A toilet, a toddler, and a bottle of shampoo.

A mom's indulgence in brushing her hair is a luxury that comes at a great cost.

Thirty seconds of distracted supervision leads to some terrible, terrible things in the life of a toddler and his family.

As Bethany brushed her hair Thursday morning, she knew Luke was just beside her, playing with the toilet seat, flushing the toilet, and engaging in other harmless shenanigans that provide great distraction while his mother tries to look decent for the day. We're not talking a long, involved beauty ritual. We're talking "wrangle the hair into a bun, brush on mascara to make the invisible blond lashes magically appear, and dash the boy outside for the day."

But Bethany heard a really bad gurgle coming from the toilet, looked immediately to see what was going on, was happy to see that it was not Luke being flushed down, then noticed a bottle of baby shampoo heading down that deep, dark, disgusting hole.

Instinct: Reach that hand down there, Bethany. Ignore grossness. Grab that shampoo bottle before it wreaks havoc.

Too late. Hand down toilet. No shampoo bottle to be found.

Not one to have the toilet-unplugging technique down too well, Bethany decided to wait until Richie got home to unplug it. (Much more of a man's job, she figured.)

But that afternoon she reeeeally needed to go the bathroom. And she forgot about the state of the toilet. So she went. And she flushed. And the water rose.

We had somewhere to be at 6:30, and Richie was caught in a work meeting until nearly 7. It was a big night for him, as he prepared to give three presentations at a major event with Geotech bigwigs he was helping to organize the next day. Not the time for drama at home.

So Richie dashed home in a flurry and said he was ready to leave for our engagement, but just needed to go to the bathroom first.

[cringe, cringe... how to tell him...]

"Well, I think you might need to unplug it first..." confessed Bethany.

Richie laughed with the "I'm stressed and don't feel like dealing with this right now but I'll make the best of it" kind of laugh.

He tried to unplug it.

Then he tried to unplug it.

Then he tried to unplug it again.

("If at first you don't succeed, try, try again...")

He called out to get a bowl to drain it with because it was overflowing.

Then he tried to unplug it some more.

To no avail.

In the midst of this, our downstairs neighbors knocked on our door and informed us that they had our bathroom water leaking down into their house.

Interesting twist of plot.

We called afterhours/emergency maintenance, they spent a long time working on our toilet, and eventually, with sewage water on the floor and scratches all over our toilet, out came a mangled bottle of baby shampoo.

So if you ever wonder why Bethany's hygiene is lacking, now you know. To spend time on her appearance comes at too high of a price: plugged toilets, full bladders, sewage leaks, unhappy neighbors, missed engagements, and ruined bottles of shampoo.


The aftermath: relieved mother and very curious criminal.


The persistent toilet plunger man with his suspiciously happy son.


Not much got done around the house last week, but at least the laundry got washed. Putting it away was another matter. Bethany entered the bedroom one evening and came across this scene. Richie buried under all the clean laundry, saying hi.


Here's another interesting scene to behold. Bethany looked out to find this. Richie and Luke drawing on the sidewalk, talking to our little neighbor, Marina. Dressed as a ...


...bug! (At least this is what she claimed to be. Pretty impressive costume, eh?)


Sometimes for the sake of husband-and-wife conversation, you just have to let your children do whatever they want at the dinner table while you ignore them. This particular evening, for the sake of marital dialogue, we let Luke go crazy with the yogurt.






New shoes! Size seven! Fifteen months old! Big boy!


Ooh! A new planter box to play with!


It kept them occupied for a loooong time.


Then Timothy decided to play with Luke's hat instead. He always gravitates towards heads, and loves to pull hair. His mommy is getting a bald spot from his hair-pulling!


Showing off his new shirt from Grandma, his new shoes from Mommy, his Christmas popper from Grammy, and his bulging belly from ???


After his evening baths, Luke dives onto his bear blanket and goes "ny ny" for a while, until he pops up hyper, ready for more play. It is so cute how he always tucks his little hands underneath him. So cozy!


Friday morning. Day of Richie's big events. Day after toilet's big events. Richie slept from 5AM to 6:30AM that night, for a whopping 1.5 hours of sleep. Poor, poor guy! And then he even had to wear a torture-tie all day. Luke loved it!


Bethany loved it too. (It is so fun to see him dressed up.)


So that Friday was a big day for Richie, but Bethany and Luke continued life as normal, Luke carrying on without a care in the world. We spent the morning at Central Park with Shealyn and Kelly. Luke is very mellow around Shealyn. She bosses him around, and he follows her orders.


"Wait for me!"


Speaking of Shealyn, these two Easter pictures of her are too cute not to put up on the blog.


She is a feisty, fun little thing. We love her!!!


Here's Timothy again! We spent Friday afternoon and evening with him and Beth, as Nick was presenting at the day's events, too, and our husbands would be gone until late. We went downtown and played at the train station. The boys loved watching the passing trains and climbing on the rocks.


We walked over to Village Bakery for some pizza, took it back to the train station to gobble it up, and gave the boys the crusts.


Worried that the train would leave without him. (It did.)


Here comes another one...


...and it went away without him, too!


Timothy is such a happy little fellow, often content to sit in his stroller for long periods of time.


Meanwhile, Luke kept wanting to escape toward the parking lot. He is getting pretty obedient (sometimes :) and is developing a great sense of humor. When Bethany would tell him to come, he'd turn around and grin at her, then start walking backwards while facing her! What a trick. He thought it was so funny. Then when she laughed at him and said to come again, he grinned and came right away. (Not taking this temporary compliant stage for granted...)


For some reason, Luke looooves begging for food from Beth. So as Timothy sat eating in his stroller, Luke kept going up to Beth and begging for her pizza and Sprite. He stares her down, amazed that she is not indulging in his polite "P!" (P = please)


After a fun evening, we went back to Orchard Park and got the last bit of energy out by pushing the stroller around everywhere. Luke is a little workhorse and enjoys pushing large objects. In Costco last week, he pushed a huge, heavy cart all around the store, grunting, sighing, and veeeery impressed with himself.