Dear Sawyer,
Last night was supposed to be a chill night. Daddy had cooked a lot of food on Sunday, so there were plenty of leftovers and I didn't have to cook. I didn't need to do dishes and I didn't have laundry to do. I was going to just heat up dinner, shower early, put you guys to bed and hop into my own bed before my goal bedtime of 10:45pm. That did not happen.
After you and MeiMei came home from school and showered, I went downstairs to wash your glasses. As I reached the bottom step, I heard streaming water and got annoyed--I thought you or MeiMei had left the foyer bathroom faucet running, as you guys have done in the past. Something was off, though, because it sounded like a lot of water. I realized the sound was coming from the study and when I went to it, I was greeted by the sight of water pouring out of every light socket and gushing down the walls. Oh. My. GOD. I screamed your name and when you came downstairs, you and MeiMei looked as shocked as I felt. You grabbed a roll of paper towels from the kitchen but it was futile--water was gushing down everywhere and it wasn't stopping. I don't even know why, but I attempted to wipe up the water on the table. My towel was instantly saturated, though, and more water was just falling onto the table anyway. I told you to check if there was water in your room or the attic and there wasn't. But when I went into Daddy's office bathroom, I could hear a very violent gush of water flowing behind the wall. I called Daddy and he told me how to shut off the main water valve in the basement. Once I did that, the water stopped pouring into the study but oh my god, everything was soaked. A section of the basement was also soaked and there were about two inches of water on the basement floor. I. Can't. Even.
It's been brutally cold this past week (the temperatures were in negative digits and it was actually warmer in ANTARCTICA than it was here, what?!) so the pipes in Daddy's bathroom froze and then cracked. When the weather "warmed up" today (it went all the way up to 32 degrees--I know, I know!), the ice in the pipes melted and then gushed out of the crack.
Daddy came home and the rest of the night was a flurry of me trying to find an emergency plumber and Daddy cleaning up the lake that had accumulated in the basement. Luckily, Daddy's friend Rich is a contractor and he sent his guy out to our house within 15 minutes of me calling him. I am so so so grateful to Rich, because I called a dozen other plumbers, too, and none of them could come that quickly, if at all. And time was of the essence because with no water, we couldn't wash our hands, shower or flush the toilet. The plumber worked efficiently and when I put you and Second GuhGaw to bed (much later than usual, at about 9:45pm), I said that I hoped that when you guys woke up in the next morning, everything would be fine. And thank goodness, it was! The plumber cut a hole in Daddy's bathroom wall, removed the broken pipe (btw, the crack was about the size and length of two of my thumbnail tips--tiny! How so much water came rushing out of such a small opening, I'll never know), replaced it and patched up the wall in a couple of hours. He was done around 11pm and Daddy, JieJie and GuhGaw were finally able to shower and go to bed.
We were very lucky. Lucky to get a plumber here so quickly, lucky that the water damage was contained to a small section of the house that had the least amount of our furniture and belongings, lucky that we are all okay. Our books and a lot of your and your siblings' old artwork and projects were soaked but at least it was with clean water and we don't have to trash everything.
We are also lucky because we have so many friends who tried to help. I reached out to a lot of people and they all immediately sent me plumber contacts or offered to do things like bring us water or even let you guys stay at their houses. I think you and MeiMei were grateful but also a little disappointed that everything was fixed this morning, since that meant you no longer had to sleep over your friends' houses, haha!
Whew! Let's hope that's the most chaotic night we get for a long time!
Love,
Mom
