Raindrops Keep Fallin' Through My Ceiling

Or: In Which The Beckers Lose Two Ceilings In As Many Days To Water Damage. See those drops of water? This time, the kitchen ceiling is getting a soaking, as well as the upper cabinets and the bulkhead above them. It's coming in through holes in the roof, courtesy of our ongoing renovations. And unfortunately, there may not be much that can be done to stop the leaking until our new roof goes up on Monday. And super double unfortunately, it's pouring rain. Buckets. Torrential. Cats and dogs.
Needless to say, the stress of all this stuff is wearing on me. My head feels like I've been listening to jackhammers busting up concrete for the last two days. This is, in part, due to the fact that I have been listening to jackhammers busting up concrete for the last two days. Our construction crew had to cut through a foot and a half of apparently very, very hard concrete to make the opening into the new crawl space. In fact, the first jackhammer they tried wasn't big enough, so they had to bring an even bigger jackhammer in today to finish the job. It was even louder than you might imagine (this coming from someone who spends her days with six young children and nervous dog.) And as a bonus, hammering apart cement creates a large quantity of very fine cement dust, which eventually settles out into an evenly thick layer of powder that is now coating every surface in the house.

Million Dollar Smiles

That's about how much straight teeth cost these days. Our lucky children have all inherited my small jaw, and Matt's big teeth. That amounts to a whole mess of orthodontics to make room for everything. Joe here is being a turd, because he does not want his picture taken.
Paul was more than happy to have his picture taken. Now, I am not a believer that everyone should have a movie-star smile. Matt and I both have crooked teeth, and we have somehow managed to marry, have children, and become productive members of society despite this handicap. Our kids' teeth, however, are so bad that they can't even bite correctly, so into braces they must go. I'm not hoping for "movie star teeth" or "presidential teeth"; we'll be happy if they come out with teeth good enough to run for town councilman or get a job in middle management.

Today was far less dull

While he was wandering around the house getting ready for work this morning, Matt stepped in some water on the pantry floor. This is not so unusual in a household where there are a lot of people who spill things or track things in from outside (not to mention a construction crew coming in and out.) He changed his socks, and went off to work. A short time later, a kid came up to me and said, "Mom, what's all that water on the pantry floor?" This time, I went to investigate and found a rather large pool of water on the tile floor. I looked around the floor, thinking maybe a bottle of water had burst open, when I saw a drop of water fall from above.

I looked up to see the ceiling drywall bulging downward, dripping water, on the verge of breaking open. I had a quick panic attack, and then sent various kids scrambling to find buckets, flashlights, and towels. We poked a hole in the ceiling, and drained the water out into one of the waiting buckets before the whole ceiling collapsed. We pulled down a few more chunks of soggy drywall to try and see where all the water had come from.
Matt was called home from work, the plumber was called, and the leak was traced to the upstairs shower (which is now fixed.) In the midst of all the hullabaloo, I had the kids form a sort of 'bucket brigade' to rescue all of our pantry goods from the deluge from above. Now all our food is all over the family room floor, our pantry ceiling is in Hefty bags out in the garbage, and we have two stories of damp drywall to deal with (plus a BIG hole in the ceiling!)

The Housewife Diaries

Some days are crazy and stressful; others are pleasantly dull. Today was one of the latter. Here, for those who wonder what a dull day at our house looks like, is what I did today:

I watched cement dry.

I yelled at the dog for barking at the building inspector.

I listened to a beginning piano student practice the first three lines of a song 15 times.

I cleaned out the dryer's lint trap and found three silly bands and the helmet from a Lego action figure.

I folded towels.

I clipped a recipe for Snickers Bar Torte from the October Martha Stewart Living.
I fed the baby (x100)

I changed the biggest poopy diaper David has ever produced.

I read Curious George Takes a Train and Curious George Goes To a Costume Party (I won't spoil the endings for you)

I discussed the definition of a noun, and the sound made by the letter v.
I took a vote on what we should eat for dinner- I got two votes for pasta, two for spinach quiche, one vote for "What else is there?" and one vote for "Yuck. I'm running away." (we're having quiche)

I discussed the birthday dinner of a child whose birthday is this Friday, as well as the birthday dinner of a child whose birthday is seven months away.

I watched part of an episode of Scooby Doo (the on where Don Knotts guest stars)

I was feeling particularly ambitious, so I threw an apple custard pie in the oven along with the quiche and potatoes.

I perused a yarn catalog that came in this afternoon's mail.

These are, of course, just the highlights. You can't make this stuff up. And the day isn't even over yet!

Special Ops

Friday was Naomi's eighth birthday. Like all sweet little girls, she wanted battle gear. She lobbied very hard to get this particular Nerf gun, the biggest and most awesome gun Nerf has ever manufactured. It is fully automatic, providing a continuous spray of bullets against any attackers. The kids commandeered all the D-cell batteries in the house in order to power up all this weaponry.
We now have enough fire power to take over a small country (at least on of those anti-gun European ones, anyways.)

Here's a new picture of David, just to up the cute factor of this post (as if kids in combat gear isn't cute enough!)

Hole lotta diggin' goin' on

The excavator arrived yesterday to dig the hole for our foundation. In any situation where there is work to be done, it is of utmost importance that all available parties gather to stare at the one person doing the work. In my observation of highway road crews, there seems to be a minimum ratio of four "starers" to every one worker. The fossil record indicates that entire ancient cities sprung up from the ground simply by the power of the multitudes of ancient people staring at one guy working. My children are always happy to offer their services when there is any work to be stared at; as an added bonus, a number of our neighbors stopped by to stare at the work crew as well.
The hole digging went off with nary a problem. Our next step is to wait for a visit from a bureaucrat from the Office Of Meddling In People's Business, so that he can proclaim that the hole meets all the necessary standards for holes of this type, or some such nonsense. This guy will be visiting us frequently during the building process to bestow his approval upon us, so it's probably in my best interest to not insult the authority of his office.
I think I kind of like having an enormous pit right outside my back door. It seems like it would provide excellent security; it makes me wonder why moats ever fell out of favor (though I'd be pretty certain the building code inspector would not stamp his approval on a moat around the house.) Fly likes being king-of-the-mountain on the big dirt pile; she can only dream of being able to dig a hole that big herself.

Let the games begin!

Today is the first day of demolition. A dumpster was delivered to the top of our driveway first thing this morning, amidst the shouts and cheers of the children. Nothing ever gets done here without the close supervision of the children (and dog).
While the rest of the gang peered out the front window, Renee hung back and offered her support from the dining room table. This was only because she had not yet finished her piece of cake. It is widely known that you should never leave cake unattended in our house, because there is a very high chance that someone (man or beast) will eat it during your absence, no matter how brief. Renee is not one to take chances.
This is what was here when the day began.
And this is what we have at the conclusion of work day number one. If you look real hard, you can see the outlines of the children sitting around the dining room table. This is where we spend about seventy five percent of our day. As such, our work crew will have the benefit of the near-constant supervision of the children.

A little less conversation, a little more action

This breathtaking piece of photography has been uploaded here to show you that things are starting to happen. This is a picture of our very own brand-new furnace, which it was necessary to have installed to begin work on our new addition (the kind of new addition that is built on to the back of our house, not the kind of new addition that needs a name and a crib. We just had one of that kind of new addition.) So the new furnace wouldn't get lonely down there, we also had a new AC unit and a new tankless hot water system installed. All this new stuff going in has meant that there have bee a lot of people coming in and out of my house. And, in case you don't know me very well, I don't do too well with people.
Dealing with people stresses me out. In the past two weeks I have had to deal with the following people: our general contractor, the architect, the tree-trimming people, the HVAC people, the phone-company people, and people from the boys' orthodontist office (the orthodontist has nothing to do with our addition project; I only mention them because they're also people with whom I've had to deal, and they also want to relieve me of all of my money.) Joe looks like he's had enough of people himself, and has engaged the classic "possum" defense.
When I'm not dealing with any of those people, I have to deal with my regular people, like this little person here. Elena here is happily drinking a banana-berry smoothie. Yesterday, she did not get to have a smoothie with the rest of the kids. That's because a few moments after I handed her her very full smoothie cup, she dropped the whole thing on the floor. There was smoothie splattered all over the floor and walls of two whole rooms. It was every bit as horrific as you would expect. It's a good thing I was already planning on painting those walls.
Completely unrelated to anything else we have going on is this picture of Mr. Spider. He's worth mentioning only because he has been entertaining us all week. He (or maybe it's a she, I didn't check!) has set up housekeeping right smack in the middle of our big picture window. Several time a day we get to watch some less-fortunate bug get stuck in his web. Mr. Spider the runs out and wraps the bug up real good with spider-webby stuff, to keep it fresh until he's ready to eat it, I guess. Anyway, Mr. Spider seems to be finding plenty to eat, and is happy to be able to provide our family with some entertainment.