It Can Always Get Worse

Today was Aidan's 3rd birthday. It's a good thing that I didn't plan a big To Do involving lots of 3 foot guests and their parents. This morning, Joel discovered a pool of water on the diningroom floor. He ran the bathtub for 10 minutes to see if the water was coming from there. (We knew that it wasn't the toilet because HL told us not to use the can for at least 24 hours.) During Joel's little test, Marilyn turned on the sink to brush her teeth. Water came gushing out of the ceiling...but this time from the area directly under the sink. Same old disaster relief scene. HL came over while Aidan and I were baking his birthday cake (pig-lickin' good cake) and putting together homemade macaroni and cheese for lunch. The others were at Target and PetSmart getting some last minute gifts for the birthday boy.

HL had some bad news. (Really, I don't think good news was possible in this case.) The diningroom ceiling needs to be removed. All the plumbing should be replaced. The cost to do this is $2700 MINIMUM. This does not cover the cost of replacing the ceiling or any other "issues" that should pop up. Thank goodness we are now members of the Plumbing Diamond Club. Who knew that we would be reaping its rewards so quickly? To save even more money, Joel is going to rip out a section of the ceiling tomorrow. Marissa would like to use that time as an excuse to have a pedicure. You know, to get Theo away from potential asbestos exposure. We'll see.

To sum up Aidan's birthday, we all had a nap after the plumber left. We then went to Chucky Cheese where Marissa has a knack for winning hundreds of tickets at a time. We are saving them up so that we can redeem them for a "cool toy". You need anywhere from 3000 to 10,000 tickets before the toys get worth it. After 3 or 4 trips, I think that we are up to 2000. We then went home for a surf-n-turf dinner. All of Aidan's fav foods: shrimp cocktail, grilled steak, white rice, steamed broccoli with cheese and CAKE. He blew the candles out by spitting on them. Predictable. Even though Aidan's day was overshadowed by plumbing trauma, I think that he enjoyed himself very much. I hope that we will be able to afford to give him a 4th birthday.