Skip to main content

Troll Water

It rained today. Heavy, crashing buckets of rain dumped down all morning and most of the afternoon. Sometimes when we have a short burst of rain in the late afternoon, Charlie dashes out and stands under the gutter and gets soaked to the skin. Then he runs sopping through the length of the house to dump his wet clothes in a heap on the floor in front of the washing machine. He had work to do this morning, so he couldn't escape, and by the afternoon, the backyard had a swift stream flowing through it.


"Can I go out, Mama? Can I go out and play in the rain?"

"No, honey. The backyard is a muddy swamp and I just don't feel like dealing with the mess today."

"Please, Mama. There's troll water out there."

I wonder where Charlie came up with troll water. Does he imagine a malicious fairytale character lurking beneath the murky stream or did troll water come to mind because his mean troll mama won't let him out for a terrific round of puddle stomping?

Poor Charlie.

Comments

Melissa said…
I'm also one of those mean mommas!

What an imagination Charlie has.
Maren said…
I'm always enchanted by the funny things kids say! I love to hear them talk about their lives. It's one of those little rewards.
Sarah said…
These pictures look like my kids in rainy western Oregon when I tell them they absolutely are not going out in the pouring rain (for the 100th day in a row). I wonder what troll water is...I like the sound of it.

sem
Troll water is the best kind, don't ya know? ;-)
Still impressed with the clever simplicity of Charlie's curtains!
Mary@notbefore7 said…
I am laughing because I was going to comment about the curtains too...like Jennifer. They still impress me - love them!

Look at that puddle...makes me think of a Henry and Mudge book when they find a huge puddle like that. not so sure a troll is involved in the book...

Popular posts from this blog

The Child's Story Bible

I have recommended the following book so frequently that I think a post is in order so that I may recommend it to the world. In the early nineteen hundreds, when my grandparents were growing from children to adults, when they were meeting and marrying and making ends meet during the Depression, Catherine F. Vos was at work. She had been out shopping, looking for the perfect children’s story bible. The Christian bookstores of the day must have had the same unsatisfactory fare for young children that they carry today. Her standards were high as she was the wife of a professor of theology and she could not find what she was looking for. So she started to write. The results of her writing, The Child’s Story Bible was first published in stages between the years of 1934-1936. It’s been republished in every decade since that time. My grandparents had my parents and they met and married and had me and somewhere along the way I acquired a Bible. I read from the book of Proverbs from time to t

A Sure Foundation

The kids and I have been nibbling our way through the book of Isaiah for months. It's our first venture as a family into the prophets. We wrestle with the message. It's a book for our times. Isaiah wrote to his people, the people of Judah, at the dawn of a long season of international turmoil. Assyria ran rough shod over the Middle East, followed in quick succession by Babylon, Persia and Greece. According to Isaiah, each empire was brought down because of they were quick to gloat over their achievements but failed to give God the time of day. The sin of haughty eyes he calls it. I brown the meat and simmer the stew and slice a crusty loaf of Italian bread but do not bow my head before I eat. It's the little red hen complex. I ground the wheat and kneaded the dough and sliced the carrots. I don't take into account that I didn't make the carrots or the wheat grow. I forget to be thankful that there are groceries in the pantry and healthy children around the table.

Notes From the Road

Stuart* just returned home from a month long business trip.  These are clips of Facebook entries and emails home, pieced together to recreate his big adventure.      Calling home while on safari in South Africa. Mongolia It is 3AM here in Mongolia and we just checked in at the hotel in Erdenet. So, if my calculations are correct, it took me 45 hours of travel to get here from the time I left the house. The last six hours were a fairly torturous car ride up into the mountains. I wouldn't hesitate to say that the very best stretch of road that we were on was equivalent to the very worst road that you can think of in PA. There ain't no sleeping in the car while riding here! Most of the ride was fairly teeth rattling. I was correct that, as soon as we left the capital city, I lost cell phone coverage and we never passed through another town. We did stop at a little outpost to pick up drinks and a snack. I will call it an outpost, rather than a rest area for several reaso