Rain & Well-Being (July 3)

Lucia has taken a greater interest than usual in Greta’s well-being. Lucia always sleeps with a night light, and I always bring one along for Greta, too, even though I don’t put it on for her: I just click it on whenever I check on her. This week, though, when I’ve gone upstairs to check on the girls and go to bed, there’s Greta’s night light: turned on, and placed right next to her crib. The same during naptime. Apparently Lucia waits for Greta to go to sleep, tiptoes into her room, turns on the night light, and puts it beside her—with Andrew and I none the wiser. Sometimes she also takes all the extra pacifiers from the bureau and tosses them into the crib.

Lucia is also very worried that Greta is going to fall off the floating dock into the pond. This is a legitimate fear, one that Andrew and I have both lost some sleep over this week. Even though one of us always has a hand on her, we’ve both had very clear visions—either in dreams or just before going to sleep—of Greta not only falling into the water but somehow getting stuck underneath the floating dock. This wouldn’t happen. We know this. Even if Greta did fall into the pond, one of us would be able to grab her within one second. Less. Even I would jump into the disgusting pond if Greta fell in; I would jump in and grab her and ignore my feet sinking into the scum on the bottom as I hoisted her out. But still. “LOOK AT GRETA!” Lucia yells on the dock every few minutes if Greta takes even half a step. “GRETA’S GOING TO FALL IN! GET HER! GET HER! YOU HAVE TO GET HER!” I think we’re all ready for Greta to get just a teeny bit more cognizant of danger.

Though Memorial Day definitely was the worst time we’ve ever had here, with the rain and the cold and the no heat, this week has come in a close second, with daily torrential downpours. Yesterday we headed out on an errand and got stuck in some flash-flooding on our way to Joann Fabrics; we had to pull over for a long time. It was insane. And last night, we lost power at around 8:30pm. Fortunately, the girls’ night lights keep a charge, and fortunately, we’d already cooked our dinner. Andrew and I played Scrabble by candlelight. The power came back on in the middle of the night, and all our food was fine. Then it poured again this morning.

We’ve managed to have mostly nice mornings, however, which has made our time here fun despite all the rain.