Basement flooding

Well, after buying and setting up a dehumidifier (which we needed anyway) and a large metal turbo floor fan that could rival a small monsoon in our basement, it turns out that we had mold already growing in the rec room carpeting. Poor David had even borrowed our neighbor Nancy's ShopVac and had spent long arduous hours sucking up water from the floors, to no avail.

Fortunately, nothing we really cared about was damaged or lost. We lost several cardboard boxes that had been sitting unopened in a pyramid-like mountain in the unfinished area by the laundry machines since we moved back in 2005, so it's probably safe to say we don't really need them anyway. Eventually (soon, so we don't exacerbate the mold problem) we will go through them to see if there's anything worth salvaging.

So because we had mold, all of the carpeting had to be ripped out and disposed of and the floors disinfected. We had to keep the kitties out on the sun porch because we don't have a door leading to the basement stairs. Poor bunnies. They were really traumatized. They were yowling and scratching, and, I think, peeing, which they never do in our house (thank god). It really reeks of cat pee out there now. I'll have to go out there with a spray bottle of bleach.

The restoration guys (David said there were 5 of them that descended on the basement at once; I was playing a matinee concert, so I had a welcome escape from it all) came and ripped everything out, disinfected all of the floors, and brought and left their own dehumidifiers and turbo floor fans. So now we have absolutely no carpeting downstairs, which is weird. The floors underneath what was very nice berber-style wall-to-wall carpeting are cement with dark green paint over it. Not horrible, but definitely not something we can live with if we want to maintain that very large surface area as livable space.

So now we're investigating flooring replacement options that will be much more mold/water resistant than the carpeting was (the padding underneath it was functioning as a mildew hotel, ick) while still looking nice/like a family room atmosphere. Any suggestions?

Oh, and fortunately for us, since we had an additional flood policy added to it (we're less than half a mile from the Milwaukee River), our homeowner's insurance has our wet butts covered. Phew!!! Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there, indeed! :)

I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto...

Holy sewage flooding, Batman!

Wisconsin was a hotbed of storms yesterday, with seven counties statewide reporting tornado sightings. Milwaukee county (ours) wasn't one of them, but we got an unprecedented deluge of rain.

In fact, we got so much rain that the municipal sewage system of Milwaukee couldn't keep up with it. We have two sump pumps in our basement but the well was still overflowing. I came home after last night's concert to find poor David running back and forth with a bucket, bailing from the well to the laundry sink. I helped him with a wastebasket for a while but then started running around trying to pick things up off the floor that we wanted to save. Our downstairs office and rec room both had sopping wet carpeting, so we were digging papers out of file drawers and picking up cardboard boxes. At the worst point we had about 4 inches of standing water in the lower parts of the non-carpeted half of our basement where the laundry and storage is. We had lots of storage boxes get wet, but we haven't opened them since we moved here in 2005 so we probably don't really need them anyway.

The front page of today's paper said: "In Milwaukee, two south side buildings collapsed, rescue workers snatched people from cars stalled in streets turned to rivers, while pressure caused by storm waters gushing through city sewers flipped 200-pound manhole covers like pennies. At one point, water poured into the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District's deep tunnel system at a rate equivalent to 10 billion gallons per day..."

I called two different plumbers' emergency numbers, and they both said that there wasn't anything they could do since everyone in the area had this problem, and many had it far worse than we did since we have two sump pumps helping us out. I ran outside to check the downspouts to make sure nothing was backed up and also checked the outflow pipe for the sump pumps and the water coming out of the 3" diameter pipe was moving at a very high rate of both pressure and speed.

It certainly does give one perspective on the horrors that Katrina victims went through. This is peanuts, obviously, to that.

So now I have to go downstairs and do a huge load of sewer-water soaked towels. I think I'll run them through the rinse and spin cycle twice before I even start the wash....eeeeeew....

Is it June already?

I can't believe it. It sure doesn't seem like it.

Well, here in Wisconsin it doesn't, anyway. It's been cold and rainy.

The rain part is fine; I love rain. It's my favorite weather - specifically, big, loud, flashy thunderstorms. We had some of those last night. I nursed Ben during one of them and during his burp break, he saw some lightning as he was standing on the nursing pillow looking out of his bedroom windows, followed by a huge crash of thunder. He was startled and looked at me for a cue as to how to react. So I gave him a huge smile, and he gave me one back.

What a little cutie.

He is growing and changing so fast. I know that sounds trite, and of course it's the way things should be; but it's all so new to us, and we just love it. His vocalizations are becoming more and more elaborate and musical. He has these beautiful, flute-like upper-register babblings, trills, and birdlike gurgles. They are heartwarmingly endearing. (They are also getting louder, but that's okay, too.)

He's teething as well, which means a lot of gnawing. His hands, your hands, burp cloths, blankets, teething rings, rattles, binkies - pretty much anything in his mouth's vicinity qualifies as gnaw fodder. Along with the teething is the grabbing. Mommy's hair is a very popular target. I often have to pry my tresses free of his tight little fists, one cute pudgy finger at a time, saying, "gentle, gentle". Also amusing, with the increased tactile awareness. is his interaction with the cats, since Bianca and Emma love to jump up on the nursing pillow with him. Today he reached out to pet Emma, which freaked her out and sent her flying. David, who is more annoyed by Emma than the other two cats, found this quite entertaining.

Solid foods continue to go over well. We've given him pears and peas recently. The peas are a big hit! I was all ready with the digicam cocked and pointed at his face when I first introduced them, expecting a grimace or "yech" face. But he just gobbled them right up. David chastised me for expecting him not to like the peas, saying we shouldn't influence his food preferences by expecting him to react one way or the other. Perhaps when he's old enough to pick up on that sort of thing.

As of right now, he's not quite 6 months, and I think it's safe to assume that this kind of subtle humor still eludes him.

The other hilarious thing I feel it appropriate to mention is that the two sounds that cause him to open his mouth the widest for the spoon are a descending bomb explosion (high-to-low whistle followed by detonating sound) and a sputtering plane breaking down (think Snoopy and his Red Baron). Those are his favorites.

Notice the pea trajectory on the high chair tray: he had just sneezed with a mouth full of them. :-D