Monday, February 19, 2007

The Ick Factor

After slaving over my work sample for most of yesterday, I finally called it quits about 2am. I was pretty tired, but my body clock still woke me up about 8:30am. My dog wanted outside to tinkle, so I got up. Everyone else was still sleeping, so I stayed downstairs to work on more homework. My son came down a bit later and quietly did his own homework too. We stayed that way until about 10am I heard a bellowing come up above.


My husband starts yelling for me to come upstairs right away. I could sense the irritation in his voice. Not wanting to be interrupted when I was almost finished with grading papers, I reluctantly got up anyway. I found him in our daughter's room and then the foul odor hit me. As I scanned the room, I realized that somehow the explosion that had come out of our daughter's butt had trickled all over the floor. She had apparently played in various spots and the soupy substance had seeped out of her pullups and pajamas. My loving hubby said "I'll clean her if you'll clean the floor and bedding." I already knew who had the better job and it wasn't me. He just had to dunk her in the bathtub and she was as good as new.

On the other hand, my journey lasted a bit longer. I squirted some 409 stain remover on the carpet and let it soak for a few minutes. I rinsed out the bedding, squirted some Spray 'n Wash on the stains, and threw it in the wash. When I returned to scrub the carpet, I began to notice a few random ants. I was puzzled as to why ants would be in my daughter's room as she never has food in there. As I investigated more, I saw that they were coming from the baseboard behind her bed. Hubby helped me pull the bed out further out and I found K's collection of miscellaneous toys that she'd dropped over the last year.

As I began to pick up the toys one by one, I squirted a special indoor ant spray that works wonders called Bug Stop. I worked my way along the baseboard and discovered the source of all this trouble and largest concentration of ants. Several months ago K had gotten sick and threw up all over her bed. Well, we apparently missed some of it as I found dried vomit crusted over the baseboard. Can we say "EEEEEEWWWW!!!" Needless to say, I was icked out and immediately cleaned and sprayed all along the flooring. I opened a window to air out her room. Anyone who knows me is aware of my neurotic disgust for ants. Where there's one there is always more and that drives me crazy. It's the weather bringing them out. It is always my cue to do some spring cleaning.

After that wonderful experience, I ran a couple of errands with my son. We stopped to split a strawberry milkshake. Now I am finally back home and content to get back to working on my homework and stuff. That has been my Monday in a nutshell. Productive, but just a tad gross. At least the house is getting sparkling clean bit by bit. As a treat, hubby is making a glazed ham with pineapple and scalloped potatoes for dinner. My mouth is already watering. Got lots done as far as homework goes too. And tonight Heroes is on! I'm a happy girl.

1 comment:

Lawfrog said...

Ham and scalloped potatoes? I'll be right over! That sounds delish:)

Sorry about your gross day, as you know from my own adventures in sickness, I can relate.

A tip for the carpet - go to a pet store like PetCo and buy "Nature's Miracle." You can get it in several different types of bottles. It's meant to be used for cleaning up the accidents of animals, but I imagine it would work wonders for human "accidents" too.