It rained so we visited our local bridge over a stream to see the flooding. It was a river. Our garage flooded.

Then it rained on the day I have two kids who together turn into a noisy monster that needs to move it’s body in an expansive way and when I say rained I mean tipped it down, from nothing to flooding our garage in mere minutes. The joy came first…

As soon as the rain started my darling daughter’s face lit up and she was out there getting rained on. First wet set of clothes. It was contagious her joy and the next down pour had two kids dressed appropriately in togs running up and down the drive. Two more sets of wet clothes. Then they changed and were strangely invisible for a while. Next minute another down pour and they are putting on wet togs! Has to be really good for wet togs… so this time they enjoyed the surface flooding mud bath thing.

Three sets of clothes and a shower. We had hot chocolate and watched Wild Weather on TV. An elderly woman was winched out of her house by helicopter, I wonder if something different happens in Helena’s brain now she has also experienced being winched into a helicopter? Then the kids had a conversation about what to do if there was a flood, what to rescue… sometimes silly but also important and thoughtful.

“ooh I’d definitely take my death star”

“you don’t have it do you?”

“Well if it happens and I have my death star I’ll take it, it’s very special”

“alright, I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’ll get my bag then I’ll pack. If I had Tiger, Tiger’s mmmm”

“if I had an hour I’d rescue my soft toys and stuff”

I ask them why they have 20 minutes ….

“in 20 minutes there will be a hurricane”

“what say it’s in a completely different place?”

“No it’s here in your house”

“in your house you’d have no time”

“it was going to happen”

“outside”

“in 20 minutes, you had to go under the house… I would pack Tiger, Blanky, Dolly, as many of Dolly’s clothes as I could find”

“forget Dolly’s clothes”

“she doesn’t live with out her clothes”

“for heavens sake”…….

… “I haven’t finished. I would take food and water at least enough for the rest of the day and maybe the morning and night”

“there’d be water under the house”

“ewwww I’d not drink that muddy stuff.. and then while I was exiting I would grab topsy and Turvy”

“No I’d take watermelon, that is water and food”.

Then the sun came out so off they go to gamble like the animals they are. Five sets of clothes and two dirty happy children.

I like that a lot of homeschooling has that life affirming joy in it and that in the joy the kids always seem bigger and more wholly, with all their sences, absorbed and involved in their lives, more so than I ever manage to be.