July...one hell of a month (And I am not just talking about the heat)

I am not at all sad to see July 2015 end. This month has made being an adult rough. 

At the beginning of the month we potty trained Roan. My plan was to take advantage of some time off from work and use the Holiday to have a 3-day potty training boot camp. I read up on it and we got all prepared. Roan seemed super excited! He chose his own underwear and I got some stickers for him. I was super determined and motivated. 

Day 1 was okay. Day 2 was horrible. I cried a lot and felt nothing but doubts in my ability to Mother and teach. Then Lars and I had a pow-wow to regroup and later sat Roan down for a serious pep-talk and really explained what we trying to do here. Together we set up a reward/consequence program. Then...things start to click...and work. Since then he has only had 3 accidents and that was within the first week. We are almost 30 days accident free. We should get a button or something.  

He loves earning little toys, candy, and knickknacks. Potty training opened a whole new door of independence and confidence for him and us as parents. I LOVE this. 

I was scared to go places. The first place we went was church and I was so worried. I heard the biggest hurdle after potty training is helping the kids understand for themselves when it is time to go. Roan totally has it down. He is SO good at it. We just have to trust him when he says its time and let him do his thing. We are still working on wiping his bum part though. :) 

SO July started rough with this but honestly this has been the best thing ever. 

BTW look at how big he is getting!!!!

He used to be afraid of the automatic dryer but now he loves it. He is so funny. He always talks to it, like, "Turn on Please", "Thank you."

He can mostly get himself dressed but sometimes he puts his cloths on backwards. 

The evening of Day 2 of potty training we discovered that our basement was flooding. EEK! 

(The blessing in disguise is that we were home to catch it before too much was damaged, Did I mention this was on the July 4th holiday so fireworks were booming all around us while we were trying to clean up our basement)

We got the water shut off then moved everything that was in the water out. Then we removed the make-shift carpet out to dry and called a couple of neighbors to borrow rags to sop up the water and ring out until we got all the floor dried up. With the help of our neighbors we got it all cleaned up in about an hour and a half. 

I wish the story ended there but it did not. It took almost a week to get the plumber our Warranty Insurance wanted out here only to find out they wanted to charge us XXX above what the insurance would cover to bring it up to code. We told them thanks but no thanks and cashed out what our insurance would pay. We found a friend that would replace the water heater with a cool industrial fancy smancy one at wholesale price and bring it up to code for way less money out of our pocket. It took him another week to be available to come and do the replacement. During this time we only had cold water available in this house. We showered either at work or in our trailer, we did dishes only when I took the time to boil water, the rest of the time we lived off of paper plates, and our sweet neighbor let us to laundry at her house. 

We thought all would be well once we got the new water heater installed. (two weeks after the flooding) The next day we washed a batch of dishes and both showered by 8 am. Lars went into the basement to start the laundry at 8:15 only to find the basement completely flooded again. But this time it was because the low point drain was backing up. Yup poop water. 

(Thankfully there was no poop, just pee, shower and dishwater) 

Still eeeeewwwwww!

We completely panicked. Called our warranty insurance to send a plumber out. They assured us that "this will be covered." The plumber came and decided that because there was no release point to drain the water after unclogging the pipes that the claim would be denied and he would charge us an outrageous XXX to fix it. Again, we told him to take a hike and then I called our insurance company to kindly in my meanest tone of voice ask for a service fee refund. They said sorry no, but a week later we got check in the mail refunding us the $. (Hooray for kind mean tones) In the mean time our heads were still out of the game. We called a new plumber who came and snaked our pipes to clean out the clog. It didn't cost as much but it came with a side order of hard pressure sales to get us to spend XXXXX money to have them fix the pipes, clear the roots, and all the water damage (that didn't really exist). We politely said no thanks and took their cards. Which by the way isn't going to happen. Fact of the matter is our pipes are old and we can fix them by other less expensive means. We don't have to take a second mortgage out to fix them. I would rather take a trip or something. 

It was such a crazy, expensive, and extremely stressful day. 

Eventually everything got fixed, the dishes and laundry got done, but not before completely bleaching the entire basement floors and walls. 

Once everything dried we put the basement back together. 

And nothing terrible happened in our home the following weekend. It felt so nice to have a weekend where nothing broke and things could just be. Though I did have PTSD when it came time to do our laundry. I was so afraid things would start flooding again. 

So from this crazy hoopla we learned a few things I wanted to share;

1) Warranty Insurance is not all it is cracked up to be. I think it is okay to have it the first year in a home but after that drop it and just save your money or utilize your actual home owners insurance.

2) The day you buy a house should also be the day you sit down and create a master list of all the possible vendors you could need. Plumbers, electricians, handy men, landscapers, etc. Granted some of these things you can "do it yourself" especially if your name is Lars. But there are something that even Lars won't touch without a professional. Make this list based off your experiences, research, knowledge, and recommendations from solid friends and family. When you face an emergency, just like the ones above, use this list. Because you know what...your head will not be in the game during every panic. Which brings me to...

3) When in crazy situations it is okay to stop and breath before reacting. I tell myself this all the time but this month was just one thing after another and our minds had no time to recover between each thing. So when the final straw came it broke our camels back. After everything was said and done I replayed the events in my head and wished we had handled things differently to not only save our pocket books but to save our sanity. SO if your mind isn't there and you know it, stop, breath, then call a friend. I wish that we would have at least called a friend to talk us though this. If we had we probably would have either rented a large snake thingy (turns out they are way less money than a plumber) or we could have been referred to a better plumber. That is what really good friends are for right? You don't always have to suffer through things alone, even if they can't help they can listen until your mind becomes clear. 

Speaking of friends I did want to thank my Mother in law, Bev, for really helping us on this day. She came up originally to help put things back together and play. She was there to help when things got bad. She took care of Roan while I was crying my eyes out and Lars was pulling his hair out. Even more she went above and beyond and after everything was finally cleaned and put back together she stayed late to send Lars and I on a date to just unwind and de-stress. We are so grateful for this beyond words. 

So that is my long winded nutshell of why I am so happy to see July end. 

Fun things are coming in August, We are going camping, celebrating 12 years of marriage, and other cool stuff that I will share later. I cannot wait and I hope things will go smooth for a while. Heaven knows it is time for a break and in that break I plan on paying it forward. 

Oh and I got a cute haircut in July so I know some good was in there. :)