It’s raining again.  I know, I know, “April showers…” and all that but we’ve been in this house for almost 9 years and never had the problems that we have had in the last month.  I suppose it was just a matter of time; for 50 years the houses in this neighborhood have flooded.  This one always got a little water in the basement but nothing really to worry about.

Then at the end of February we got rain.  It should have been snow considering where we live but what can you do?  And it wasn’t just a little rain; there was enough to fill our basement by 2 feet.  After visiting a number of stores I was finally able to find a pump to get rid of it.

We had just emptied out the basement and dried everything out.  We had also just thrown away everything that had gotten destroyed.  But then at the beginning of March we got 9 and a half inches of rain over a 2 day period.  Again the basement filled up, about 3 feet this time.  And again we were drying out and throwing things away.

And then… at the end of March more rain, and another 3 feet of water!

When is it going to end?  Not today, as I write this I’m watching the rain pouring down again.  It hasn’t gotten into the basement yet but I’m ready to do battle.

But here’s the interesting thing.  Though my wife and I have been totally stressed out over this.  And this is on top of the stress of my 8 year old’s med changes and incidents like we had sunday.  It is bringing someone happiness.

My son has been spending a lot of time in his yellow rubber boots wading through the wreckage.  He finds it enormously satisfying exploring this new world.  And he gets a thrill splashing through the rooms.

Not only that, he gives tours!

It doesn’t matter who comes into the house.  It can be his advocate or therapist.  It can be his friend’s mom.  It can also be his grandmother, our neighbor, and even the mailman.  Each has to put on my oversized yellow boots and follow him down the stairs.

The first thing he shows them is his weight room.  He has several machines that he uses on a regular basis.  In this case they get to see sprays of water from the wheel on the elliptical machine.  They also experience the waves he can generate when using the exercise bike.

From there he leads them into the furnace room.  Here in his best tour guide voice he regales them with stories of the water rising so high that it extinguished the pilot flame in the boiler.  He goes on to tell them how it kept rising and destroyed our hot water heater.

Later they get to see the storage room where boxes piled high on shelves crashed to the floor.  This happened when water soaked the bottom boxes and caused them to sag under the weight of the ones on top of them.  A lot of books got lost that time!

And any tour couldn’t be complete without showing his guest the water gushing out of the house into the sink and swirling down the drain.  He is fascinated by how fast it moves; the pump is strong enough to move 1500 gallons of water an hour.

With all of the problems Max has, his many disorders, all the pills he takes, and stress from dealing with adults it is so nice when he finds something that gives him joy.  It can be this, it can be camping with the cub scouts, or it can be just playing with a friend.  He has been very unhappy lately since he cannot do the same things that “normal” kids can do.

Just 15 minutes ago, for example, he was upset because we wouldn’t allow him to eat something with blue dye in it.  We have found that red and blue dyes affect him to the point where even his average tantrums become explosive.  They have been so bad that we have had policemen suggest that they take him to jail over night.  He is 8; we haven’t allowed this yet.

But Max is good about red; he reads labels to make sure there isn’t any in what he eats or drinks.  Blue dye is the newest and he hasn’t accepted it yet.

But as long as something like a flooded basement can lighten his mood I guess I don’t need to get as stressed out over it as I ordinarily could.

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