORE HOLES.  If there was ever another leak (there will be) they would have to find another solution.

We frantically started shoving my daughter's things in a closet and doing our best to protect her stuff from all the mud since I didn't have adequate time to empty out the entire room.
The leak was under the patch from a previous repair.

When they dug it up the plumber doing the repair asked me if there had been another previous repair done in that same location.  I wasn't sure.  This is where documenting things on my blog comes in handy.

Jenn is being all helpful over at her blog and teaching us how to properly fold a towel.  Complete with video.

I have had the flu all week and my voice is doing the whole raspy thing so I will spare you the video.

But I thought I could teach you a little something too.

You see, awhile back I came up with a clever way to organize the kids toys.

Then I procrastinated for awhile.

Tried one way and it didn't work well.

Came up with a plan B.

And now I will show you my amazing system to organize and store the kids toys.  Something that will allow them to easily identify their toy storage so they can clean up their own room.

Too good to be true?

Let's find out!

I started with several cubes from the Target Itso collection.  I like these cubes better than the smaller cube shelf ones you see all the time because these are bigger.  Also the cubes are plastic and snap together easily and come apart easily.  This works well for us because we are frequently having to empty out the room when Gremlins attack.  Also they are more water resistant.

Fabric bins of various sizes and colors (Itso brand, the other brands are too small) work well in the cubes to sort toys into.
The problem is, all the toys end up thrown together randomly into the bins and then to find anything, everything gets dumped out creating a huge never ending cycle of mess.

Then I end up spending an entire day sorting toys into various cubes and trying to explain the system to two oblivious children who immediately go back to doing it the way they have always done it.  And all my sorting efforts are just wasted time.  Much like any other form of housework...

Obviously the bins need to be labeled.

But trying to write out cute little labels for the toys won't work well until my kids learn how to read.

I thought about little picture labels but they needed to be really specific for the kids to see what kind of toy when into each bin.

Pictures...  Hmm...  Oh, photos.  Right.  That could work.

But how to attach the photos.

My first attempt was to simply scotch tape the pictures to the bins.  That didn't hold.  The pictures ended up falling off and getting destroyed or lost.

Plan B.

Poison Pollen

*This post may contain affiliate ads.  Read my full disclosure here.

Today we had an appointment with a Neonatologist.  I have been looking forward to this appointment for weeks with a mixture of excitement, nervousness, anxiety and various other emotions.  To me this was one of our most important meetings.  A what to really expect kind of meeting.  I went in with a long list of questions swirling in my head.

What kind of equipment would he be hooked up to?  How would that affect holding him?  How would that affect my children holding him?  How would that affect his Baptism which we want to have at birth?  When/if he came home what should we expect/plan for regarding his care.  Etc. Etc. Etc.

Those questions evaporated within about the first thirty seconds.

Our meeting started with the doctor asking me what I knew about our son's diagnosis.

I told him that I know he has Trisomy 13.  I know he has a bilateral cleft lip and pallet.  I know he has 2 holes in his heart. (VSD)  I know he has brain "abnormalities" typical of a Trisomy 13 baby.  I know that babies born with Trisomy 13 typically (and when I say typically I mean pretty much always) have breathing difficulties due to Apnea.  I also know that there is a very low survival rate.

He asked me what I was expecting.

I told him that while I am very aware that the survival rate is low and the chances of being able even do anything to save or extend his life were slim, I wanted to do everything in our power if the opportunity presented itself.

I was met with a blank stare.

Then he basically told us that they don't really do any kind of intervention with a Trisomy 13 baby.

I'll be honest, I was a bit fearful of that response.  I did worry that I would be presented with arguments on why intervention was a bad idea.  At that point I figured we would engage in some kind of dialogue about the different types of interventions, pros and cons and in the end we would have to make specific decisions on what types of interventions we wanted to insist on.

Instead I heard this.

"We aren't equipped for any kind of interventions.  If you wanted to do that you would have to deliver at a different hospital."

He basically said that they are equipped to handle premature babies but that is about the extent.

My husband asked for some clarification regarding what they were not equipped to do with a Trisomy 13 baby.

He started listing examples of things they wouldn't be able to do.  Like surgeries.  For example if the baby needed heart surgery they wouldn't be able to perform it at that hospital.

I pointed out that we had already met with a fetal cardiologist who told us that heart surgery wouldn't be performed at birth for a VSD on any infant.  She also pointed out that Trisomy 13 babies don't die of heart failure they die of respiratory failure because of the Apnea.  The brain simply does not send the signal to breath.  She also specifically stated that the hospital we have been planning on delivering at is "more than equipped to handle the needs of a Trisomy 13 baby."  (My husband at the time told me he got the vibe of "since there isn't anything we can do anyway" but I didn't pick up on that at time time.  Now I fear he might have been right.)

The response to that was basically, yes that's correct but if the baby did have to be put on any kind of breathing assistance we aren't really equipped to do that and then send them home.  For example if the baby needed to go home with a c-pap machine we wouldn't be able to provide one.

He also brought up feeding tubes and said again that wouldn't be something they could provide for at home care.

A pretty much exact quote.

"If you were planning on actually taking the baby home, we wouldn't be equipped for that."

In other words, we are only equipped if the baby doesn't survive.

If you know me or have read my blog you probably are aware of our continuing struggle with the creatures I call the Pipe Gremlins.

In case you are not I'll give you a brief summary.

February 2010 we had our first slab leak.


October 2010, 2nd slab leak.  This is when we had the pipes coated with Ace DuraFlo to prevent future leaks.  This process came with a lifetime warranty.


November 2010, 3rd slab leak.  Covered under warranty.

October 2011, 4th slab leak.  Covered under warranty.

July 2012, 5th slab leak.  Coverage to be determined.

August 2012, it appears we have our 6th slab leak.  The epic battle continues.

And now I will inundate you with pictures of our latest round of pipe repair.

Our dear friend Jackhammer.

Way back in the day, when the Peanut was potty training, he actually was night time trained before he was daytime trained.  He is the soundest sleeper ever and at night he would half wake up screaming.  For awhile we thought it was night terrors.  He would scream and cry but never even open his eyes.  Because he wouldn't fully wake up he could never respond to our questions and let us know what was wrong.  Eventually he would calm down and go back to sleep.  The next morning he wouldn't remember.  I'm not sure how we eventually figured out to take him to the potty.  I guess we noticed that he was also wiggling around and decided to give it a try.  He was wearing a diaper at night so he would half wake up having to pee.  He would scream and cry then pee and go back to sleep.  Once we figured it out we just took him to the potty and he would pee and then go happily back to bed.  He would never fully wake up through it all.  We were then able to put him in underwear at night and he never had a nighttime accident unless for some reason we were too slow getting him to the bathroom.

Eventually he grew out of this phase and would wake up on his own and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without assistance.  Every once in a while when extra tired he would have a repeat and wake up screaming.  These occurrences were pretty rare so, many times, they threw us off.  We would forget and would waste time trying to figure out what was wrong.  Lesson learned.  If he wakes up screaming, potty first, questions second.

Recently he has been experiencing a relapse.  I have kind of wondered if it had something to do with my being pregnant.  More specifically, since I already wake up twice a night having to pee myself and the Princess sometimes wakes up having to pee and still needs assistance, why not add a forth nightly bathroom trip.  You know, to help prepare me for the all nighters once the baby is born.

Now he seems to have outgrown the screaming and instead rocks back and forth whimpering.  Again, his eyes don't open.  The Princess will wake up to the whimpering and drag herself out of bed, make her way to my room, wake me up and tell me that the Peanut needs to go potty.  She then slumps back into bed and happily drifts back to dreamland while I wake him up and get him to the bathroom.

This was happening every night and I was really starting to wonder what had caused this sudden relapse.

Then he dropped the bombshell on me.

Usually I try to stay away from controversial topics.  Both in my blog and in my "real life" conversations.  I don't like to upset people.  I tend to be overly sensitive so I try not to say anything that might hurt someone else's feelings.  Until I feel really strongly about something.  Then I get on my soapbox.  I still try not to hurt any feelings but I just can't seem to swallow my disagreement.

Last year I avoided this topic because I know it will put me in the unpopular crowd.  This is a topic that seems to send people into a fury and I am vastly outnumbered.  I have been avoiding my blog because this has been weighing heavily on my mind and I know I can't write about anything else.

Finally here today I will break my silence.

First, though, a spoiler warning.  If you have any young children you might want to stop reading this out loud.  Turn your monitor.  Protect them from the horror I am about to reveal.

Are they gone yet?

Ok, consider yourself warned.

Here it goes.

I know I've told you before way back in the day that I was potty training my daughter.  Well, I put her in cloth training pants, which turned out to be no more absorbent than regular underwear, and she made several messes on the carpet, so I got the bright idea to add the plastic covers.  She treated those the same as she did pull-ups, except that they sometimes leaked.  So we went back to pull-ups.  With a single candy PEZ whenever she made it to the potty.

Then this past week I decided to get serious.  So we went shopping for underwear.  She picked out Princesses and Hello Kitty.
The underwear met with mixed success.  She did slightly better than she had with pull-ups, having a few accidents, but making it to the potty more often.

Then one day after a bath for a potty accident she ran off in her towel and refused to get dressed.  I figured she would get cold and want clothes pretty quickly so I just let her go.  Something amazing happened.  She came running up not too long after and started asking for underwear.  Very insistently.  I had a suspicion so instead I took her to the potty and she went.  Hmmm.  There might be something to this whole naked potty training method everyone is always talking about.  Sure enough the next day I kept her in a dress, but no pants.  She made it to the potty every time!!  It was a miracle.  She was fully potty trained just like that.  Thank goodness.  I even looked a little forlornly at the trash bag of diapers, thinking we might have to downsize our bathroom trashcan.  My little ones are so grown up.  This is the first time in 5 years I won't have to deal with diapers/pull-ups!

The next day we went to underwear.  Again no accidents.   Until right before bedtime.  I figured she was just tired.

Then two days ago.

There are just some things I am not cut out for.

Cleaning.

Cooking.

Organization.

Potty Training.

Guess what I have been doing this week??

If you guessed all of the above you get the cheesecake.  No seriously, I made cheesecake yesterday.  Like crushed up graham crackers for the crust, and used my spring foam pan, that was a wedding present, and had never even been opened.  Even though I did want it, and registered for it, and was so excited when I got it.  I just finally got around to using it.

This week I have been cooking.  Like real cooking from recipes.  With ingredients and pans.

What I have discovered?

Hello everyone!!  I have missed you!

Have ya'll been wondering if a black hole spontaneously formed over my computer and sucked me away into oblivion?  Worry not.  I have returned.

Now, truly there is only one thing that could keep me off the internet/Facebook/Twitter/Google/Pinterest for two plus weeks.

That's right.

Time Warner Cable.

Oh, yes Time Warner.  I am giving you the stink eye.  You, meanie head, you.

Grrr.

Even as I type this I still have no house phone.

Grrrr.

Two weeks without internet, without phone, WITHOUT NETFLIX!!!

Then of course Time Warner got right on it and promised to send someone out last Wednesday morning.  Thursday afternoon when the guy showed up he scratched his head and shrugged his shoulders and promised to send someone else out on Saturday.  Yesterday when my husband called they said, "um it should work."  Yesterday when I called they said, "oh we fixed it but had to change the frequency so you have to reset your router."  When I asked how I do that they said, "oh you can't.  We do it."  Then they pressed their magic button and reset.  Now don't ask the obvious question.  If they knew they had changed the frequency and that would require a reset and they are the only ones who can reset and it only requires half a second and a magic button press . . . WHY DIDN'T THEY RESET IT ALREADY????!!!!  Why didn't they press their magic button when my husband called????

So, internet works.  Phone doesn't.  They scratched their heads and said "well, it should be working.  It tests and says it's working.  Must be a bad cord on your phone.  Oh, and on the other phone you tested.  And on that one too . . . all three must have gone bad at the exact same moment that the phone and internet went down.   Um, we will send someone out on Wednesday.  Make sure you answer the phone or we will cancel the appointment."

Then they threw a couple of credits at us.   Here's the thing though.  If I wanted credits and no phone . . . I WOULDN'T HAVE SIGNED UP FOR YOUR SERVICE!!!!!!!

Ok, sorry about the rant.  It feels good to get that off my chest!  I have been really refraining from going off on some poor phone rep, who really has no control, and just gets to be on the receiving end of my frustration.  I know.  I have done that job and it truly sucks.  Especially when you agree with the screaming customer but still have to recite the company policy.  Yeah.

Other fun things.  I have something exciting to show you but you will have to stay tuned.  It's exciting for me anyway.  ;)

Also, during my internet outage I was featured on the Mom Pledge.  Check it out!!!