Rainy Morning and Afternoon Outing

This is what certain areas of our house look like right now:

Our bathroom

Our bedroom

Does anyone want to wager a guess as to what happened?

If you so happened to guess that the gutter near our bedroom window is clogged, we had a TORRENTIAL downpour this morning, the gutter water was directed onto our bedroom window sill, seeped through the window, down the bedroom wall and into a crack between the wall and baseboard, only to collect in a big puddle inside the light fixture in our bathroom directly downstairs from our bedroom wall, then DING DING DING!  You're RIGHT!

One of our kids was completely oblivious to all that was going on.  The other of our kids had a massive melt-down panic-stricken shrieking fest because she was so terrified that we were going to get electrocuted AND the water was going to cause a flood and we were ALL GOING TO DIE.

My poor, anxiety-riddled Julia.  So much like her anxiety-riddled mommy.

I did manage to calm Julia down after some time, and once she was secure in the idea that we weren't all going to die, she was even willing to see the contraption that Ethan had set up in the bathroom to collect the dripping water.  Auntie Caitlyn even tried to make it fun by telling Julia that the trash bag looks like a Dementor, since adding "Harry Potter" to ANY situation makes it more fun for Julia.  In this case, Julia gleefully proclaimed that we had a Dementor in our bathroom all morning, telling us each repeatedly about it.

It turns out that Julia did NOT get the same idea of what a Dementor looks like from J.K. Rowling's description than I did.  We discovered before bedtime that it was not actually the trash bag that Julia thought was the Dementor.

Here is what Julia thought was the Dementor:

(The clamp lamp that Ethan attached to a kitchen stool, in order to light up the bathroom in place of the sopping wet overhead light bulb.)

I can totally see why she thinks this is a Dementor, with...uh...its...BULBOUS SILVERY HEAD, and...its...BRIGHT SHINING LIGHT, and...hmmm....yeah, I'm really not sure why she thinks this was the Dementor.

At any rate, once Julia had calmed down, she and Madeleine got busy with a perfect rainy day activity: coloring.

Here is Julia's finished masterpiece:

Are you TOTALLY shocked that she drew Hogwarts and a bunch of "Harry Potter" characters??

Here is Madeleine's finished picture:

She doesn't want to be just like Julia AT ALL.


At any rate, the weather cleared after noon, and we Rowes spent an extremely pleasant afternoon out and about in Brookline, starting with a puppet show at the Puppet Showplace Theater, followed by a trip to one of Brookline's public playgrounds, which was a little wet, but not too wet to bother the girls.  Afterwards, we headed off to look for nearby restaurants to have some dinner, peering at the various signs on shops around us.

Julia thoroughly enjoyed trying to read the signs aloud as we went past:

JULIA: Otto's?  Or Oh-tos?
ME: Otto's.
JULIA: Magic Be...Magic Bears?  Beads?  I can't see the last letters.
ME: Magic Beans.  It's a toystore.
JULIA: Well, I know that THAT says Verizon store!
ME: Yup.  You're right.

Then we drove past a pizza place called "Virginia's".

JULIA: Mom?  Does that say "VAGINAS," or "VER-GYNAS?"

Mmm.  How appetizing.  Who *wouldn't* want to walk right into a restaurant named "Vaginas?"

We settled on a Mexican restaurant that apparently only recently opened, and it was absolutely delicious!  Julia not only gobbled down her entire quesadilla, but also shared food from all of our plates as well.  Then she had to poop, of course, so I got to spend yet ANOTHER outing at a restaurant sitting inside a one-seater bathroom with Julia as she pooped.  Fun times!

After dinner, we headed over to a party thrown by some old college friends of ours; they happen to live about a half mile from the puppet theater, and recently had a baby.  There were lots of other kids at the party, so our girls had a BLAST, not wanting to leave when bedtime drew near.

And now we are back home in our garbage-bag covered house, hoping for a completely dry, rain-free rest of the long weekend!