How a Houseplant Totally Ruined My Day

Once upon a time (or maybe it was today), I was trying to get the house in decent shape. Our next-door-neighbor (the nice one, not the ones in the roach house) was coming over in the afternoon to look at a ventilation pipe that's got water condensation on it, which is dripping onto our ceiling and into our walls (awesome, right? It's been doing this every winter, probably for at least the six years we've been here, and we never noticed... but, I digress).

Now, picking up the house is a whole different kind of beast than it was pre-baby. I mean, cleaning and organizing is not--and never has been--my forte, but it's a lot more difficult when I have to time everything perfectly around a tiny human who has no patience and with whom you cannot reason. Everything happens in little ten or fifteen minute bursts.

But, again, I digress.

I was in the middle of one of these magical cleaning bursts. Jack was on a blanket on the floor, babbling at a toy or the ottoman or himself or the ceiling fan, trying desperately to roll from back to belly. I picked up one of BoyWonder's (almost empty. We're talking maybe four ounces, tops) water cups from the night before (a pet peeve of mine, but whatever) and dump it into this plant:

See how it's all wilty and sad? It desperately needs repotted. Like, I've been saying it needs repotted for at least two years now, and honestly it probably needed to be done before that. But, it's a pothos, and they'll survive a lot of abuse for a really long time. I just keep it alive with BoyWonder's leftover water when I happen to remember. So. I poured this four ounces of water in there, just like I do several times a week,with no major issues. 

But this time was different. This time, the plant revolted, and somehow managed to regurgitate roughly a gallon of water all over this bookshelf. I don't have a good picture of this shelf, but it's tall, and FULL of books. Books that were now absorbing all this water. 

Awesome. 

Jack was still playing happily on the floor, but I had no idea how long that was going to last. So, I did what I'm guessing any sane person would do: frantically remove all the books from the bookshelf and move them to my bed. 

At this point, I was cursing both my love of books, and the fact that I've put off both repotting the stupid plant and cleaning and reorganizing the bookshelf (which was going to happen soon anyway, because it is definitely not a baby-safe shelf right now). 

At this point, Jack started to get fussy. It was almost nap time, and he'd just used a ton of energy trying to roll over (he's so close). So I moved him to the bouncer for a change of scenery. 

And, in case you're wondering, my shelf, at this point, looked like this:

Empty, except some random stuff. Okay, that's kind of a lie. Before the picture, it was covered in cat fur and dust, because, as I've said many, many times before, I am bad bad bad at keeping up with things like dusting books and bookshelves. 

And my bed looked like this:

And I was beginning to wonder if I had too many books, or just not enough shelves.

Then, I looked over at Jack, who had suddenly learned how to do this:

That's right, ladies and gents. That's my son. He figured out how to hook his feet on the edge of the bouncer and push himself to a semi-standing position. Which isn't safe at all, and becomes even less safe when he starts trying to use his upper body to make the whole thing bounce (I think he was trying to sit up, thankfully he just doesn't have the abs for that yet).

And yeah, he should be buckled in. But I was two feet away, and having him buckled gives me way less time before he realizes he's being contained and becomes completely irate. (I do buckle him if he's not within arm's reach of me, I promise.)

I moved him out of this position three times before he'd had enough. It was nap time.

By now, it's 12:45. The house is in way worse shape than it was when I started. There are books all over my bed, and vases and various knick knacks and other clutter all over every available surface, and I had to get this baby to take a nap. Oh, have I mentioned that he tends to only nap on me? It's hard to clean if you're holding a sleeping baby.

It took almost an hour to get him to sleep. Usually he naps on the boppy pillow, on me, in the glider. Today, though, I tried to lay on the couch to nurse him to sleep. He kept looking up at me and giggling, totally not even trying to fall asleep. About thirty minutes in, he had almost drifted off to sleep when some random dude ran onto our porch, opened the storm door, pounded on the main door, and took off. I don't know who it was or why he did it. It happened too fast for me to even think about getting up, and it's not the first time it's happened. (Also, that's why I leave the doors locked at all times, and why I don't answer the door for strangers, ever. People freak me out.) So, that was cool.

By the time he fell soundly asleep, I had roughly an hour and a half to get everything put back, plus all the other cleaning left to do. Ha! I failed. I got most of the books put away. It took a long time because they were dusty, and I had to put them back the right way, because we all know I probably won't mess with them again for another year (or three).

BoyWonder came home. Woke Jack up when he came crashing through the front door, and acted like a complete douche about how the house looked even though I told him what had happened. So, my feelings were hurt, and he was irritated because I'm bad and slow at cleaning, and I was irritated for the same reason plus he has no idea what it's like to try to do things on the tiny human's schedule... It just didn't make for a good evening.

On the bright side, though, the bottom shelf was full of kid books that I was forced to move into Jack's room. This also cleared enough room that I can get some pretty baskets to put there for toy storage, which will be nice. And, in a month or two when we have to start bolting everything to the wall, it will be a much less stressful adventure. And I managed to weed through some of the books I don't need anymore, which means that soon I'll be able to make a trip to the second-hand bookstore and get some different books (that I also don't need).


So, that was my day.

Fun times, right?

In other news, I cut wheat out of my diet in an attempt to figure out what else Jack is allergic to. So far, I haven't noticed a difference at all (his only symptom is green mucusy poop), but it hasn't even quite been a week yet.

I miss bread. And pasta. ::sigh:: Oh well.