Let's Pretend This Never Happened

It was 2 p.m. on Sunday. Church was over, lunch was over, Jake had settled in for a long winter's nap. I was tired, but there are always fun things to do besides take a nap, so I got on the computer upstairs. I thought I would do something churchy like... mm... read blogs. After a few minutes, a pleasant sound wafted up the stairs toward me. Laughter, giggling, unlike the usual. It hit me then. There can be peace in the world, there can be peace in my home, and my girls DO get along. I pictured them in a few years sharing secrets behind their closed bedroom door, me just an outsider to their tight sister bond. What a reward as a parent!

By this time, I'm on the family website, tinkering, I hear more laughter. This can't get any better!! I don't even have a movie on for them! They're getting along so well. Something happened in the back of my brain just then which I didn't recognize at the time, but I do now. Some kind of warning. But if they were making some kind of mess, I'm sure it is just with water or washable markers, and my girls having fun together is surely worth the clean-up I would have to do (or make them do).

Now I've moved onto watching a video of my neice in Utah who I miss so much. She's saying "Banana". So cute! The laughter from downstairs becomes louder and clearer as I hear the girls running back and forth along the carpeted hallway, onto the tile entry, and into the basket that holds our shoes. I can literally hear the wicker basket make that crunching sound every time they run into it. What could they possibly be doing? Ah well, onto perusing online for a maternity swimsuit (oh, the joy!).

I swing my head around to the landing just in time to see both girls charging up the stairs with HUGE giggly smiles all over their faces. They are both naked. No specific thoughts at this point. They run into their room where Jake had fallen asleep in Gracie's bed. They start telling sleeping Daddy that "Ruby... Ruby... (both of them laughing hysterically)... Ruby peed on the carpet and I..... DID....... TOOOO"! Wait, What? NO. NO.

I fly downstairs in a vortex that carries the girls right down with me. First thing, a shiny puddle with foot and body prints in it.. sitting on the tile next to the shoe basket. And for the first time, my mind catches up with the past sounds. Running, sliding, into the basket. They were sliding on Ruby's urine on the tile and having a grand time running into the basket. What Sunday fun! Before I even knew what took control of my body, both girls sort of flew through the air and onto the couch. My socks were now soaking wet from walking across the peed-on carpet, across the living area, and to the couch. I am beyond a grossed-out-livid-mean-monsterous-beast. Grace is sullen. Ruby is still trying to tell me about how funny it was, studdering something about "and then, and then, I slipped, and then it was so funny, it was funny, huh Gracie?!"

Seriously. My girls. Peeing, running, sliding.. Ruby has always been surprisingly mischevious. But Gracie? Who hasn't wet her bed in almost two years? Give me mud in their clothes, give me syrup on the couch cushion, give me milk on a pantleg, but when there's urine involved, watch me freak out.