Oh, The Things That Happen

All was going smoothly. Dishes were washed. Boys were playing happily. It was time to fry up the 10  pounds of ground beef that was given to us. However, as it thawed in the fridge, it dripped blood all over the bottom shelf. No big deal, it just requires a little bit of cleaning...

So I got out the soapy water and began wiping down the fridge. This is a new fridge. The bottom shelf is glass and has two drawers below it. It is wonderfully designed so the blood didn't get into my produce at all and I was thrilled. Malcolm snuck in and began playing in the soapy water. I hadn't rinsed my sponge yet, so I told him that he couldn't play in it after I rinsed the sponge. But every time I looked away, he tried to get more bubbles. I finally had him sit away from me, and he started to fuss.

Around this time I also couldn't figure out how to get the glass off the bottom shelf so I could clean under it. So I took out the entire bottom shelf  - plastic frame and glass. Since it was too large to fit in the sink, I took it upstairs to the bathtub. I came down, finished wiping down the inside of the fridge, changed the water and was going to clean the shelf in the tub before I did one more wipe down of the fridge - maybe wiping other shelves too. As I left the kitchen, I noticed the boys were coming to investigate, but I said to myself, "A few soap bubbles around the kitchen won't be too bad. Let them play."

As I began to wipe down the shelf and its frame, the glass part of the shelf easily slipped out and I turned on the water to rinse it off. Somehow, I am not sure how, as I put the glass under the water, I also tapped it against the side of the tub and it instantly shattered into a million thousand pieces. I didn't know what to do, so I turned off the water and went downstairs to call Thomas.

But as I came down, there were the boys... Eamon was stripped down to his underpants, "My shirt and pants were wet." Malcolm was soaked, and they were dumping handfuls of toys into the soapy water. Without them understanding why, I finally put up a gate and locked them out of the kitchen. I called Thomas and began cleaning up the water. As I was on the phone, I realized that my hands were bleeding. One hand had been cut while washing dishes, the other had all sorts of pricks and minuscule cuts on three different fingers.

I don't know what the boys did for the next 20 minutes or so. I think they played swimming pool on the couch. I cleaned up the floor, tried to find a ShopVac to clean up the tub, called my mom, bandaged my fingers, and began cooking dinner and frying up the ground beef. When Thomas got home, the only evidences of the disaster were naked boys, bandaged hands, and shattered glass mixed with blood in the tub.

After supper, he got the boys ready for bed while I cleaned out the shower with a dust pan and brush. Then I kissed them all good-bye and left for a "Girls Night Out." It was very relaxing, but I realized this morning as everything I did caused my hands to hurt, that I hadn't quite recovered from the shock of the whole event. I think it may be awhile before I trust myself to hold anything glass.