Literally overnight, we went from a beautiful Winter Wonderland to a land of yuck, muck and mud. The snow here was completely melted in a matter of hours as the temperatures warmed and the rain started falling early yesterday morning. I’m not one to spend a lot of time chatting about weather – but this is just madness!

This morning we were late departing for preschool, so I was being a Manic Mom trying to get the boys out the door. Once underway, it was just a couple of blocks before the detours began – roads were flooded and closed every which way. We spent 45 minutes slowly inching in descent along a hill that would take us to another hill that we would need to ascend to head back to our house. Matthew sat in the back saying that he was so sad that he couldn’t go to preschool. “This is bad, Mommy. Very, VERY bad,” he informed me.

When we finally reached the bottom of hill #1, we turned right to head up hill #2. The bottom of hill #2 had turned into a lake about five feet deep. There were at least three cars sitting in the water (I couldn’t tell if the drivers were still inside or not), with the water reaching quite high up on their doors. I watched in dismay as Mr. Because I’ve Got a Pickup Truck I Can Handle This Little Puddle proceeded to plow through the flood waters, realized that it was way too deep, turned right into the Denny’s parking lot only to find it deeper than the previous lake and get totally stuck. The water was high enough that he would have gotten water in the truck when he opened up the door. Yeah, best of luck with that. http://www.king5.com/perl/common/slideshow/sspop.pl?recid=6692&nextimage=1 (the tag says Totem Lake of Kirkland but that’s totally wrong. It’s the Denny’s in Renton/Newcastle. http://www.king5.com/perl/common/slideshow/sspop.pl?recid=6692&nextimage=2 We made the news! (Well, not us personally, because we weren’t foolish enough to attempt the water route home).

When we finally made it home we discovered a nasty business happening here: we now have waterfront property. Our backyard is a swamp and oh! By the way, the downstairs carpet pretty much is too. I spent about an hour trying to clear the drain outside the slider. Then I moved furniture and toys away from the door as best I could. Matthew said, “Mom! You missed some toys; they’re going to wash away!” I reassured him that this wasn’t a wait-in-the-attic-for-the-helicopter flood – thank God – that it was just a squishy-carpet kind of flood. I suggested he could be a helper and pick up toys. “No, Mom. I’ll get all floody. That’s your job.”

When Mike got home to help save the day (or at least the carpet), Matthew immediately picked Mike’s lunch up off of the kitchen counter and said, “Daddy, here – let me put that in the fridge for you – to keep it safe from the flood.” We’ve had fans and heaters blowing on the pulled up, wet part of the carpet for most of the afternoon. Good ‘ol Ma and Pa Buckley built an ark to come and visit and help out a bit. (Mike has a big deadline for work tomorrow, so he’s been trying to get stuff done for that, so Dad helped with the carpet fiasco and mom helped with the children fiasco – not that there was a real fiasco with them, just the usual stuff).

Tonight, Matthew is nervous that the flood is going to come up the stairs and get him and Green Bear in his bed. The wind is supposed to pick up later too, so if those trees start swaying too much in the back, we might all be slumber partying downstairs in the music room. (The lowest and driest place in the Martin House of Weather Insanity).