Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day everyone! So I am bound and determined to have a boring, no drama, peaceful mothers day tomorrow. First Mother's day - I had chicken pox, Alex had chicken pox, Billy was out of town and everyone else was at their mother's house celebrating mother's day...including my mother. 2nd Mother's day - Alex had RSV and Billy was out of town 3rd mother's day - Matty was very sick and Billy was out of town, 4th mother's day - I had a newborn, a broken back and two toddlers - just recently had a c-section and was in ridiculous back pain, 5th mother's day - I was in the hospital for 72 hours with Josh with phnemonia. Last mother's day was actually somewhat normal, but Billy was again, out of town so yes, that brings us to tomorrow. I'd like ONE mother's day where there isn't any drama...so I can reflect on how regardless of my "not so great" mother's days, the rest of the year each year has been pretty amazing and I am so unbelievably grateful to have been blessed 3 times...with 3 amazing, wonderful crazy little monkies.

Let it snow let it snow let it snow

Today we had snow for the first time in our new house! It was awesome...the kids were bezerko and I loved watching the flakes fall from my sunroom. My sunroom is my absolute favorite room in my house and I love it at almost all hours of the day and have enjoyed it through summer and fall - but for some reason I never thought about watching snow in it and it was tranquil and serene. There is something extra special about snow when kids are around. They just make everything that much more special and today was no exception. Their excitement was contagious and exhilarating and we all had an amazing day. Hannah took the kids out later to try and sleigh down some hills. I don't think there was enough snow, but they may a valiant effort just the same. She's downloading the pics from their adventure so I don't have them yet but will post one or two on my next posting. I hope everyone enjoyed the snow as much as we did!

Grateful for Joshua

So here I sit. Silence...well sort of. Nice sounds of the rain hitting the chimney do hickey. The soft snore of Scout sleeping next to me (and keeping my feet nice and warm I might add). A random car from Lower Roswell Road driving by now and again (why do we hear some and not others?). That's it. That is about as silent as this house ever gets and I'm welcoming it, embracing it and snuggling in its warm comfort. It has been quite a crazy couple of days and I seriously needed this moment.

Sometimes I feel like an iguana. For those of you that don't know, iguana's need something warm (preferably the sun) to digest their food. After they eat a tasty fly or creepy crawly, they have to scoot on over to a rock sitting in the sun and just hang for a little...just long enough to get the juices flowing in the tummy to digest their most recent meal. My iguana-like self needs some quiet time or down time of some sort to digest certain events, obstacles or dramas in my life. I don't necessarily need the warmth....but digesting MY most recent whatever is always easier with a lit candle or burritoed in my electric blanket or by my fireplace or in the actual sun in the back yard.

My brain is surrounded by babies. The ones I have of my own, the ones on their way and the ones just born are taking up most of my mind these days. And for the past two days, well those thoughts have been devoted to Josh.

I've tried describing more than once what it feels like to have a child...what the level of love you feel...and I always wind up short. I've realized that it's because the description was never meant to be read, or described or taught - by a book or by mouth. It's one of the few things on earth that was specifically created to FEEL. Ernest Hemingway did a pretty great job on describing items in his stories...but I don't think that even he could truly describe what it is like; not truly enough to give credit to the actual feeling of it. God specifically did things a certain way for us to feel... and having a child, knowing that love and all of the levels of emotions that come with it...well that may have been top on his list.

I have a special bond with each of my babies, as any mother does. Each of them are amazing in their own way and every day they make me laugh, amaze me and make me want to scream sometimes too. Josh is one of the happiest little guys I've ever known. He had a rough start and decided to grab life by the reigns and ride it to the fullest. He's brilliant, hysterical, beautiful and has an ancient ancient soul. I'm not even sure where his inner depths reach - but they far surpass mine. His happy go lucky attitude makes for a very easy child. He is rarely fussy, can entertain himself along with everyone else in a room and when hurt, really just brushes it off and moves forward with whatever it is he feels like doing. My bond with him is unique. I went through a special level of hell to get him here, to have him enter this world safely and healthy. I was only 14 weeks pregnant when I herniated my two discs with him. I went through 23 weeks of hospitilizations for discs rupturing, walking phnemonia, 3 day stay for an asthma attack and indescribible back pain. We made a deal with each other - he would be okay if I stayed put in the hospital bed and did whatever the doctors told me to do. The delivery sucked. The hospital actually had to have a board meeting to decide how my delivery was going to go. The decision was split 3 to 3. They didn't know if I should deliver vaginally and risk rupturing more discs or permanently messing up my back or if I should deliver by c-section leaving me with no support in my back and then cut muscles/no support in my front. They actually left the decision up to me. I was told the c-section was going to be better for Josh so that's the route I went. They had to put my epidural in one of the discs that was ruptured. To date, that is the worst pain I've experienced. There were also complications after his delivery - he was addicted to pain medicine that they made me take in the hospital for 4 weeks. He was on methedone for 6 weeks after he was born. The beginning was rough. I never ever ever wanted to see him hurt again....ever.

Josh got phnemonia when he was 14 months old. I spent my first mother's day with him awake in the hospital for 72 hours praying that he would be okay. He was a total trooper. The entire thing barely bothered him a bit. THAT is just how he is....he is the poster kid picture for "life is good".

He got tubes put in his ears when he was 17 months old. He was up and running around within hours and never complained a bit. Not one single bit.

He's had his ear drums ruptured twice from severe ear infections....didn't even cry, just fussed for a second to let us know his ears were bleeding. His tolerance for pain is pretty respectfully high.

Josh had surgery this Thursday. He had tubes put back into his ears, he had his tonsils out and his adnoids out. I was nervous and stressed and upset about being at the hospital by myself, but there was a part of me that was relieved it was Josh, because up until now, he has pretty much handled what his little life has given him. After his surgery the doctor came into the waiting room to let me know that the whole thing went great and that Josh was in recovery. He told me that as soon as he woke up that I would be able to go see him. I gave a deep sigh of relief and waited for the nurse to come in to tell me I could go get my little trooper.

When the nurse came in, she was in a state of panic. That pretty much set the mood for the events to follow. She told me that Josh was awake but not doing very well and that I needed to go to him immediately. When I got there he was, for lack of better description, freaking out. He was still completely drugged out - barely out of the anesthesia in pain and very afraid. He was actually in some sort of primal state acting as if he was newborn. His body was completely stiff and his back was arched with his head slightly back screaming. It's a motion I've seen more than once with a newborn who really really wanted Mommy or was in pain from gas or something but I've never seen a toddler act like this. I grabbed him and did my best to calm him down. I held him tight and tried to soothe him. Until he came a little bit more out of his drug induced state, it was almost like he was a newborn again and not having the rationalization that he was a separate entity from me. I was finally able to calm him down enough for the nurses to stop freaking out. Josh's drugs wore off enough to become enough of himself to start chanting "I hurt" "I hurt" over and over again. He then told us "I choking" which is his terminology for throwing up. He threw up blood all over the place. That made him feel a little better I think and then he went back into chanting "I hurt". I was pretty okay through this until he started praying. It was at that point that I didn't know how much longer I was going to keep it together. He just kept chanting "Please Jesus no hurt" over and over again. I asked the nurse to give him some pain medicine and he swallowed that along with a sip of apple juice. He was still semi-losing it and still periodically arching his back and stiffening his whole body in pain and through it all still praying to Jesus. He threw up his pain medicine and I guess whatever blood that was left in his stomach from the surgery. Billy unfortunately had to work that morning so I called Hannah to please come help. By the time she got there, he was much more calmed down and had obviously kept some pain medicine in his belly as he was also getting sleepy. Hannah took Josh from me and he fell into a deep sleep in her arms. Again, words are useless to describe my gratefullness for Hannah....as words always seem to come short for describing her and it was at the point of seeing that Josh was now okay that I totally and completely broke down. I think I may have concerned the nurses a bit, but I couldn't help it. I held it together as long as I could - held it together until I knew he was going to be okay and then just crumbled. I had had surgery myself (yet another back procedure) 3 days earlier so I wasn't exactly at my greatest and by that point I think we were all very very ready to go home. They wouldn't release us until Josh drank his juice. When he woke up about 15 minutes later, he wasn't super happy and jovial, but he was definitely his little Joshy self, taking life in stride and just dealing with whatever he was being dealt. Other than some pain in the middle of the night last night, he has been amazing and happy and...well...he's been Joshy.

So here I sit...digesting. I am so grateful for him. I am so grateful that he is my sweet little boy, that he is all the exciting wonderful goofy little things that make him who he is and I am so grateful, so beyond grateful, that this surgery, this routine "it happens every day" surgery is over.

Well, crap! I forgot I'm not superwoman!

So today I woke up a bit on the groggy not so great side but decided to ignore it and start my day non the less. It was our anniversary today and I wanted to go to Target with Hannah to get chocolate cake mix (not my favorite by any means, but it IS Billy's so I wanted to do something nice) and get the kids their valentines stuff for school, etc. By the time we got to Target, I was feeling less than great. We grabbed all of the items we needed and I was at the end of my trip picking out an anniversary card for Billy. It was about then that I realized that MAYBE I had pushed my body a LITTLE too much and really went from feeling "not so great" to downright crappy. I grabbed a very suitable card for our relationship and instead of turning and walking away, my body decided to call it quits for a moment and I went head first ( I think) into the card stack. Don't remember much about it, just know that all of a sudden I was on the floor with about a hundred cards around me and I was quite dizzy. I found Hannah in the next isle, threw the card in the cart and told her I had to go to the car. I called my doc when I got to the car - the one that did the surgery yesterday and he told me to go to the emergency room (boo). SO Hannah and the boys took me to Northside where they checked to make sure i hadn't had a stroke or any crazy stuff like that. It boiled down to my blood vessels were still expanded from surgery and I was doing too much too soon (SHOCKER) so I was ordered go home and go to bed for a while. So much for a fun romantic anniversary. Hannah and Alex made the cake for me though and before dinner I managed to frost it so we could have a piece after dinner. Somehow I still haven't given him his card.....
So I'm blamming target. Now please don't get me wrong...I adore the store and frequent it often.....but I am starting to have a list of target memories that I'd rather forget. At least this one did not include wet fruit punch powder power aid from head to toe with a woman screaming "she's going into labor!!!!"

Back operation 2.9

So yesterday I had my 64,0000th surgery on my back. This one was just a major procedure, but as far as procedures go, I guess it was a big deal. They did a nerve ablasion in a set of 3 in my L4-L5 R1 hardware area. Basically they removed a nerve from my body. The first of the 3, I was put under like any normal person would, but this time, I asked them to not sedate me and just give me enough medicine to take the edge off so I could watch what they were doing. This may seem like a bit gross or strange to you, but let me tell you, when you have a huge screen in front of you and you can see really cool things like this happening to your body, it's pretty amazing. SO they agreed and I got to watch them do the procedure until it hurt to the point where I asked them to go ahead and knock me out. By that point tho, most of it had been completed so it was pretty cool to watch. I went home and rested afterwards and was in a little more pain than usual, but not too bad.

Just a regular ol' day at home

Well first of all I forgot an amusing "out of the mouths of lil' saids" quote that I must share....
I was working on my computer the other morning and Matty and Josh came walking up. Matty asked what I was doing and I explained that I was looking up a word in a thesaurus. He asked me what that was so I explained it to him. Now as you know, Matty hangs the moon to Josh and he follows his big bro around everywhere. So seconds after me answering Matty, Josh pipes in with "what's that?". Matty answered with "It's a rehsaurus Josh". Josh asked Matty "What's a rehsauraus?" Matty told him - "It's the little dinosaur that lives in Mommy's computer that tells her what kind of word she needs". I thought you all would enjoy that one.

So what's an average ol' night at the Said house? Well, after dinner we play for a little bit and go to bed. Tonight we were all playing dinosaurs so I thought I would take a few pictures for you to see our own special little Jurassic Park right here in Marietta, GA.

Now as you can see, Alex can't be bothered with playing with dinosaurs but she can still hang out with everyone while she watches high school musical. Matty can't focus on anything but a camera if there is a camera in the room (taking after Aunt Rachel I guess) hence the close up shot of him....

And that's your basic average night at our house....

Is there a hidden camera on me???

Okay seriously...
I know that every position can't be everything we want in life...but this one is so strange and off that I am actually beginning to wonder if I am on some show of some sort. Is there a hidden camera somewhere near me??!!!
The interview for this position should have given me warning enough to know that it was going to be off. It was in the middle of Lenox mall at Starbucks - not the actual Starbucks, but the stand in the middle of the mall...on friday....Jan 2nd at 2:00PM. Still don't get it? How many people do you think were at the most well known mall in Atlanta on Jan 2nd in the middle of the afternoon? If you guessed THOUSANDS, you would be correct. The line for coffee was about 15 to 20 people deep so I didn't even try to get a coffee when I met her. We sat at the coffee bar thing and the entire time she interviewed me there was a little boy jabbing her in the back. It was hard to concentrate and honestly a little hard not to laugh. I was told about the office manager position and that I would be supporting my manger - the CEO and that he was demanding, a bit of a micro manager, had no family, expected his assistant to be on call 24/7 and a bit scattered. Lovely. She described all of the things I would be responsible for - I willl spare you, just basic office manager duties. Regardless of the description - I needed $ so I acted excited non the less. The interview lasted a whopping 20 minutes and then it was over. I had no read on the chick and did not think that I would be hearing back from her.
So Sunday night I get the job. I started on Tuesday. The job position was office manager/executive assistant. I'm not certain who put my sweet recruiter in the dark on this one, but the description couldn't be more inaccurate.
Long version:
The building is shaped odd so the entire office with all the cubicles and people are on one side of the building and on the other side of the building is the CEO's office, the Chief of Staff's office and my desk in front of both of them. My desk faces a blank wall as you can see from my last blog. It's a gorgeous view that is quite stimulating....lol
Becky (the interviewer and Chief of Staff) showed me the other side of the office, where the break room was, the color copier and paper, etc. and then brought me to my desk. She showed me the phone system and under a plexi glass there was the phone extension list and another sheet of paper with directions on how to use the phone system. I can promise you that if I read those directions once, never saw that system again or spoke of it, I would still be able to work it in 50 years without any problems. Let's just say it wasn't very complicated.
I am 100% addicted to caffeine. Can't get enough of it and was dying for coffee. I was informed that any time I left my desk that I had to notify Becky (whether it be to go to the bathroom or anything else) and I really didn't have a problem with that. I asked her if she would mind if I went to the break room to get a cup of coffee. She responded oddly telling me that she wasn't sure if I should go "all the way to the other side of the office....which is about 60 feet" and told me that if I wanted a cup of coffee I could use the small kitchenette that was next to the "executive side - our side" and use the k-cups that are normally for the visiting clients, etc. I didn't care WHERE I got my precious nectar of the gods, I just wanted some. After I grabbed some java I went back to my desk. She came back over and told me "well...that coffee is really only for clients so your not planning on drinking more than one cup of it are you?"......now respectfully I understand that non coffee drinking people are not aware of it's necessity however, this lady just told me that I couldn't get the coffee in the break room nor could I use the coffee in the kitchenette. I didn't want to rock the boat on my first day so I just made a mental note to drink as much diet coke and coffee as humanly possible at lunch. While sitting there admiring my view, the IT guy came over and set up my computer to have access to the phone system. Becky informed him that I would not need an emaill address or internet. It was about then that I was wondering how in the heck was I to be an OM or EA without email, but hey...let's just go with it. While sitting there in silence I was impressed at how quiet a place could be without any distracting sounds - air vent, screaming children, tv, HUMAN BEINGS, etc. I giggled and it sounded like an outside concert which made me crack up. I was beginning to wonder why the phone was rarely ringing. After looking at the extension page, I realized that I was answering phones for a company where each employee had their own direct line. I answered 15 phone calls in 8 hours. Each time the phone DID ring, Becky scooted from her office and stood behind me to make sure I transferred it correctly. Now I will be the first one to admit that I do not have a college degree, but I do believe my intelligence level is a bit more advanced than needing assistance 15 times to transfer calls. Regardless, it was what it was. A bit later she asked me to update the January birthday page. After doing that she asked me to email it to her and I explained that I couldn't because I had no email so she called the IT guy back to set up an acct for me. I told her that I was going to the other side of the office to grab the paper I printed from the color printer and she became once again hesitant about "the other side". She responded with "well...I don't know...maybe I should come with you just in case you get confused". I don't know if she meant direction-wise or how to pick up a piece of paper, but in this case I just followed her over there.
After some more wall starring, I decided that I would at least work on my organizer, which you know keeps me sane and organized. It's the size of a book - a bit smaller than a regular sized sheet of paper so it doesn't take up much room. I had it opened and was working on my calendar. Becky came back over and told me that "they really didn't want to have the desk look cluttered". The reaction was one of those movie moments where we kept starring at each other and not speaking until I slowly reached for my organizer and slowly closed it continuously starring at her still trying to figure out if she was serious since it was the only thing on my desk. She starred at me until I put it in a drawer and then went back into her office. The IT guy came back and set up my email. He asked Becky if she wanted it to read dsaid or dianesaid or what and she made that hesitant response again of well.....I don't think she should have her own email account, let's just make it execasst@blahblah. It's great to feel important.
Lunch time rolled around and having been a manager for many years previously, I was expecting Becky or Paul (the CEO) or both to take me out to lunch. Neither said a word so I went off by myself and sat in the cafe downstairs and drank as much caffeine as my body could humanly handle. Now for those of you paying attention, yes...this is the first time I've mentioned Paul. He seems extremely nice, very focused and gentle. He spends most of his time on the "other side" with his employees and then periodically comes back to his office to check his messages - that were left from people calling his direct line of course- with the door closed or every once in a while had a person in his office speaking about whatever with the door closed. My exposure of Paul was about just that as it has been since. It is my opinion that this position has absolutely nothing to do with him or what he does daily.
Knowing I had the entire afternoon to killl, I asked Becky (and Paul actually) if there was ANYTHING I could do to help them. Neither had much to give - I made 2 labels and Becky wanted me to order something from office depot. It was about that time that she realized I needed internet access as well so BACk came the IT guy and set up the internet. By this time I was punchy and bored and goofy so I started trying to make the IT guy laugh....my humor was going over like a brick. I asked him why he never smiled. He looked at me surprised and said that the office says that he is the one who smiles the most. It dawned on me that I had not seen anyone smile yet...but my exposure to employees was pretty low. It also scared the hell out of me that if this was the happiest person here....where in the heck WAS I???!!! I received a wonderful escape when a young russian guy Slava showed me where the mail room was so I could do mail from now on. That was EVERYTHING I did on my first day.
It took me almost 2 hours to get home. It took me almost 1.5 hours to get there in the morning. I arrived before my babies woke up and came home after they went to bed. I'm beginning to wonder if this is going to work out......
Day 2 - Phone calls received 12 in 8 hours. typed out 1 label in 8 hours. I stopped at Starbucks BEFORE arriving to work so I was good to go on the coffee. I also brought 2 diet cokes from home. I asked Becky where the water cooler was and again she gave me the hesitant response about going to the "other side" where the breakroom is and mentioned the tap water sink in the kitchenette used for clients. I waited until lunch and drove home to grab 5 more diet cokes. Afternoon - more starring at the blank wall. About 5:00PM rolled around and she asked me if I could do a job description for a Fixed Income Analyst. I told her sure and asked her if she had a company requirement regarding the job, which she didn't. I asked her if I could talk to the head of the department that the analyst would work in and she explained that it was on the other side and she didn't think he was there right now. I then asked her if the company had to set up an internal open requisition before posting it externally. She had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. I then asked her if she was the HR manager and she said yes. SO I asked her if she needed to make sure all of the employees were aware of the position so they could apply for it before it was displayed to the public. Her response was that she didn't really think there was a person in the company suitable for the position. It was around then that I realized that she had no idea what she was doing and the things she DID know how to do - like answer a phone and transfer it - she micromanaged the heck out of. I began to wonder HOW she became Chief of Staff. Now I'm not going to say anything with certainty, but I will write that our CEO is very attractive and single and Becky is very very pretty. I will leave it at that. Here is a picture of me smiling.....so far the only smile in the office!!!!! Hasta until tomorrow or until I find the hidden camera.

The view of downtown Atlanta is BEAUTIFUL......

Or so I think. If I turn completely around I can see some windows, but currently my desk faces this beautiful blank wall. Go ahead...ask me if I'm bored right now. I also took a picture of a plant that I felt sorry for yesterday because it looked as if it was dying. It wasn't until later yesterday that I realized it's plastic. Who makes a plastic plant that looks to be on its way out?? Ahhhh the joys of an office job once again! Guess beggers can't be choosers and hey - it's money right!??!!

Is this WHY I didn't get the job????

So per a few people's requests, I have been asked to share some of my crazy moments that seem to only happen to me. As some of you know, I have been interviewing for a job position to bring in steady money for the family. I had an interview opportunity that I was excited about as an office manager not too far from me (I'll leave the name out of the blog) that had an impressive salary range so I was pretty pumped. I dressed up as business like as I could (and I can throw it together if need be) and had all my ducks in a row and was off to the interview. The only thing that I didn't bring with me unfortunately was an umbrella. When I arrived at the office parking lot, I was disappointed to see that they did not have any underground parking and I would have to walk a little bit in the rain. This normally isn't a big deal for me, but since I had straightened my hair, any water that touches it makes it curly again and it just basically grows outward. You can go ahead and picture Monica on friends in that vacation episode or Rosana Rosana Danah as this is pretty much what happens when Dee's straight hair gets wet. I sat in the car and waited until it was down to a light sprinkle before venturing out into the rain. As things normally go, as soon as I got out of the car and took about two steps, the heavens decided to open and a massive downpour started - so severe that I was wondering if hail was involved. I started to "run" to the front of the building. "Running" is not my fortay as it is and trying to run in the heels I was wearing was...well....impossible. Within a few feet I had reached a HUGE massive puddle and no way around it. I tried running through it and because I am the most graceful person on the planet I slip and cartoon flipped right onto my back into about a 3 inch puddle. Thankfully I didn't hurt myself, but there I was completely soaked by the rain anyways and now lying in a puddle totally saturating my suit from jacket down through bra, pants through panties. Now let's remember that it was downpouring still so my face was looking into the heavens being pelted by seriously harsh rain. So much for make-up, doing hair and at this point even getting dressed. There was a man behind me hurrying to get into the building as well and when he saw the whole thing, his only response was "OH MY GOD". He helped me up and my dead sexy self walked in behind him into the building. Once I got onto the floor, the company had one of those very high security offices so I couldn't get in without the receptionist buzzing me into the front door. When she saw me, her only reaction was "WHAT HAPPENED". I asked her if I could use the restroom and she informed me that the restroom was in the office part of the building where I would need more security to get into that she didn't have. I would have to wait for the person INTERVIEWING ME to let me in. I asked her if she at least had a mirror, which she didn't. SO the lady interviewing me came out and stopped in her tracks with her jaw dropped and mouth wide open when she saw me. I tried to play it off and just politely asked her if I may use the restroom. When I got to the restroom and looked into the mirror all I could do was laugh. I had mascara down to my mouth on both eyes and my hair looked like someone had poured a bucket of water over it. My suit was soaked to the core. I used about 1000 paper towels in the bathroom trying to compose myself to look somewhat normal to start the interview process. I was interviewing with 4 people and then was expected to take some testing. I seemed to do okay with the first two people that I interviewed with. By the time person #3 came around, my hair was starting to dry. This was NOT a good thing. If anyone has seen me in the morning, I can look impressively like a rasta man who has stuck his finger in an electric socket. Person #3 was of course, the president of the company. When I walked into his office and he looked at me, his face was sheer terror. Again, I did the best I could, knowing I would be the talk of the day after I left. I still had at least 1.5 hours to go there. After interviewing with him, I interviewed with my last person. By that time I was so frazzled that I couldn't think straight. Not to mention, I was DYING of thirst. I had been there for 4 hours and no one had offered me anything to drink, no water, coffee or anything. The last person I interviewed with went as far as telling me that I had a "unique" fashion style. After all of that I had to take some testing, which for the most part was fine until I completely got a brain block on fractions of all things. So after I was done with all of that, I said my goodbye's and left. It really was not a shock when I received the phone call a few days later letting me know that they had gone with another candidate.
Ps. My suit shrunk in the rain. Joy!

Chrismas Eve...Said style

So for all who know us...nothing ever runs smoothly - partly our fault and karma kickin major booty and yes...some of it can be quite amusing. Christmas Eve was yet another adventure at the Said's. After asking for 7 years, Billy and I finally got to host Christmas. I was in my glory and ridiculously excited to have everyone over & spend Christmas together, hoping to make it special for everyone at my house. No surprise to you - Billy and I are both major procrastinators so it will come as no surprise that we were NOT prepared and enjoying a relaxing Christmas Eve like "normal" people. At 5:00 PM, I had not cleaned most of the house, had not wrapped one single present and had not pre-cooked anything for tomorrow's big feasts (yes, two of them). Billy and I set our game plan, split the list of things to do and started at it. While he went to the store for various last minute items, I started cleaning the bathrooms. After I cleaned the toilet bowl in the first bathroom, I flushed it and to my frantic shock, it just started over flowing. EVERYWHERE. There was nothing visual in the toilet, no one had used it recently to my knowledge and I had no idea what to do. As I helplessly screamed for Hannah (who seriously is my angel in every way) I ran to the kids bathroom to see yet another toilet completely overflowing with water - a toilet that had not even been flushed. Hannah turned off the water for me (thank god...I would not have been able to bend that way much less turn the %$@* thing off) and I called Billy. Both bathrooms were totally soaked with crap water and smelled...well...like crap! Billy calmly told me to clean them up and he would be home soon. I made a feeble attempt at cleaning up all the water with a bunch of old towels and waited for hubby to come home. Billy spent the next few hours trying to fix the plumbing to no avail. He even pulled off the toilets, which by the way was impressively disgusting. By about 10PM, we started calling friends to see if we could borrow a toilet snake. All the people we called were 1. quite amused at the whole situation and 2. not surprised at all that it was us on the other end of the phone asking for a toilet snake that late on Christmas Eve. After borrowing a snake from Mom & Dad McClure and that not working, Billy called in reinforcements and had his dad come over. The bathroom in our bedroom was still working perfectly so my initial freak out of "How the hell are we going to have Christmas tomorrow here with 26 people and no toilets" dissolved and the freak out of "How the hell am I going to get everything on this list done since Billy needs to fix the plumbing" set in. It was somewhere around 10:30 that I popped open a bottle of wine, grabbed my Christmas music, headed to my bedroom to START wrapping and said F-IT to everything. The tub in the kids bathroom revealed the source of the plumbing problem as it over flowed as well with little pellets of hamster poop and pink extremely absorbant hamster bedding. Apparently Alex cleaned the hamster cage the last time by flushing all of the bedding down the toilet. The water flooded part of Hannah's room downstairs and it was determined by Billy and Bill Sr. that the problem needed a plumber. At around 1:00 AM, they closed both bathroom doors and declared them "out of service". I don't know what time we made it to bed, but by Christmas morning all the presents were wrapped and under the tree, Santa had made his yearly visit, the house was full of holiday magic and it was as clean as it was going to be.....Merry Christmas Eve!