down came the rain...

It seems that every day over the past week, there have been bouts of sun followed by torrential downpours. It's been coming down in droves, keeping the ground good and wet, thus giving us a nice flow of moisture in our basement. Gotta love having an old house like ours. We also have some major gutter clogs. Since the owner of our house was 80+ when he passed away, I imagine he wasn't up there cleaning them out. And since Jamie and I are lazy bums about house maintenance, we haven't been up there either. Though we have screen-like contraptions over them to keep gook out, apparently they're malfunctioning.

One place where the mesh isn't doing its job is along the roof of our front patio. It's right over the opening in the railing, where you'd walk in and out, that we have the most debris, I guess, because we have this waterfall that comes splashing down. It's actually sort of entertaining, since even if it's not raining that hard, any guests need to run through that waterfall to get in.

The most recent rain came at about the same time that Alexis was getting tired and a bit fussy. I figured we'd go out onto the patio and check out the rain. The pooches came with, sans leashes, since when it rains, they refuse to go outside. I knew they weren't going anywhere. The rain was coming down so hard that most of the patio was getting wet, but there was a place or two where you could get close to the waterfall.

I got us right up close to it, and at first Alexis seemed to be a bit freaked out, but then she stretched out her hand, put it in the steam, and smiled. She swished her hand back and forth, in and out of it. She'd take her hand out, look at me, look back at the water and stick her hand in again. It looked like she was trying to grab it too, which of course was a fruitless effort, but enthralling nonetheless.

I continue to be amazed and enjoy watching her experience and explore new things. While I look at the rain and worry about what's happening to our basement, she's thinking that its one of the coolest things she's ever seen. While the dogs hide under the bench and do their best to stay out of the spray, she's reaching her arm out as far as she can to get one more handful of water. We should all take a second to look at what a baby is appreciating, observe that something ourselves, and do our best to enjoy something as if it was the first time we'd ever seen it. It would make the world such a new, fun place, and we can all use a little of that...