"DUTEE"

One of Abe's favorite words these days is "dutee". It took me a while to figure out why he liked to say it when we would drive down the road on our way to town. "Dutee" means "dirty", which is what his daddy used to say to him when describing the rush of silty water passing down the stream near our house during rainy season. I think Abe decided it was the word for "river" since he would happily declare "dutee" every time we passed over a river.
Well, the "dutee" (dirty) just took over our house. Two days ago, the river decided it would like to enlarge its boundaries to graciously include our entire neighborhood. It happened mid afternoon, while Abe was having his nap and I was finishing up feeding Samuel lunch. It had occurred to me that today was an especially rainy day, but rainy days (the kind that beat so hard on the tin roof that you have to pause your conversation in order to save your vocal cords) are a common occurrence.
I heard this sound coming from the play room and went to investigate... I could hardly keep my feet as Abe's toys slipped and slided under my shoes, bouyed by buckets of water flooding through every crack in the front door. It didn't take long until our whole floor was looking like a rushing river... I realized I could safely place Samuel in his high chair so I could bail water with both hands and save Abe's Alphabet blocks that were bobbing down the drain like sinking ships.
Mark was at the office, but rushed home promptly to save his damsel in distress. Abe slept blissfully through the first bit of drama, until we woke him up from his nap, afraid he would wake up himself and slip on the mudslide beneath him.
It wasn't long before the neighborhood kids came by to help in the demolition duty, and took to their posts as mud sweepers like soldiers on sentry. Before we could get very far in clean up, though, the pipes in our house dried up. The water authorities frequently shut off the water during downpours so that silt doesn't clog the pipes. (Or it may have been that one of the supply pipes broke). So after some more sloshing around, we decided to call off the battle for the day and went for refuge to our friends' home (the Seidlitz's).
I hear there is now water in our pipes, so tomorrow morning we'll get out the pressure hose and see what we can do with the mud pie covering our floor. I have a feeling time will now be marked in our family as B.F or A.F. "Before the flood, or after the flood." Pray for productive clean up. And I'll try to post a pic or two soon. (No camera these days, but that's another story:)