Rachel's Fantastic Adventures

God, I love 12 year olds!

We are reading The Watsons Go to Birmingham at school, and the oldest boy, Byron, gets himself in a lot of trouble throughout the book. His parents refer to his shenanigans as "Byron's Fantastic Adventures". Rachel has officially started her own list of adventures!

We totally were overdue for something. My mind tried to imagine what might be next. It always seems to be something. Even knowing that, I was oblivious to the catastrophe waiting in the wings.

Rachel had youth group last night, and after I picked her up, we were just kind of hanging out at home. It was starting to get late, and I was helping Amberlea make flashcards for a science test. I knew Rachel was done with her homework and just watching t.v., so I asked her to get Tye into the bath. There seems to be some discrepancy in the story here, as she thought I said to run his bath water. I can't recall for sure, but I guess when I ask a 12 year old to run bath water for a 5 year old, I also expect her to turn it off when the tub is full. Seems only obvious...

NOPE...not so obvious, I guess.

So Amberlea and I are in the office, and I can hear the water running. I could tell that she was putting him in my jacuzzi tub by the direction of the noise of the water. I let him once in a while, and by the time I realized, I thought, oh well, it will be fine tonight. That is how I came to be clueless that the water was still running. The jets on the jacuzzi also sound like water running, so I just thought the jets were going. I hollered to be sure that Rachel was checking on Tye. Pretty soon she came down to the office doorway to see what I had said. I told her...I wanted you to check on your brother, he shouldn't be in there by himself and...

About that time, Amberlea was within view of the downstairs living room and said...Tye isn't in the tub. At that point, Rachel looked like she had been shot, and when I stepped out of the office, I could hear that it sounded like a torrential downpour in Rachel's room (directly below my bathroom). Rachel raced upstairs to shut off the water. Her side of the story makes sense to someone, I'm sure...she started the water, and told Tye to get in the tub and turn off the water himself. She was busy watching t.v.

Hmmm....

I instinctively turned on the lights in Rachel's room, at which time I realized that water was gushing out through the recessed lighting and out of a ceiling air vent. I went and flipped the breaker and grabbed a trashcan to catch some of the water. The outlets in Rachel's room still worked, so we flipped a lamp on over on the opposite side of the room. Water was trickling down the walls of what would be directly below my bathtub. Rachel did manage to salvage her Twilight poster and keep it from being ruined. Whew! We are not sure how long the water ran, although the hot water ran completely out, so I'm guessing a decent amount of time. I used a steam cleaner to suck the water out of her carpet and got about a gallon, as well as catching about a gallon in the trashcan. I ran to Erin's to get a fan and dehumidifier, and we are working to get her room all dried out. I am actually surprised there wasn't more damage, considering the fact that it was running in the ceiling. There was one weak area in the ceiling that I thought might bust through, as water was actually dripping through the ceiling itself, but it held strong. Otherwise, I guess it all ran down the inside of the walls.

I was surprised with myself. I have been crying a lot lately, and having a lot of anxiety. I almost didn't even make it into school today because I had some trouble getting myself together. But I did pretty good last night, not losing my cool. I raised my voice and barked a few orders, then gave Rachel a little chewing out, but I didn't yell. I have given her a hard time all day, and I told her tonight that if I didn't get to yell and scream at her or ring her neck, she was going to have to put up with me making fun of her a little bit!

It could have been worse. And no one was hurt in the making of Rachel's first major adventure.

For the record, I had Amberlea run his bath water tonight...