Rain and relaxing...

Well it's raining buckets here. And it has been for the past six hours, with some moments of mere showers. I give the exact number of hours, although it really is much longer since I know it was pouring even before I woke up. The point, in my roundabout fashion, is that I was awake today at 6am from a humongously large crack of lightening in the white pine trees directly behind our house. In case you forgot, that is way, way too early for me to be up, unless I am at work. The loud crack woke Dan and me, both. Well, Dan being awake at this hour is no biggie. Firstly, at this hour Dan is usually trying to fall back to sleep, and, secondly, this is usually due to the fact that Dan can't sleep through a bug chewing on wood. On the other hand, I can sleep standing up in the middle of a drum circle.

So now the pups are up and need to go out. Nuts. But the pups came back after literally thirty seconds outside and they were already soaking wet. So out come the towels -- this is WAY more than I wan to be doing at this hour by the way -- I dry dry dry and go back to bed.
I was almost asleep again when "car windows open" and "computer still on" flash through my mind. Up again to look out the window and see those darn things open. Out I scurry, keys in hand, with a large damp dog towel over my head and shoulders -- all of the umbrellas are in the van, which is usually a good place, right? :)

I return triumphant, albeit really damp and now also cold, and surprisingly still tired - and not in the sick and tired kind of way though. One might think that I would be wide awake by now. But if I get my way, I will go back to bed and can still fall asleep within five minutes (see how good I am at sleeping?). But then I lay in bed, trying to get warm, thinking about all the clothes I want to make.

All day long, I need to sew sew sew. Petal to the metal, lady. It's a sewing machine foot pedal, but hey, I never can help myself with a pun and it does sound kinda cool, right? Either way, I am sitting and typing this and NOT sewing the million needed clothes for Pennsic (next week!) since my back wrenched at one point in the past two days and has been worsening to the point now where I cannot even remotely deal with large pieces of fabric without pain. So I am relaxing here, hoping whomever visits is interested in the crazy morning I have had.

Now to the boys.
Connor is in his bedroom finishing his math exercise. Gee that boy really can procrastinate, delay, be the pokiest child I know. He is certainly the pokiest in this household. He is just so imaginative and creative it affects his focus often. Good thing he is schooled at home. We are all lucky having these boys home all of the time!

On the other side of the twin ying-yang, Rael is already done and out the door at a friend's house. Nice having summer vacation for the 'school kids.' If these boys of mine do not get hours of outdoor and mostly active play, they have such ants in their pants during the pre-bed winding down time. It can be highly distracting when trying to watch an episode of Heros or Bab5.

Third awake this morning was Gavin, who has spent the morning being the little water bug that he is outdoors. First he was in the back yard collecting all the water that was collected in the many toys and buckets into one place where he could then stand in and play with a stick, in the rain. Yep, that's Gavin. He just loves loves water and somehow manages to work it into his play in any and every way he can. He's good at it too. He has experiments, with water with lemon juice, sugar, salt, maybe pepper (whatever, he's six years old). He also likes to wash dishes. Takes baths out of the blue. He will pick flowers for me to fill my mommy pot with water (that's what I call it, don't laugh. It can hold flowers that the boys pick with nearly no stems). Two days ago when it was raining, he was outside in the front drain with sticks of wood (ships) and his shorts and water shoes, squatting down in three inches of water. He likes water!

Dan takes the pups on their walk in the woods (what Gavin calls "the water woods," you can almost hear the capitalized W's), well Gavin will dress in his scuba shorts suit, rash shirt and swim cap to accompany Dan in order to swim in the stream while Dan throws a stick for Sammy, also a water lover.

It is so cool that when we moved back into the area, we moved need these same woods that Dan grew up in, when his family forst moved here from Newburyport, MA when Dan was eight. He and his dog, Shadow, would spend hours in these same woods. It is generally known that these woods still exist in this disgustingly rapidly developing area because it is near the reservoir. Recent talk is that Glens Falls and Queensbury's water system might combine. So, most likely the woods would be approved for development. Sad, sadly so. I kind of remember a protected butterfly using the wetland area. It is essential for the bird's migration (I guess no one else cares?). It is also used by the regular ole neighborhood wildlife. There is a fox warning as he eats domestic outdoor cats - there are many that have come up missing recently. Deer and turtles I see regularly. Turtles that I stop for and put back under the fence. One was squished flat when I was rollerblading with the boys on bikes one day. It was gruesomely interesting and sad, but only to me apparently, since the boys were like "yes, yes, let's get going to Stewart's already, we want ice cream!"

Ahh the good life that these kids of mine have. A bit sheltered in some respects, but they should be at this age still. I am so lucky to have these boys, my husband and the opportunity to spend so much time together!

Thanks for listening to the running of my thoughts :D I promise pictures in the next post, ok?