Even When the Rain Falls

Even when the rain falls,
Even when the flood starts rising,
Even when the storm comes...

I am washed by the water...or so the song goes. I really love that song. It's not really about a literal rain storm or flood, but for me the figurative flood is not so much a metaphor as just a whole lot of water. In my house. From rain.

It made my house (and my couch, my oven, my cabinets, etc.)really dirty, moldy, and gross. It made my kids sick with unending coughs and sneezes. It brought earthworms and mosquitos into my dining room.

There is a dumpster in my driveway, a refrigerator in my office, nothing whatsoever in my kitchen - not even the sink - and (oh yes!) a colony of carpenter bees making a new home in my garage.

The downstairs half of my house is stripped to its foundation - nothing remains but brick and studs. The whole house smells like a mixture of muggy outdoor air and the chemical treatment that is keeping the house's framing from growing mold.

So while washed may not be the exact right word to describe what is happening, I think cleansed definitely applies. It's not just my house. Watching the demolition crews tear out the beautiful new trimming from our walls and dumping precious thing after precious, now moldy thing into the trash has had a way of stripping me down to my foundation, too.

Somehow, I feel like I needed to be laid bare- to be cleansed that deep - to be reminded that my foundation is not my house or my stuff. The core of me is not this depression and anxiety that have been so huge in my life lately. It's not the nice, controlled daily routine that my kids and I have come to follow each day that requires, among other things now missing, a kitchen sink and table.

Take it away. I want to be the part of me that is flexible enough to deal with change. I want the part that is strong enough to move furniture - or mountains. I want the part that isn't tied up in couches and crown moulding our the daily routine. I want the me that is really alive.

Wordless Wednesday - Goosenstien

moar funny pictures

Boys, Boys, Boys

My son is different from my daughter in every way imaginable. The two kids have exactly two things in common:

1 - Neither one has any idea what the word "shy" means or what purpose such an attribute might serve.

2 - They both obsess over shoes. I've discussed Natalie's fetishes before. Isaac is almost worse. The first thing he does in the morning is get his shoes and bring them to me, saying "toos! toos!" and trying to hold out a foot. Then he goes and finds a pair that belongs to someone else and tries to put them on, too. Once we ventured down a shoe isle at Wal-Mart, and the little guy was so excited there were tears.

The boy child never stops moving. He climbs on things only to jump off, and he goes down the stairs just to go back up them. He throws things just to make them hit the ground, and he takes things apart just to see the insides out. He loves his kitty ("ki-kee,") but somehow the kitty does not recognize all-out-mounting a show of affection.

The boy child falls asleep in the middle of the floor on his belly. He just keeps running at full speed until he crashes. He enjoys his bath until he realizes you want to wash him. He waves at every car that passes when we walk through a parking lot, but it is rare for him to wave at a person no matter how much that person waves at him.

The boy child does not speak in any language the average observer could understand - he is much too busy figuring out how everything else works to worry about his own body. It takes him exactly one time observing someone "working" something for him to figure out how to do it himself. This goes for making things vanish into the diaper champ, undoing various baby-proofing tools, and disassembling all manner of things that should not be disassembled by a baby.

The boy child gives his mama his best snot-nose kisses and wants nothing to do with daddy at bedtime. He is very careful to make sure mama is hand-fed several goldfish and some cheese each day. He always makes sure mama is wearing her best "toos" and always makes her melt when he points at her face and whispers "pitty" (pretty.)

Yes, I'm glad that this boy child has come into my life, although he has changed it so dramatically.

My daughter is also thankful for the boys in her life these days. Yesterday, walking out of the doctor's office:

Nat: Mama, there is a handsome boy behind us.

Mama: (gaping, speechless mouth)

Nat: Isaac's doctor is a little handsome, too.

Mama: uh-huh. (still kind of gapey)

Nat: Mama, when I am as old as a princess, I'm going to start looking for a husband.

County of Residence: Save My House; NBC: Save My Chuck

Here's the deal: On Tuesday, there was nothing seven of my neighbors and I could do about the water. We got more than 6 inches inside our house for over an hour. Everything is wet. Thank God we have flood insurance. If you are one who prays, please pray for the majority of my nieghbors who did not have it. My computer was damaged, so there won't be much blogging - but you all are used to that by now anyway, right?

One nice thing about flooding is that I get to have my giant living room t.v. in my upstairs bedroom instead of the 20" t.v. we normally have there. It makes me feel very glamorous. (I don't have much to go on right now, so just give me this, OK?) Yesterday, I watched the season finale of Chuck. I have nothing to say except this: Awesome. I've only been watching the show for about 6 weeks, but I have gone back and watched most of season one on Hulu and will catch up soon. It is already my favorite thing on TV. How is this show in danger of cancellation?

That's it for now.

It's Raining, It's Pouring

About that whole "maybe we fixed it" thing?  Not so much.  

It hasn't made it in the house, but it was less than 1/8" away, and we were doing everything we could to divert the water away from the house.  Once the water covers the drain outlet at the street in front, all bets are off for the improved drainage in the back, and we seem to have some trouble with the storm drains in the street.

Storms

I used to love storms.  They are, after all, the best time for a nap.

Once upon a time, the main sewer line going out from my house broke, my house flooded with sewage, and we had to replace the whole downstairs.  We had to change some things in our back yard after that, and the result was that every heavy rain brought water into our back door unless we took an active role in keeping it out.  Then, about 2 years later, this little hurricane named Ike came through and we had to replace everything again.  Now, when it rains, my husband and I enter a state of low-grade panic.  We have visions of water coming in under the walls.  We remember what the bare slab looks like in our living room.  We do not sleep through storms around here anymore.

After getting our home all fixed up after Ike, we started talking about moving.  Then the whole economic meltdown thing happened and we decided that we really needed to wait.  So we are waiting.  And today it is storming.  We have done some re-grading in the back, added a ditch to hold water when the drains are at capacity, and we have learned how to open up a drain from our porch into the sewer lines for emergency added drainage.  We had the city come out and inspect the sewers in the front for blockages.   The rain we are expecting here over the next 24 hours should put all that to the test.  If we make it through and stay dry, maybe I will be able to sleep through storms again.

Here is something I hope I never see again.  The water actually got up to the bottom of the mailbox before it started going down.  

And for cuteness sake, here is an old picture of Isaac helping us get ready for Ike last year:

Enough

Do I love them enough? Do I make every minute count enough? Is it even possible to do that? These are the questions that come to mind when I read about the wind of tragedies sweeping through the parent blogging community these past few days.  When I read about these families, what kills me is how normal their lives were just days - just hours sometimes - before they were turned upside down.  

You know, I get that life it fragile.  I do.  This stuff makes me full of this crazy panic to turn up the intensity - to somehow squeeze more something out of me that would make me able to soak up every minute.  It makes me seethe inside at the memories of the times I have been angry or harsh, and pine over the hours lost when I was just too tired or too empty to be really with them even though we were sharing space.  

What really gets me, what wedges this lump in my throat so solid that I want to spit rather than swallow it down, is knowing that some day in the near future, these feelings will fade and I will be back to life as usual.  I will be back to squandering the moments and bruising the precious times with my own short-sighted nonsense.