This happened yesterday.
The Intro
On Tuesday, I should’ve gone to bed at my normal early bedtime of 830 pm. Instead, I stayed up late watching Netflix (Game of Thrones and Gilmore Girls), and ended up falling asleep around 1130 pm. I woke up the next morning at 630 with my mind racing through all the things I needed to do: log onto my work computer and send out a few important emails, jump into a very quick-cleaning of the house, start the laundry, make the bed, get the girls breakfast, get them bathed, get them dressed, book a family get-away that I was planning to give them as a gift, get the girls packed up in the car, drop by the post office to mail a few Christmas Cards I forgot to send the other day… of course, don’t forget to drop my Netflix in the mail, get to Walmart to pick up random supplies (kids cough syrup, tape to wrap presents, etc.), and then finally grab lunch and head to my father-in-law’s house—-all in 4 hours, max. Rereading this last sentence, yes there was a lot going on. And on top of it, not only was my mind jumping from one task to the next, but I was also thinking about all the upcoming events I needed to get done over the next week—-picking my niece up for the weekend, making cookies for a cookie exchange, getting a meal ready for a holiday party, getting the girls’ outfits ready for a Santa Party…blah blah blah. I was feeling stressed the moment my eyes popped open, but I just started down my list.
First, the emails—knocked those out, and then heard the girls waking up. KS, my husband got them downstairs, and then he took off to his dad’s house to help him with some kitchen-fixing-wire-pulling-thang (the reason he took the day off in the first place). So he took off, and I jump into mom-mode. I got breakfast going; everything was going relatively smoothly at that point—lots of laughing, shrieking, and eating. While the girls were eating, I responded to work emails, got my last few Christmas cards addressed, turned the laundry, and picked up dishes… most of you get the point…just a non-stop to-do-list. So then the 2 little terrorists finished eating and started to whine, cry, fight and throw bottles/food in any direction that was clean. I started to feel the tension mounting in my shoulders, and started yelling at Charleigh (my 3 year old) to get undressed and into my bathtub, asap. I pulled my syrup-covered-1-year-old out of her high chair and got her undressed and into the tub in one swift movement. Congratulating myself in my head on my ability to get stuff done and still manage my kids—-“man, KS could really learn something from me”, I was thinking…
The Oh-Shoot-Moment #1
So, I have my kiddos captured in my tub, and I knew I had a few more minutes to get things done. So, onto make the bed, pick up toys, check work emails, and… again I start to think “I am a super woman, look at me knocking stuff out”, and then…..”MOM, CHAYCE POOPED IN THE TUB”.
This was not just a simple poop. Without getting too graphic, it was a situation where both my kids, their bottles/sippy cups, their toys, and every surface was covered in poop. It was in my JETS!—mind you this is my favorite place in the house, my escape, my Calgon-take-me-away place, my sanctuary, my extra-long Jacuzzi tub. So, the tension raised up from my shoulders to my head. I may or may not have said what I saw on my girls. I grabbed my poop-covered girls and put them in the adjacent shower, and started draining the tub. As soon as it drained, I did the surface cleaning with bleach. I knew I would need to do a thorough jet-cleaning, but in full multi-tasking mode, I realized I needed to shower the kids and myself before filling my tub up fully and using all the hot water. So I jumped in the shower with the girls, got them clean, and before I could get myself clean, they both escaped out the shower door. I rushed to finish rinsing the conditioner out of my hair when I heard …. “MOM CHAYCE PEED ON THE FLOOR”. Now my 1 year old was starting to irritate me. She had left a huge puddle on the hardwood floor in my bedroom. And now, both girls were fighting and screaming at each other. I was at the point of my head popping off when I intelligently realized Chayce needed a nap. So I calmed myself down, got her dressed, and then quickly put her down. I could feel myself start to relax a bit now that I was no longer outnumbered.
I jumped right back into my list. I had a new priority—jet-cleaning my tub. This required me to fill it all the way up with hot water, add cleaner, and then run the jets for at least 20 minutes. So, I cranked the hot water on to start filling the tub, and headed out to the kitchen. I spent a few minutes cleaning dishes, started folding laundry, continued answering rapid-fire Charleigh-questions, and then decided I could quickly finish booking our vaca online. The stupid online vrbo site tripped me up a few times, but after what I’m guessing was 20 minutes or so, I was done booking the trip, and I was again patting myself on the back for being so efficient with my time this morning since I was able to complete my to-do-list.
I yelled out to Charleigh that I just had to go put some make-up on and then we would be ready to walk out the door.
Anyone anticipating the next oh-shoot-moment?
The Oh-Shoot-Moment #2
I walked into my bedroom to put on my make-up, and could then just start to dreadfully hear the forgotten-water running. I sprinted to the bathroom door, and saw a horrifying sight—the tub was completely overfilled, 2ish inches of water on the floor filling my entire bathroom. It even made it into my carpeted-closet, this time. Yes, quit judging me, I had done this before— but it had never gotten in the closet before. And after the first time, I told myself to always set an alarm on my phone, because it is very hard to hear the water running from across the house. But in all my hustle & bustle, I hadn’t done that this time. I had told myself I would hear the water, and that I wouldn’t forget about it—-but now here I was, saying the same words that I had said earlier when I found my girls covered in it.
So I went straight into clean-up mode, certain I could get this cleaned up before my husband got home. So I spent 10 minutes and all of my bathroom towels, getting my bathroom glistening and dry! I was proud of myself for having rebounded so quickly and for handling this big clean-up on my own. And then, somewhere in the back of my brain I remembered, the last time this had happened, KS told me that water had made it down into the storage room directly below my bathroom. Well, I hadn’t really believed him, but I thought that since this overflow situation was a titch worse, that maybe I should check it out.
The Final Oh-Shoot-Moment
I was still on the stairs leading down to the basement when I heard it: rain. I heard rain inside my home. I walked into the storage unit, and water was literally raining down from the floor joists. It was dripping from pipes, our ventilation system, our subfloor, everywhere. (BTW, I found it really odd, that I had completely dried the bathroom above, and yet it was still raining in the basement several minutes later–who knew?!?). There was at least 3-4 inches of water on the concrete flooring, and it had started to spill into the hallway carpet. The water was on everything. It was in and on top of the 20+ Rubbermaid containers of keepsakes and holiday decorations. It was in KS’s tool boxes, on his shelf of power-tools (yes on every box labeled Dewalt). It had sprayed all over all of our P&G Product from product giveaway, and all of the cardboard boxes of gain dishwashing soap and bags of bounty towels were sitting in water. It was soaking into all of KS’s little cardboard boxes of nails/screws/fasteners (100s of these). Several boat batteries and portable radios were sitting in 3 inches of water on the floor. This was really, really bad. At that point, I gave up hope on being able to clean up my gigantic disaster on my own. I did the call of shame— “Um, KS, can you come home….something happened…”
The Aftermath
All of my multi-tasking and frustration and lack of self-triggering led to a whole lotta’ negative consequences:
1) Stuff didn’t get done – So, all the holiday tasks I needed to get done, obviously did not get done. My house, which I was hoping to have in holiday-entertaining-mode, now has all sorts of Rubbermaid containers and P&G product staged all over the place trying to get dried-out. My storage room smells weird and feels damp and now has several fans and dehumidifiers staged inside of it. My to-do list for the holidays is worse off than it was when I woke up. Not. Cool.
2) Lost Trust – My husband will never trust me to fill up the bath again. So I will forever have to be questioned on my process. Am I following the standard???? If I had followed my standard process of setting my alarm, I wouldn’t need the extra-supervision, right?
3) Lost Property & Time – Both KS, his dad, and myself, lost 4 hours while we were draining boxes, squeegeeing floors, and wringing out towels. We threw away a lot of decorations and boxes and batteries.
Putting it All together
So, I didn’t want to humiliate myself by admitting this horrific-self-induced-failure-of-a-day for no reason. After it happened, I realized how bad of a day I had had, and how many chances to self-trigger I had had and had missed… and that’s when I realized I had a perfect teaching moment to share—the silver-lining for the day.
How many times in your daily life are you are a little tired from staying up too late? And especially during the holidays, how many times are you doing your daily work when you have other stuff on your mind? Your brain is already filled to the brim with tasks you need to complete for the day for life/work, but now you are potentially thinking of the other 15,000 things that you, and/or your loved ones, are doing over the next few weeks…. And that is when it is so hard to self-trigger.
So this holiday season, let us be very intentional about how we self-trigger (at home and at work). How will you ensure you get everyone in your work or family to slow their roll during this crazy busy season? I would suggest that you make sure you talk as a team, and look at your teammates in the eyes. Do you know your teammates well enough to know if they are stressed or if their minds are not on task? Look for frustration— frustration can cloud your judgment so easily, so how can you self-trigger or help a teammate self-trigger if they are frustrated? How will you make sure your teammates are following standards? And who will make sure that you stop as a team and reassess your risk again after something changes in your plan?
Top Learnings
• Turn off tv early and get to bed on time (Netflix will be there tomorrow).
• Notice frustration, and intentionally work on calming techniques (Take a break, or breathing exercises).
• Do not multi-task—focus on one item at a time.
• When your situation changes—-reassess the Risk (stop and do a new Risk Prediction).
• Follow standard procedures to ensure you are safe.
• Ask for help early on & Watch out for each other.
• And …NEVER. EVER. PAT YOURSELF ON THE BACK!
Have a Safe Holiday Season!