Murphy's Law...

So, you've all heard of Murphy's Law, right? If anything can go wrong, it will. I had a 10-minute window of time on Thursday night with the kids that was serious proof that Murphy's Law is alive and well.

Let me preface this story by saying that I have often thought of myself as a competent babysitter. I can usually take things in stride and handle situations in a fairly calm manner. But, I have never experienced anything quite like this.

First, my friend John had come over after his softball game to eat dinner with us and hang out for a bit. I won't mention that he promptly sat down in front of the television with the 10-year old and became so entranced with the football game on the screen that he basically missed the entire episode that was to follow.

Chapter 1
So, the 5-year old (Renee) decides we need to bake cookies. Ok, no problem. So, we bake some quick break and bakes. While they are in the oven, she also decides that we need to have chocolate milk with the cookies. Ok, sounds good. Except that she does tend to fill the 2 glasses a little bit too full and spills a bit of milk on the counter...but that's ok. She's 5, right? Anyway, while I am taking the cookies out of the oven, Renee begins to transport the chocolate milk glasses to the dining room. Like a good babysitter, I instruct her to be very careful...carry one at a time, walk slowly. Meanwhile, I take the cookies out of the oven and place them carefully on a plate. It's all about the presentation, you know. As I proudly walk the plate of hot cookies into the dining room, I realize that the glasses of chocolate milk are no longer full. In fact, I would guess that about 1/3 of the chocolate milk has now been spilled out on to the very slick linoleum kitchen floor that I walking across in my bare feet. As you can now guess, I began to gracefully slide across the kitchen floor toward the dining room. Picture if you will, a slow motion shot of me sliding as cookies are now flying in the air toward the dining room floor. Oh, but there is so much more...

Chapter 2
I'm sure you have seen in many homes, a gold metal strip attached to the floor usually between a hard surface floor and a carpet floor. Unfortunately for me, the bottom of my heel, which has been sliding in chocolate milk for several seconds, comes in to contact with this metal strip at a very fast rate of speed. Immediately, I feel the pain, but I am too busy picking up cookies to really notice what has happened. At this point, the 10 year-old (Carter) has jumped up and is yelling "5 second rule!" as he assists in the pick-up of the warm cookies from the floor. He's obviously more concerned about cookies than about my well being. As I turn to get some towels to begin the wipe up of the chocolate milk on the kitchen floor, I now notice that the bottom of my foot is bleeding. Quite a lot. And now Renee has noticed as well...and starts yelling "Aunt Karla's bleeding...Aunt Karla's bleeding..." So, I hopped into the kitchen to grab a paper towel to stop the bleeding, but realized that I was gonna need some bandages to take care of the situation. So, I hopped back across the floor to finish wiping up the spilled milk, leaving a trail of blood on the floor that now has to be cleaned up as well. As this point, I decided I probably needed to take care of my foot, so I hopped to the hallway closet where the bandaids are kept. Renee is continuing to follow me everywhere I go demanding to see the cut on my foot, but at the moment, I wasn't sure I wanted to see it since it was bleeding so much. As I grabbed the largest bandaid I could find and was attempting to open the package, I heard a scream coming from the dining room.

Chapter 3
Since I haven't actually put the bandaid on my foot yet, I quickly hopped back to the dining room to see what has happened. The 20-month old (who was less than 30 minutes ago bathed and dressed in clean pajamas) has found the other glass of chocolate milk which was on the dining room table and has dumped the entire glass over his head. He is now covered head to toe in chocolate milk. And the surrounding area is also covered in chocolate milk...carpet, dining room table, dining room chair, etc. The toddler (Brady) is screaming his head off, so I scoop him up and hop on one foot to the other end of the house where is bedroom is located. As I rummage through the dresser to find clean pajamas, I realize that I am still bleeding, so I grab a clean diaper and put under my foot to catch the blood. I quickly rinse off and re-dress the baby, who is still screaming, and carry him on one foot back to the living room where I deposit him on the lap of his older brother. Luckily, that seems to calm him and he stops the blood curdling screams.

Finally, I grab the bandaid and sit in the dining room chair long enough to hastily stick it to my foot...then jump back up and grab more towels to attempt the cleanup of the carpet, table and chair.

Epilogue
Hours later, all the children are calm and put to bed. I finally take a real look at my wound and see that it is pretty deep. I probably needed stitches, but it's much too late for that now. I grabbed about 3 more Dora the Explorer bandaids and bandaged it up the best I could.

In the days that have followed this experience, I have learned to see the humor in it. I'm thinking I could sell the story to a sitcom or a hidden camera show...what do you think?