CSI: My House Edition

I came home last night from a week in Pensacola helping my mom, who is now home from the hospital. Matt and my wonderful mother-in-law kept the kids and house running while I was gone, and it was a huge load off of my mind to know that they were on the job. And Lord, was I glad to get back to my house and kids. Seeing their faces was like a drink in the desert.

So today I am in that phase of homecoming where you look around your house and try to figure out what went on while you were gone. I think of this as the forensic science phase, where you collect the evidence, interview the witnesses, and try to come up with theories about what went down--like, how did that stain get on the wall, why is the dog's bowl under the couch, and what did you guys eat all week? Kind of like the opening scenes of Law and Order, after they find the dead body, only without the body.

• The first thing I noticed is that my little container planting on the front porch is deader than dirt. My fault. I forgot to ask anyone to water it, and I guess it didn't rain much. Oh well. I put the begonias on life support and I think they may revive.
  
• The second thing is that all of my magazines have been abducted from the tables they were stacked on. Perhaps they are being held for ransom somewhere? You see, the proper number of magazines to have on an endtable, in my opinion, is infinity-plus-one. Matt thinks the proper number is zero, so I suspect he had a hand in their disappearance. UPDATE: while investigating the next item, I found the magazines--see below.
  
• The most perplexing: what is that brown stain on the carpet in the book room? It is about six inches long and in sort of a dribble pattern, almost as though coke were spilled and allowed to sit.

Matt pleads ignorance of the stain's origins. I hope it isn't beagle-related, but it doesn't really look like that. I guess the next step is to moisten it and sniff it, then attack it with a cloth and a little Dawn liquid. Hmm. And there are my magazines, unceremoniously stashed on the shelf. That's a relief. Maybe I should just take the September Vogue and put it over the stain.

• The laundry room floor was piled with a LOT of baby crib linens--much more than a week's worth. Matt explained that one night, he put Hank to bed in just a nightshirt and diaper--no pajama pants. The next morning, Hank's diaper was off and everything was covered in pee. Matt, ever the optimist, figured that it was a fluke--that Hank had not meant to remove his diaper. (One thing I love about Matt is that he always assumes the best about people.) So he put him to bed the same way the next night. With the same result the next morning. Laundry mystery solved, diaper lesson learned.

Finally, saved on the camera, I found out what had really been going on on Daddy's watch:

He is SO the fun parent.