A Cautionary Tale of Painting and Parenting

We currently have a DIY project, and I have spent the past several days working on that for three hours in the morning and another three after the kids go to bed at night, on top of the day's regularly scheduled programming. Needless to say, it's exhausting. Hopefully we are nearing the completion because a repeat of this evening could prove disastrous.
I should include that I spent the entire day in my painting clothes. I did not bother to change to go to the dentist or to pick up the children from school because I didn't want to waste precious painting time swapping outfits or risk a paint smudge following me into civi clothes. That's not relevant to my tale; it's just amusing because the poor kids were mortified that I was #1 wearing overalls. and #2 said overalls were covered in paint splotches. There's no telling what the dentist thought.
Anyway, this evening I was listening to my first grader read her library book. I laid my head back, propped up my feet, and that was the last thing I remember. What kind of mother falls asleep while her child is counting on her full attention? I should feel totally horrible, but before I could even consider my actions, I awoke thinking I was being scalped. Close. Upon finishing her book and discovering I was no longer conscious, my daughter decided I looked like a good candidate for her beauty salon. My hair was being brushed, hair sprayed, and braided violently by little hands. Once the tangles (or roots) were all sufficiently pulled out, I drifted in and out of light sleep amid her hair stylist chatter. "How many children do you have? Are they a handful. I have four, can you believe it?!" I think I answered appropriately, but it's highly possible she never even paused to wait for a response. Once I was styled, she said, "Girl, you look like you could use a massage." Seconds later I bolted off the sofa because ice cold lotion was being pumped directly down the back of my shirt! "Does that feel good?" she asked. I can't swear to it, but I feel pretty certain I was being punished for falling asleep.
 So as you can see, I must get back to painting so I can get a full night's rest and give my children my undivided, alert attention lest they decide on harsher methods of waking me tomorrow.

There are just some phrases that you never expect to hear stepping out of the shower from your children. "Mom?" is almost always a precursor to tattling or a whiny plea to eat something forbidden 20 minutes before dinner's ready. Sometimes- no, most of the time- they don't even wait for me to get out of the shower. They just barge in to talk to me. So naturally, last Friday when I was getting ready for date night with my husband, I was not prepared for the ever-annoying "Mom?" to be followed by, "the dishwasher's on fire." Any other sentence with the word fire in it would have prompted me to grab my towel and run, but the dishwasher? I had to quiz him to be sure he knew what he was talking about before I was willing to go check. The kid was correct in his assessment-it wasn't just steam from the drying cycle, but it wasn't a big deal with flames shooting out and melting plastic either. That was a relief because the fire extinguisher often gets "accidentally" sprayed in the pantry, so I don't know if it would have been any help in the event of a true blaze.
Thankfully, and only by the grace of God, who knows full well the limits of my sense of humor, we found a nice dishwasher on sale Saturday, so I went less than 24 hours without a working machine. But just in case you thought this was short and sweet, let me just say, the hubby and I chose to DIY it. Here are some tips for you in the event that you and your better half also decide to put in your own dishwasher:
1. Make sure you have a working flashlight and an empty stomach because you are about to be spending a lengthy amount of time laying in your floor flat on your belly looking into a dark chasm of wires and tubing. Oh yeah, you may want to sweep up first.
2. Do you know how to drain a dishwasher full of water that has no power? I'll give you a hint, you'll spend some time washing towels later. And if you're sitting in the floor trying to contain the water as it drains, you're going to be driving to Home Depot with a wet butt.
3. We've installed two dishwashers now (no, we aren't responsible for the flaming one), and based on our experience, the minimum number of trips to the home improvement store during installation is three. One to buy the new machine, one to get a part that was not included in the box and too corroded to salvage from the old one, and one to buy a new water line after you break the current one. These can occur in any order, but you'll look and smell like work when you get there, and have both the afore-mentioned wet rear end and wrinkle lines on your face from the angry exchanges between you and your spouse in between said trips to the store.
4. If  you or your spouse wonders, "should we just go buy a new [fill in the blank] instead of trying to use the old one?" The answer is always YES! After you spend an hour or more trying to get the old thing to fit or reach, you'll be mad at each other and end up buying it anyway. Then after the new part goes in easily on the first try, that same spouse who didn't want to spend the extra money will say something helpful like, "if we had just bought it in the first place, we'd have been finished about two hours ago." And that's a can of worms that should just stay closed.
5. If at any time during the process of repositioning the new machine to fit into the counter space, you are on the floor and your mate tells you, "just stay right there." You better fake a bathroom emergency and run out of the room lest you should find your head wedged between the dishwasher and a cabinet. Just trust me on this one.
6. Lowe's charges $120 for professional installation. That's all! If you pay yourself and your spouse minimum wage for your time plus dinner out (because that's the unwritten rule of installation-you must eat away from the kitchen when you're done!), you may not be saving yourself any money.
Good luck to you, and may God have mercy on your marriage.