It’s been an interesting day here in the home of this little family.

Not exactly 18-month-old-locking-his-pregnant-mother-out-of-the-house type of interesting–but still along those lines.

Setting the scene…

(cue dreamy theme music)

I was sitting on the couch playing with Merritt after a relaxing morning. We were taking it easy today and just hanging out, taking advantage of not having to go anywhere at all today. Troy had taken a good nap in the early afternoon and was now coloring quietly on the floor beside me, using his little drawing tray.

Ah… the sun shone and the birds sang!

(Not really. At that moment, in real life–not dreamy life–it was pouring rain outside.)

Then, Troy got up. Supposedly to go get a toy.

Oh, how I wish!

Instead, he walked back over to me, where I was cooing and goo-goo-gah-gah-ing over the baby, and said, “Wah-er? Wah-er?”

Which I knew to mean, “Water,” and thought to be a request for a drink, and thus didn’t think it necessary to immediately look up. Until, that is, I felt a trickle of that particular substance on my arm.

I jerked my head up, half a smile still lingering on my face, and saw Troy holding the camera. The digital camera. The very, very new digital camera. The one we just bought to replace the dinosaur digi camera so I could take half a zillion pictures to send to John while he’s gone.

After I regained conciousness and the inital feeling of nausea passed, I snatched that dripping piece of expensive machinery from his hands and yanked it out of its case, hoping against hope that its visit to the only water source at Troy’s level in that part of the house–the dog’s water dish–had been merely a dip rather than a soak.

The tiny steady stream of water coming from inside the camera itself told me it had probably been a nice, long bath.

It would seem all nice and sweet to tell you that I held it together calmly and simply took it all in stride. But you wouldn’t like me too much if I lied to you, now, would you? And you’d already know that’s what I was doing if I told you such a thing.

Troy got a nice stern and slightly panicked reminder of how many times he’d been told not to play in the water dish, and was asked–since he’d of course be able to answer–WHY he’d pulled the camera off the entryway table and put it in there. His tears upon hearing my decibel level were enough to remind me that using such a tone would accomplish nothing. I knelt down, right, looked into his eyes, and told him, through slightly clenched teeth (but no, AHEM, green chin, Certain Nameless Peeps?) that he can never, ever, ever put an.y.thing. in the water dish. And he may never, ever play with Mommy’s camera. And that he needs to obey Mommy. And that Mommy was now thinking she was really going to be sick as she realized that she was going to have to tell Daddy about this lovely tidbit.

The camera was really and truly dead. If the case could be so swollen and water-logged that it felt like a sponge, the camera couldn’t be doing so great. I leaned on the kitchen counter and breathed in as deeply as I could, thinking not only of the camera, but of my laptop that I had taken back to Best Buy yesterday and ended up having to pay extra on top of the warranty to save my hard drive.

But then. Then. THEN! The good things started popping into my head all at once.

I had put all my pictures on the computer on Wednesday. Yay! The only ones I could lose were the ones from the past two days. And I thought I remembered John buying a warranty for the camera.

I put Merritt in his bouncy seat and Troy in roomtime and found the warranty paperwork, thanks to John’s organizing before he left. Called my mom and my mother-in-love and got some sanity talked back into me–It’ll be OKAY. Life will keep going. Thankfully it IS just a camera. And, hey, it looked like we did have a warranty.

Then… I just loaded up those boys and went to the gym. I worked my legs till they were like jello. And the world was suddenly a brighter place.

It turns out that I’ll find out in about ten days whether or not the camera can be fixed, and if not, they’ll set us up with a new one. And God was gracious to me and gave me a seasoned mom in line behind me in Best Buy, who kindly offered to keep Troy from running off while Merritt cried in his car seat and I tried to sign paperwork and listen to the customer service guy.

Oh, AND and I saw Tony Hawk in Best Buy. I was, like, totally freaking out, man. I mean, it was really sweet, dude.

(My brother will crack up and roll his eyes if he ever reads those pathetic sentences.)

I really know nothing about Tony Hawk, other than that he’s a skateboarder (right? Or is it something else? Not bike riding, is it? Or does he do several things?) and has a game for the Wii that my mom gets pretty wild and crazy about when she plays.

(Bet you never would have thought THAT, eh, bloggie peeps? But, oh, how true it is. Just ask her.)

Then I came home, ate dinner, put the kids to bed early, got to talk to John for a little bit, and then cleaned my little heart out. Because nothing makes a dose of crazy all better than the therapy of cleaning bathroom tile with a toothbrush.

And now things are sparkly. The house, as well as life. Even without a laptop or a camera.