It's Raining Cats and (noun)!

It's raining. Really hard. These wet days are unusual in Colorado and I love them. One of my favorite sounds is rain on the roof, especially when you're falling asleep.

Sam's baseball camp was cancelled today. Sam and Emma have their friends AJ, Max & Jesse over. The friends were late getting here because AJ, the oldest, locked his mom and Max in the chicken coop for 20 minutes. I bet they smelled good after 1,200 seconds with the chickens. Another friend told me that last week her seven year old daughter got locked in a public restroom at a park for 45 minutes. They had to call the city to get her out.

It's kind of like being stuck in an elevator. I'm sure there is this moment of panic when you think you might never get out, and you will expire in there. Either that or crap yourself. Dang! No one knows you are gone and you will starve and dehydrate and die a slow death.

I can't recall being stuck somewhere before. I have been stuck outside, though. One time I was locked out of my house sick for eight hours when we lived in Greece. I was 13. Both of my parents were at work. We had no neighbors who spoke English and that was before cell phones. I was in my PJs. I had to keep warm (yes, Greek winters can be surprisingly cold) with the wash hanging on the line (yes, we didn't have a drier). You can imagine my dad's response when he got home from work and I was huddled by the front door covered with his Izod shirt and boxer shorts.

Back to the rain. The kids become very inventive when they're bored. Emma just asked if we could build a zip line. Yes, sure! Anything for you. Let me get out my polyethylene rope and pulleys and I'll get right on it!

The boys, on the other hand, have been doing Mad Libs. Remember those? They used to be one of my favorites. Only almost-4th and 5th graders could come up with this one:

A Quiz to Take Before Leaving Home

1. Have you filled your car with pee?
2. Do you have the reservations for your room at the fart?
3. Did you remember to pack all of your toilet articles, such as your balls brush and your butthole paste and your soggy lotion?
4. Did you remember to turn off the wet fart and the nut sac in the house?

I'm sure someday I will appreciate how innocent these days are. I'm fearing the adolescent days of dealing with peer pressure, drug/alcohol issues, sex stuff. It is certainly easier to listen to talk of buttholes and the giggling that follows than to tackle the really big stuff that will inevitably come later on. Everyday I try to teach my kids about making good decisions, and the consequences that occur when they don't. Most of the time I am not sure if I'm making much of an impression. I guess time will tell...

(Did you know "butthole" is not in the spell check?)