Three posts in one day. Wow. Apparently I'm having one of those days.
Let me preface this next story by telling you that there are sinkholes in the street in front of our mailbox and in front of the house next door. They have been filled in once, but keep on sinking. Yesterday the guys from the city came and cut the asphalt in preparation to rip it up around the holes and today they have been outside working all day.
About thirty minutes after my last post, I suddenly caught a whiff of something here in the computer room. It smelled faintly like natural gas, so I immediately walked around the entire basement sniffing every room. I didn't smell anything else, but went upstairs and sniffed Rachael's space as well. And then she came down to smell my space. We were a smelly pair. She caught a faint whiff of something in the computer room as well, but then it dissipated. With no smell to go on, we called it good on our sniffing and went back to our routines. Less than five minutes later, Rachael came down to tell me that there was a natural gas leak and we needed to go. Now. So I hauled Matthew out of the highchair, got the other two boys in their shoes, grabbed purse, diaper bag, and the necessary blankies, and left the house. As is usual for me in high stress situations like that, I was perfectly calm until everyone was out of the house and safe and then I freaked out a teeny bit. Daniel and Nathan were both pretty scared, but they did great. They asked questions once we were in the car and I explained to them as best I could. Since Matthew was the only one who had eaten lunch, we went through the drive-up window at Wendy's and then hunkered down at my in-laws house for an hour or so. Kev called the city, who told him that as soon as the gas was turned off we would be able to go home. So we ate lunch, drove home, checked in with the construction team to make sure it was safe, and hauled everyone back into the house. A few minutes after we arrived, the guys from the gas company arrived with their little sensors to make sure we weren't sucking up natural gas with every breath and to relight the pilot lights and check Rachael's gas range.
With our short evacuation behind us, I finally took a deep breath and went back to the laundry. It was at this point that I discovered that one of my cherished children had left a crayon in a pocket somewhere. It was blue. And the clothes were blue. And the dryer was a bit blue. Seriously, why do things like this all happen on the same day? I think I could probably deal with things better if they came in a sprinkle rather than a torrent! But on the up side, I've discovered that Mr. Clean Magic Erasure works pretty darn well to get crayon off the inside of the dryer. And if the concoction of stuff inside the washer actually gets the crayon out of the clothes, I'll be sure to let you know.
