After the rain

We had a ton of rain last week, which, as I've mentioned, transforms our grassless backyard into a sticky, soupy mess of muddy nastiness. Since then, however, we've also had some sunshine that has dried up enough of the mud that we were able to go out and play on Monday without fear of getting stuck in the mire. In fact, the heavy rains encouraged more of our stubborn grass to grow, which means there is finally more grass in our yard than not. Of course, Alex managed to find all of the mushiest spots and trudged through them with his clean shoes, which now need to be power-washed. It seems that all the trudging made him thirsty because he stopped trudging long enough to take a sip of the rain water that had collected in his sand pail, water flavored with rocks and dirt and leaves. Well, not so much a sip since he just stuck his fingers in and then licked them. Luckily, he hasn't shown any symptoms of cholera or dengue fever, so I think we're in the clear.

Most ventures into the backyard must immediately be followed by a stripdown and a bath, regardless of the time of day. Murph had joined us in the backyard, and I made the mistake of telling Alex that Murphy needed a bath, too. The consequence of that faux pas was that Alex sat in the bath hollering, "Mur!!! Muuuurrrr!!!" until I dragged Murphy into the bathroom and threw him in the tub. So Alex got two baths, one with Murphy and one to clean him up after his bath with Murphy.