What's the point of Wednesday

Experiencing much malaise, blog and otherwise. A few things to report, in no particular order:

1. I dropped Helena (bottom first, thankfully) into the toilet a couple of days ago. It turns out she really does need that little potty insert thing if she is going to sit on the big toilet. She didn't really seem to mind, other than repeating, "What happen to Laida Jane?" approximately 245 times while I rinsed her off in the shower. And no, there was nothing in the potty. And yes, we were at home. But STILL.

2. In other unsettling and unhygienic news, yesterday I was in the shower and I suddenly heard Harper and Hudson yelling louder than I thought was probably necessary to reenact the scene from "Cars 2" that they had been busy with when I had left them. Hudson came running in breathlessly to tell me that THERE WAS A ROACH IN THE RIDING ROOM (which is what we call our front room because it is largely devoid of furniture and there's room to ride scooters and tricycles and even, on occasion, bikes). Of course I had conditioner in my hair so I told him to go back and keep his eyes glued to the roach. He came wandering back in a couple of minutes later and I asked what part about eyes GLUED had he not understood and he said, as if he was thinking about something else of terrific import, "Oh, that roach? It's dead." So I came rushing out to find Harper standing in the front room with the spray bottle of 70% isopropyl alcohol (our insecticide of choice. It's like the Windex in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"--the husband uses it for everything) and a rather smug expression. "Well, where is it?" I asked. And then I slipped in a large puddle of 70% isopropyl alcohol and almost fell to my death in my cheap flip-flops that I wear around the house. Harper said breezily, "I killed it, Mommy. I sprayed it and then I took a bunch of paper towels and smashed it and put it in the trash." Instead of thanking her or congratulating her on her (disgusting) achievement, I said, in a rather panicky voice, "Well, have you washed your HANDS?" and "Are you SURE it's dead??" She had, and she was. Well done, my intrepid girl. May it NEVER happen again.

3. Helena's multi-purpose phrase of choice these days is "What happened Mommy?" and she says it even when nothing has actually happened so I was saying, "Nothing happened, Mommy just put the spoon in the sink." I realized today that I need to leave off the "Nothing happened" part and just tell her what is going on. Even though it is exhausting beyond measure for an introvert like me to have to narrate my every move.

4. More great cousin time. More evidence that photographing groups of kids is a sisyphean task, not for the easily deterred:
Helena looks LONG, doesn't she? And I'm pretty sure that hand gesture Hudson is making is considered very rude in certain parts of southern Europe.

5. We had some fun at a new splash pad with the Browns this morning and it was funny because you know there is this horrible drought in Texas right now and it only rains about a milliliter every 6 months or so, but OF COURSE it came a deluge as we were trying to pack up and leave and as we were rushing to the car and I had far too many bags, I looked back to see that Helena had tripped and fallen in the dirt and was wailing because her shoe had fallen off. So I dumped the other kids and the bags into the car and ran back to get her, making the decision to run her back to the splash pad to rinse her off so as not to sully up the minivan. Only it was raining pretty hard and I couldn't really see because my sunglasses had fallen down awkwardly over my eyes and the orange towel I had draped over my head was also partially obscuring my sight so I stood directly over one of the jets of water, which then completely soaked my shorts and it's still pouring from the sky as well and yet somehow I can't manage to get the mud off of Helena and it was all pretty special. A very damp ride home during which Helena said, "WHAT HAPPENED MOMMY!!" about 68 times.