Monday 16 August 2010

Start as you mean to go on..

..Fuck I hope not!

I'll set the scene for you.

It's a wet, windy and stupidly cold August Monday morning.
Last night was bad. All 4 kids woke more then once each which is not the norm, so I'm mega tired.
I have a migraine. The kind that makes you feel you as if you have been hit by a train.
I can barely open my eyes through the pain, and when I do all I can see are coloured spots, like someone has been taking flash photography.

Drew leaves for the Doctor's surgery to have his stitches removed before going in to work.
I reluctantly pull myself from my bed and throw on some clothes. As I begin to walk down the stairs, the following happens.

CRASH...BANG...THUD... SMASH


I feel disorientated as I hear the screaming coming from the kitchen.
I run to the living room and am greeting my my 6 year old. She's wet. She's shouting above her sisters' cries.
I make my way past her to the kitchen. The scene that greets me is chaotic. The 5 and 3 year olds are standing there shouting and screaming and crying.. They are both wet too.

I carefully lift them over the carnage that once resembled my kitchen. They are both shaken, but unhurt.

The floor resembles the shallow end of a swimming pool, but it is not water across the floor, it is oil.

It seems that the numerous tellings off and trips to the naughty step for the 6 year old have not paid off.
She decided to climb on top of the the chest freezer, using my washing basket (full to over flowing with last weeks dirty holiday clothes) as a step and then to stop herself from falling back down, she heaved herself up on the steel utility shelving above which housed the following items:
A set of 3 Le Creuset pans, a 6L slow cooker, 2 measuring jugs, AND a deep fat fryer.

The full basket of clothes have had to be thrown out. They were drenched in oil. They are gone.
My wash basket. Destroyed.
The utility shelves, gone, along with some of the plaster from the wall.
The fryer is still in pieces, yet to be considered salvageable or not.
Luckily the pans survived, although one of their lids didn't.
The slow cooker is OK
The jugs. Gone.

The kitchen floor will be OK. However, for now it will be used as an ice rink as I just cannot get the greasiness off.

The beige living room carpet is another right off. There are now 4 sets of oily foot prints clearly visible making their way from the kitchen.

To say that I am angry would be the understatement of the decade. The amount of money it is going to cost us to put this mess right is immense.

It has taken me 4 hours to clean it up and it is still not 100% finished. I have used 6 whole rolls of kitchen towel half a bottle of washing up liquid and a full bottle of bleach to try and remove the greasy feeling from the vinyl, with little success.

Don't get me wrong, I am relieved that none of the children were injured, really I am.
But I am ready to kill today.. In fact I don't know how I have managed to control myself.

My chest is hurting, I have cried and my migraine isn't any better, but I've had to cope and carry on.
I needed to write this blog to get it off of my chest so that I don't take it out on the kids.


Any tips for the floor would be very much appreciated!!!

17 comments:

  1. I hope writing this down helped a bit. I know what you mean about wanting to kill... If it's any consolation this is a great piece of writing! The oil will almost certainly come off the kitchen floor with soap - it just takes several cleans... As for the carpet, do you have a rug you could place on the stains?

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  2. Thank you Sandrine!
    There are foot prints all across the carpet where the girls ran through it to get out of the kitchen.. Never mind, I wanted to change the carpet anyway. Just need to find the money to do it, very very soon!

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  3. OK firstly get on the phone to your insurance company - they can help cover the costs of repolacements and they can also send someone out to assist and advise with cleaning (you can also recover the cost of some clothing too). - can you tell I have been through similar.

    Go and buy a bag of cat litter and put it all over the kitchen floor - it will soak up the oil and then you need to use a floor cleaner neet to cut through the oil.

    But use your insurance it is what you pay it for

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  4. Thank you for your advise, I will give them a call x

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  5. Fuck indeed! (I never say that lightly!)
    If you have mopped up the access oil use neat washing up liquid on the floor, make an emulsion and then add water to remove that..

    Sorry for being flip, I'm hoping everyone is ok?

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  6. Everyone is fine. I have done the washing up liquid thing three times so far.. I have given up for a while and am having a break!!!

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  7. Tips to avoid similar situation in future: Maybe get out of bed before or at least at the same time as your kids, and supervise them.

    Get off Twitter a bit more and start feeding your kids decent food, not processed crap and you won't need a deep fat fryer.

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  8. Omg, Kez, can you erase this comment? I can't believe somebody would write something this nasty. Get a life and stop harassing people on their blog!

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  9. Oooh, and if your migraine is so bad, keep off the computer!

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  10. What a day hun so sorry it was crazy, why do kids do these things!? glad no one was hurt but it is horrid when things get ruined and it will cost a shed load of money to fix big hugs xxx

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  11. First thing, I really hope you have accidental coverage on your insurance....they will sort it all. Secondly, not going to start a slagging match with earlier commentor, but as parents we don't have eyes in the back of our heads. Sh*t happens, unfortunately your kids have excelled themselves.

    Don't worry it will all sort itself out.

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  12. Oh hun... happy kids are ok...
    positive thoughts out for you...
    we bought something once called Dr Beckmann to clean stains off the carpet... it worked wonders!!
    hope this helps...

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  13. Sandrine, I can delete it, but I'm not ashamed of my parenting skills, so why bother?
    ******* *********
    My children were being supervised by their father prior to the incident. There were alone for all of 5mins while I dressed.

    And as any parent would know, this kind of thing takes only a second to happen, whether you are in the room or not.

    And just to clear things up the fryer isn't used for feeding the children 'processed crap' They are fed very well, and are very healthy, happy children!

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  14. I am so sorry for your day! But am happy to know your kiddies are okay. But this happens in all households. I remember all the crap my brother and I use to do. You can't be everywhere all the time - it does not mean you are a bad parent. lots of love!! Maria xx

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  15. Thank you ladies.

    It really wouldn't surprize me if this was the same nasty piece of work who was commenting on Emma's blog the other week.

    Obviously they have nothing better to do then to be a complete and utter moronic waste of everyones time and patience.

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  16. My hat goes off to @caroljs! Nearly wet myself with laughter! You go girl!

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