May 17, 2008

Can I borrow a cup of vegetable oil?

Days like today make every other day seem like a trip to Disney World.

Kyle had to be at a baseball tournament all day today so Jack and I were on our own. After breakfast, I lifted Jack out of his high chair only to feel a sharp pain shoot from my lower back down my left hip and leg. I took 2 of the Excedrin and carried on . . . while hunched over in pain. At this point, I felt like I was about 65. Not a good way to begin the day.

I started cleaning up from breakfast and from, well . . . the week! We weren't home much so things seemed to kind of pile up. Have I mentioned that Jack figured out how to open the cabinet and drawer child locks in our kitchen? Jack gets so frustrated now when we won't allow him to get into the kitchen cabinets. I think he saw the cabinet locks as a challenge . . . and that once he could figure them out, the cabinets were fair game. Like figuring them out was a rite of passage that earned him full access or something.

After about 1/2 hour, I realized that it was remarkably quiet. I turned around to see the pantry door was wide open. I found Jack in our carpeted hallway dumping one jug of vegetable oil all over himself and the carpet. How on earth he got the cap off, I will never know. In retrospect, I wish I had stopped and taken a picture. For a split second I thought, "Is this the catalyst we need to get new flooring?" But then I remembered we don't have any money.

I stripped Jack and left him crying in his crib while I scraped vegetable oil off and out of the carpet. Once Jack realized that he could see me from his room, he got a kick out of watching me. I know he wanted to get out and join in on the fun, but I couldn't have him running around through it and I knew I needed to get it up before it was too late.

Don't forget . . . I'm still hunched over at this point because of my back pain.

I re-dressed Jack and gave him a snack. I remembered that one of the chambers to our carpet shampooer was cracked. Of course it was cracked. Why wouldn't it be cracked? I tried to fix that while Jack ate.

I read Jack a story and put him down for a nap . . . which sounds much easier than it actually is . . . and got back to the carpet. The Excedrin was finally starting to kick in, so I was in a little less pain. I quickly googled "get vegetable oil out of carpet" and almost every piece of advice included kitty letter. I was fresh out of kitty litter so I went to the second best piece of advice which was using hair shampoo. I read that the more expensive shampoos work best. I grabbed my Suave Daily Clarifying shampoo from the bathroom and figured it would have to do. After I got up as much of the oil as possible (many thanks to Bounty, which I really do believe is the quicker picker upper), I scrubbed the spots with a sponge and the shampoo. As I was scrubbing, I wondered if it really would work better if I used a more expensive shampoo. I mean, when I bought it I didn't think I'd ever be using it on my carpet. And I almost never get vegetable oil in my hair.

I was able to fix the water chamber of the carpet shampooer, so I ran it with water only trying to get up all of the soap. It was at this point that I realized that vegetable oil in this amount doesn't come up out of carpet.

So, I went downstairs to work on card orders I had received Friday and found that I had three more. I got to work and realized that all of my work from Friday night had somehow been lost. I wasn't a bit surprised. I mean, look at my day up until this point. It didn't matter anyway. I had only been sitting down for 10 minutes when Jack woke up.

I gave Jack some lunch and attended to the carpet spots a little more. They were now more sudsy than they were oily. I'm not sure which is worse. I just kept running the carpet shampooer on rinse mode. Of course, the shampooer sounded like a vaccuum and made Jack freak out, so I had to stop.

After lunch, I ignored every voice in my head telling me that today might not be the best day to leave the house. I took Jack to Target to make some returns. It went so smoothly, that I decided to do my grocery shopping. I had about $20 worth of coupons for things that I needed and I wanted to use them before this week's sales were over.

In Meijer, Jack started giving this throaty scream and pointing to his diaper. He's never told me when he needs to be changed before, so this was something new. I figured I had better change him soon if he was communicating to me that he needed to be changed, so I grabbed the diaper bag and my purse and left my cart there. It's a good thing I left then because his diaper was LOADED. A minute or two more and He would have had to wear just a t-shirt and his diaper for the rest of our trip . . . which, to be quite frank, probably would have helped us fit in a little better.

We got back to our cart and I was delighted to see that everything was still there.

I got into the check out line and the cashier began ringing stuff up. I looked all over for my coupons and they were no where to be found. My guess is that some lucky Meijer shopper got their very own guide for how to get $35 worth of groceries for $15 while I paid sale price, sans coupons, for my items. Either I dropped it or someone took it while our cart was unattended. In either case, you're welcome.

My back pain started to flare up as we were leaving Meijer and I couldn't sit still the whole way home because it hurt so bad. I called Kyle and he told me that there were rain delays at the tournament and he'd be home 1 - 2 hours later than he had anticipated. Lovely.

I managed to make it through the rest of the afternoon and give Jack dinner while only being able to stand halfway up. Jack actually thought it was kind of funny. At one point, I was on my stomach, with my knees balled up under me and Jack was lifting up my shirt and kissing my back. Which totally made up for the large oil stains on the carpet in our hallway.

My back is still pretty bad, but Kyle's home now. Everything is better when he's home. I'm hoping I'll wake up tomorrow and my back will be as good as new because, well, the chiropractor is expensive. But with my luck, I'll be making an appointment first thing Monday morning.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't envy you...this WAS a bad day. Makes mine, which was a bit rough, seem like a piece of cake! I hope tomorrow is better.

Vegetable oil in the carpet...haven't heard that one before! Good luck getting it out. Or do you have to replace the carpet? We have some old kitty litter in the basement, from when we had to throw out old paint (we have to mix it in before the trash guys will take it), so I think I'll save it. You know, just in case.

Sara Neufeld said...

Bummer...that is a long, hard day. I hope today is better!

Erin K. said...

So sorry to hear about your day! The layout of our house is nice because we have the kitchen completely blocked off with a baby gate, so almost anything messy is either in the kitchen or kept upstairs. I'm worred about the day we finally move to a new house because things will probably be much more accessible. And I'm sure I will then have my own vegetable oil stories to tell...

I hope your back feels better soon!!

Crystal said...

I'm sorry you are having such a hard few days! I hope things start looking up for you! We have all been there!

Smith Family Blog said...

I already read this once this morning, but I just went back and read it again, to make my not-so-great day seem not-so-bad after all....

But I do wish you had taken a picture. :)

Kyle Luke said...

Yeah, I keep reading it to remind myself to be thankful that no matter how bad today seems, it is not as bad as Saturday!

Unknown said...

Yowza! So you're not allowed to cry and get back into bed when taking care of a baby? Hmmmm, rethinking this whole "baby" thing.

Anonymous said...

Aleve and a good chiropractor.

Best things on earth.

Anonymous said...

What an awful day! Hope you don't have to endure another of those for a long time!
The oil on the carpet thing made me laugh though...that same sort of thing happened to us when Savannah was about 2. Sam was in the shower and we noticed she was really quiet and came out of the bathroom to Savannah and our carpet covered in Black acrylic paint...and that is the reason we had hard wood floors in our living room instead of carpet! (in our old house) I still don't know how she got the cap off that bottle of paint!

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