September 23rd-27th • How Pooping Saved Noah’s Life
We take a break from our regularly scheduled blogging to bring you this announcement! I have been going back and getting you caught up on our adventures this far. It has been fun reliving the adventures we had this summer by writing this blog and remembering all the things we did this year. As you know we signed a one-year lease for a farm house in Iowa. When we moved in we knew there was some work that needed to be done but, what we didn’t know was the ceiling would come crashing down on us before it got repaired.
The week started like any other week we have been getting in the groove of a school schedule again. You know everyone waking up, getting breakfast and to the school table by 9:00 am. Noah is halfway through 10th grade, Malachi just started 8th grade, Lita is in 2nd grade and John is doing pre-K work. Kevin had left for the week to take care of some things and the rest of us stayed home to keep on track and schedule since starting back up. We have 2 areas the kids do school in, Noah has his own desk in the small living room area off the kitchen and the other kids sit at the dining table with me to get work done.
The morning started like every other morning. Everyone was up and doing their work. I was sitting at the dining table doing school with the younger kids when I heard a big bang and I thought for sure Noah fell because he is always tipping his chair and eventually I knew he would fall. I just kept doing my work with the kids and didn’t think anything of it. Malachi had gotten up to head to the kitchen as he is in the kitchen more than any other room of the house every day. Which isn’t a bad thing he is turning into such a talented chef my mom would be so proud. He looks over at me and says “uh, mom, you have to see this.” Of course, I’m right in the middle of a lesson with Lita, and I didn’t want to be bothered and he was like no you have to see this now.
I got up and headed to the kitchen looked over to the left and the ceiling had fallen in, it fell right on Noah’s desk and his chair. But, he went for a poop break at that moment! So you see this is how pooping saved Noah’s life. He really should have been sitting at that desk doing work but, his daily poop break came at just the right time that he didn’t get smashed by the ceiling. Thank God for regularly scheduled bowel movements!
The ceiling has been cracked since we moved in and our landlord has been trying to get a drywall company to come to fix it but, apparently, all contractors are booked out months in advance, and they haven’t had time to come fix it. Our landlord’s wife Judy was so awesome she came over a few hours after this happened to clean this all up. Do you see all the wires in the drywall? That is the electric heating system the house had before they installed the furnace. They decided to install a new propane furnace in the house right before we moved in as this thermal heating caused issues with drywall and didn’t heat well. The new furnace was installed in the garage and the main trunk line for the furnace was put into the attic. When they installed the new trunk like a few weeks ago it was enough to cause movement in the attic which made the ceiling collapse. The mixture of older drywall that isn’t as dense as the new drywall, it being installed 2 feet on center, the thermal heating, the weight of the installation, and the movement in the attic caused this to happen this week.
Everything got cleaned up and we went about our day. Our landlord Mike was coming to see the damages right after work but, of course, that wasn’t the end of it. I was in the kitchen getting supper ready, Noah was sitting in the corner of the freshly cleaned up room when we heard another shift. He ran out of the room faster than I’ve ever seen him run and then within 30 seconds the rest of the entire ceiling fell! We closed all the doors to the rooms in the house and had everyone head outside as it dusted out the house. This all happened about 30 minutes before Mike and Judy were there to see the damages. Of course, it was a lot more work than anticipated and they were so amazing and stayed till 9:00 pm that night cleaning it all up. I’m so thankful they took the time to do this as my asthma has been bothering me and I know I wouldn’t have been able to live with that mess for a long time.
I know I just don’t make this stuff up! Right?! Yes, that is my thoughts at this point. We have since had 3 drywall guys come to look at the work and they all say now that it is an emergency they will get us fit in. Well, the first guy never got back to Mike, then the second guy didn’t even call or message we finally had a 3rd guy come this Saturday and he agreed it needed to be done right away. He is scheduled to come tomorrow to get this all fixed. Mike and Judy had to get all the loose drywall and everything prepared so we can get a new ceiling tomorrow and not live in complete shambles.
Noah thinks I should have named this blog “Noah’s near-death experiences” See after the ceiling fell that evening, Noah went outside to cut his nails (I have a weird OCD and I can’t stand nail trimming in the house, LOL) as he was on the front porch he was about halfway done with his first foot when he heard rustling in the grass and then looking straight at him was a badger about 30 feet away from him. He ran inside like a wild banshee and was like there is a badger out there. Then he grabbed a pencil, ran out and fought the badger one v one and destroyed him. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen….oh wait that is not exactly what happened. He ran in and asked me if he could destroy him and I said no you stay away from it. So he sat inside stalking the badger wishing he could go one v one him. As I end this blog I’m thankful Noah’s life was spared and no one was hurt in the making of this blog.
