One evening last summer I drew a bath for Phoenix. Maginnis had showered the night before so was in charge of "supervising" his little brother's bath. My office was next to the bathroom and I could hear Phoenix's splashing and the boys' giggling. Soon Maginnis came to me, "Mom, Phoenix is getting water on the floor."
"That's okay, just get a towel from under the sink and mop it up. Tell him not to splash water out of the tub though!" I directed without looking up from my computer.
Maginnis left the room and I could hear the vanity cabinet being opened. All too soon he returned.
"Mom, there's kind of a lot of water," Maginnis stated very matter of factly.
I sighed. Obviously, I was not going to get any work done with all the interruptions. I grudgingly went to the bathroom annoyed that bath time had become such a production. Upon entering the bathroom I stepped into what must have been an inch of water on the floor.
"Are you kidding? What's going on in here?" I imagined myself having looked like one of those cartoon characters with steam coming out my ears.
I grabbed more towels from under the sink, yanked Phoenix out of the tub, and became the dreaded psycho-mom, with raging eyes and veins popping out of my neck. I sopped up water as fast as I could while Phoenix stood naked in his bedroom door, dripping wet, and shivering. Then I heard it. A sound from downstairs. An unfamiliar sound that caused great alarm.
I hushed Phoenix from his incessant I sorry Mama's, "Shhh, what is that?"
I ran downstairs and saw water pouring from the ceiling onto the floor.
"This is so NOT cool, " I screamed, "You two are SO dead!"
This time I ran to the laundry room and grabbed towels. I threw them on the floor where a small lake was forming before running back upstairs to deal with the source of the rainstorm in the kitchen.
As I mopped up the last of the water, and wrung the towels out in the tub, I also picked up the tub toys. The last thing I threw in the basket of toys was a tall, red, plastic, Coca-Cola cup ~ the cup that had been used to bail water out of Phoenix's sinking boat (the tub)! From the hall I heard Maginnis.
"I told you there was a lot of water, Mom."
