Hey! Is that Pee on the Kitchen Ceiling?!

January 30 --And the horribleness (is that even a word??!) of this unbelievably snowy winter continues...

On Friday, (today is Sunday) the leaking started.  As I frantically put buckets in various strategic positions in the garage, I thought to myself -- at least it's not happening inside the house.  And then yesterday, I was in the kitchen consoling Riley who had somehow started to read the TIME article about the Arizona shooting.  When he turned the page and saw the picture of the little girl (his age) who was shot and killed, he started bawling.  I went into the kitchen, like, whaaaat?!  Poor thing.  So I am standing there, holding him in my arms and all of a sudden he stops crying.  "Mommy?" he says.  "What are those spots on the ceiling?"  I turn to follow his gaze and there, in the corner of the room are the disgusting brown spots that can only mean one thing.  Water leak!  Sure enough, with all of the snow still up on the roof, the ice dams were finally forcing the water into the house.  (Yes, I said "dam"?!!)  I was so bummed.  I looked up at them and my stomach turned.  They are like, the worst kind of spots -- all brownish yellow with distinctive outer rings like dried urine stains on the rim of the toilet.

Later, I told the older boys what I thought it looked like and they stood there quietly staring at the ceiling, examining the stains which  had now spread to the other side of the kitchen.  They cocked their heads sideways and I could  see them trying to figure out if it was truly possible,  if there really was a way that somebody could actually pee on the ceiling.

So today was spent trying to chip away the ice on the roof so the melting snow could take a different course.  Our roof lines are very high and very steep.  At one point, I held Brian's legs while he leaned out the bathroom window to chip at the ice which was almost 5" thick!  We poured boiling water on it and used a mallet, a hammer and a chisel to work the ice chunks free from their grasp on the shingles.  Connor went up on the roof for awhile.  Needless to say, I was terrified.

In the scheme of things, I realize this isn't too bad.  People have leaky roofs all the time.  It's just one more lesson though, how nature is so unbelievably powerful.  Our house is fairly new.  But with all of it's hip, contemporary roof lines, it's actually a really dumb design for a winter with this much snow.  But who knew?  This is the worst winter on record since before we built the house!

In the end, I am just totally glad Connor didn't fall off of the roof.