*shakes head*...oh Jaxon

You could have guessed that I was due for an installment of Jaxon's latest disaster right? The last couple of weeks have been filled with them, but they have been uncharacteristically mild. 5 or 6 boxes of cereal dumped all over the house, the boxes ripped to pieces (at once), French Vanilla hot chocolate dumped all over the place (the best kind to be dumped, since it's white, not brown), the usual emptying of drawers, spilling of food etc.... but nothing to write home about- these are just part of our daily routine. Until today....

Today started off REALLY well. In fact, I almost blogged about how some days just come together. I got up, got the kids off to school, got everyone dressed and ready, washed 3 loads of laundry, baked cookies, had the whole house clean at once *shock*, good mood....


There we are. I am feeling safe since Jaxon is in the same room with me, in fact, I am facing him. I am teaching piano lessons and he is hanging around our 72 gallon salt water fish tank. He loves to watch the "shishies" so that's normal for him. Sometimes he likes to sit on the bottom of the table that holds the fish tank, and that's what he was doing. A few minutes later, he had moved and I noticed, about 5 feet away or so, a small wet spot, that I was sure was a spilled bottled water (Im not dumb enough to keep anything other than milk or water readily available in this house. It would all be on the carpet in a nanosecond). So I wander around looking for the bottle and grab a towel to soak it up. I can't see a bottle anywhere, but as I look back at the fish tank, I notice it is about 1/3 empty now. I just did a water change 2 days ago so I know it was not low on water. So I start to investigate, and then I see what the problem is, and it's a big one!

Jaxon apparently decided to play around with the fish tank filter. I do not know what he did, but I know that it was now working as a vacuum and sucking the water out , into itsself, and spitting it all over the carpet. Since it was a 72 gallon tank, and is now 1/3 empty, you can guess just how much water was now on the carpet. Let's just say the carpet was now functioning as an overfilled sponge. That small spot I saw was just what he tracked. The majority of it was covering about 100 sq feet of carpet, including behind the table which holds the fish tank (and cannot be moved due to it's weight).

What to do, what to do. Thankfully, I long ago decided for my own peace of mind and sanity, I would purchase a carpet cleaner for these sort of occasions. I put it on "spill pick up" and after soaking up what I could with towels, started sucking up water. I filled that tank in just a few minutes. I wasn't cleaning the carpet so I wasnt putting any water into it, just pulling it out. I dumped out the water, and filled it up again, and again, and again. About 20 gallons later, it felt just wet, no longer underwater. It took me a good 30 minutes the first round to suck it up. I went back a half hour or so later and sucked up another tank of disgusting, gross, brown fish water.

What fun.

Another day in the life.....

The 2 silver linings to this story:


#1- No one ended up in the hospital on this one

#2- It happened before we put in the new carpet. Phew.


Of course Dan is out of town also, and I have no idea how to fix the filter so that it works as a filter and not a sprinkler system. It's such a good thing that Jaxon is the most charming, cutest, most loveable child alive because if he were not, things would be ugly around here ;) Even when he does crazy stuff like this (which is pretty much always), you can't help but want to squeeze those adorable chubby cheeks, and fall in love with his amazing smile. My older 2 kids think he is the most entertaining thing to ever grace the earth. My husband loves to come home and wrestle with his burly little boy. And truth be told, I think he's extremely smart and wonderful. I just know that mischeif is part of the package with Jax. Blame his Dad for that. Dan carries the mischief gene. I carry the boring gene.

Anyhoo, he's still alive, and as far as I can tell, so are the fish. The carpet, well, let's just say it's probably good that it's on it's way out some day soon. But for now, I think it's okay..

And in other Jaxon news, he has peed on the potty several times over the last few days. In fact, just a few minutes ago he went in all by himself and sat on the potty and peed, without me putting him there or asking him if he wanted to go. See, told you that kid is smart ;)

What will the next installment bring? Only Jaxon's diabolical mind knows....