Ande, Bastian, and Dad

The rain has slowed to a drizzle.  The mountain across the street is just starting to peek out from behind the sheets of water and fog.  There are still clouds hovering in the valley and though the sun has just barely risen, the entire valley is in the darkest blue.  I went to the porch this morning and two hummingbirds were perched, patiently waiting for the seemingly ceaseless rain to subside for another day of eating their weight in nectar.  

Oh!  I hear a stinker.  Time to rise already?  It's rather early for the little guy to be up, so I think I'll let him stir.  It's just past six.  Last night we ran out of water at the house because we had not learned how to fill the tank with the ram.  This old ingenious mechanical device, the ram, looks a lot like a balloon, but certainly lacks the traits not having any sort of ability to float, or for that matter, leave the ground at all.  It pushes water uphill without the use of electricity, through pressure alone, and has been running maintenance free since the early 1940's.  We quickly re-taught ourselves how to use it and after about an hour, we had water and the tank was filling, which will continue to fill until all 4000 gallons over 36 hours have finished.  

He went back to sleep, which is great, because I'm still half asleep.   He is almost two, he can say a bunch of stuff, including colors, counting almost to ten, shapes, animals, and basically all of his toys.  He says please and thank you and when he's deciding what to do next he makes a long hmmm sound and puts his finger up to his mouth and taps his lips several times.  He can go through about 100 flash cards of different nouns, and "read" almost all of his 30 or so books.  Let's see...he loves Blue's Clues and does little dances with Steve, the Backyardagains, and Elmo.  I guess it's all typical kid-being-a-sponge stuff, but as parents we all think it's amazing.   Oh, and speaking of typical....his tantrums are ridiculous, but entertaining.