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If you can believe it, it got worse.

I thought we were in the clear. We got off to gymnastics without a hitch. While Maria was working on her straddle jumps, the boys and I ran out for gas and went to Target to pick up a gift for cousin Joey’s first birthday.

As we were heading home, after getting Maria, I announced to The Four that we would be going home, taking quick showers and baths and then eating dinner. I reminded them that Dan and I were going out and that Alex would be coming over and we were in a hurry.

With a minimal amount of yelling, I was able to get Jack into the shower and the other three into the bathtub. I gave Maria instructions to get herself and Sam clean and ran off to throw a load of laundry in, put nuggets in the oven and clean up the kitchen.

Dan came home and finished up the bath duty while I finished throwing dinner together. Once everyone was seated at the table, (much to Dan’s dismay) I ran off to get ready to go out.

Apparently there was a small hiccup during the meal… Sam threw up. He seemed fine, though, so I chalked it up to a cough gone wrong and told the kids to head upstairs… Alex would be arriving soon.

As Alex was walking in the door, Maria was yelling from upstairs that Luke had broken the TV. I made my way up to survey the damage.

Holy CRAP.

Luke must have run full speed ahead into the TV screen. We have a big rear projection TV (too bulky and heavy for kids to knock over) that has a big Plexiglas screen. That screen was pushed in all the way to the back of the TV.

To make matters worse, the TV was on, so there were a lot of very cool lights and colors and mirrors to look at in there! Jack practically crawled in to check it all out.

In a panic, I tried to figure out how to fix it and Dan was so pissed he went downstairs and lay on the bed. There was no way I was going to force Alex to babysit with the TV the way it was. Just keeping all the kids away from it would be nearly impossible. It was evening and everyone was relatively clean, so it isn’t like playing outside was an option.

Convinced we could fix it relatively quickly (our friends were waiting for us), I prodded Dan into action.
I won’t bore you with the details, but we did manage to fix the TV, and only ran about 40 minutes late to the restaurant.

As we were walking through the restaurant to the table where our friends were waiting, the phone rang. I looked at the screen and saw that it was… Alex. My stomach dropped like a rock.

Alex was calling to see where the (nonexistent) carpet cleaner was. Sam had just thrown up all over the playroom floor.

I apologized profusely, told her there was no cleaner, to do the best she could, and that I’d worry about it later. Sam was okay and safe in bed, so I hung up and made a beeline for the table.

Needless to say, there was a tear in my beer last night. For the first few. After that I didn’t care anymore.