So Steve's out of town again and Sarah started school today, which means it's just me and the rugrats at home.  Piece of cake, right?

*cough*

Sarah spent all day yesterday with a friend at a wave pool.  By the time I was called to come collect my daughter, it was nearing sunset and she bore a striking resemblance to a boiled lobster.  It was actually rather difficult to resist the urge to waltz up to her and smack her across the back of her shoulders just to see the stark white handprint that would have been left there.  Apparently she figured that picking up the bottle of sunblock and reading the directions would have the same effect as actually APPLYING the sunblock.   After the 25 minute drive home I was stunned to see that her skin was even redder and threatening to start going purple. 

When I tried to put aloe vera on her I quite literally burned my own fingers, so I chased her into the bathroom for what she said was her second cold shower hoping that would it ease some of the heat radiating off of her skin.  But when she came out of the shower sobbing in agony and complaining about a headache that was moving down her neck, it was time to beg the neighbor to watch the littles while I dosed Sarah with pain meds and we made a beeline for the ER in the middle of the night.

Four hours later we were back home, Sarah was slathered in a green aloe vera cocoon and trying to sleep on her stomach, and Cali was standing over her with her nose twitching in fast forward and a look of "Eww, what IS that??".  Every few seconds or so Cali would carefully lift a paw, delicately poke at Sarah's back, and snuffle her paw. I assume she repeated the process until Sarah lost her patience and suddenly exploded into rather loud writhing which sent Cali scrambling into my room with every hair standing on end.

Where was I?  I was laying in my bed and staring at the ceiling wondering why this sort of stuff never seems to happen when Steve is home to enjoy it with me.

*mutter*

And what have Heather and Hunter been doing for their entertainment?

Well, Hunter decided to see if he could climb the curtains in his room, provided the anchors holding the curtain rod in place on the wall were strong enough to hold him.

He could.  They weren't. 
Hunter bounced.  The curtain rod (and chunks of the wall) didn't.

*twitch*

It turns out Heather decided her stuffed animals needed a bath in the bathroom sink upstairs while I was doing laundry downstairs.  My first clue things were not as I had left them was Heather running down the stairs and racing down the hallway past me screaming "Why does this always happen to me? What's wrong with the world??"

Arurr? 

As I stood there trying to remember what she might have watched recently that had those lines in it, Hunter zipped past me leaving a trail of soggy footprints and wailing "They're drowning!  They can't swim!  We have to help them!"

erm...

They were only alone for ten minutes.  How much damage could they have possibly done?!?  Oh wait... Curtain rod.  Chunks of plaster.  Holes in wall.

*whimper*

I raced upstairs to find the bathroom sink overflowing as it appeared Hunter failed to turn the water off before bolting after his sister.  Bobbing up and down in the basin were the obviously swimming-challenged corpses of several stuffed animals. 

Why didn't the water drain through that hole at the top of the sink designed to prevent kid-made waterfalls?  The stuffed snake with its tail crammed into said hole might have something to do with that.

*TWITCH!*

I'm beginning to wonder if Steve is somehow figuring out ahead of time what the kids are plotting and making himself conveniently scarce.