The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree
thane November 2nd, 2006
On Tuesday, my daughter made a mess.
Stuart has been a bit fussy lately, for quite legitimate reasons:
teething, stuffy nose, fever. Tory too has been sick recently, and is perhaps a tad more needy since
the arrival of a sib. Perfectly normal. On Tuesday, Stuart was
finally going down for his first good nap of the day, and Johanna
heard Tory playing in the bathroom sink. Not alarmed, Johanna
thought to herself, “Thank you, Tory. Thank you for entertaining
yourself for a few minutes so I can get your brother to sleep.”
Tory comes into the living room.
“I want you to read me a book.”
“OK Baby. Let me get Stuart into the sling.”
Johanna hears a noise. “What is that tinkling sound?” Johanna
looks around the corner at the bathroom.
“Oh my God.” The sink is overflowing.
“Oh my God!” There is a lot of water on the floor.
“Oh my God!!!” There would be more water on the
floor, except that it is running down the hot air vent.
Stuart does not sleep through this, is rather unhappy about that
fact, and lets everyone know. Tory is perhaps taken aback by the
loss of her mother’s sanity. Johanna turns off both faucets, and
decides the towels needed to be washed anyway, but thinks to
herself that there are easier ways to mop the floor. Finally she
goes downstairs with an armload of wet towels to discover water has
also dripped through the ceiling, onto the couch, the floor, and
some boxes. She loses a bit more of her mind.
One of our wonderful neighbors told us later, “That is when you
bring Tory over and say ‘I need you to watch her for a bit so that
she makes it through the day.’”
My mom was less impressed. “I had to replace the upstairs bathroom
floor twice because of you, and I don’t know how many times we had
to patch the ceiling. It was never Elena. Just you.”