Our water bill, and a warning to all visitors.

This is a very common thing for kids Lewis's age - Art did it and so does our little 2 year-old-friend, Elsa;  Lewis just wants to play in the sink ALL DAY.  I think he was at the sink on and off for three hours today, maybe more.  He transfers water from one bowl to another, dumps and then does it again.  He then might call for me, "Mama?  Mama?" so I will give him a new scooping device.  He holds a measuring cup up to the tiny faucet stream we leave on and then dumps that cup out into a bowl.  I don't bother clearing out the sink of his many bowls and teaspoons and cups.  I know he'll be back at the sink within the next hour or so.  Fortunately there's a toy that makes any tub or bowl into a fountain for just such water play.  I'm getting it this weekend in the interest of conservation .

As for the warning, that is two fold.  First of all, we have a new and improved basement (look out, Mike!) which both boys like to spend lots of time in.  There's almost no furniture, except for the giant beanbag and a toy organizer, but there are two pairs of gymnastics-type rings hanging from the ceiling.  The boys swing around on them and hang and spin.  It's a lot of fun and is part of the hunker-down-for-winter preparations.  So that's one warning.  The other warning is that Art will likely want any and all visitors over the next few days to see the giant shark on one of his nature shows.  It's a great white shark that springs out of the water (in slow motion, of course) and eats a seal.  I guess Art hasn't seen that part for a long time because tonight he was awestruck.  In his most amazed sounding voice, using his most amazed sounding words, gestures and faces he reacted to it.  "Did you ever see a shark like that!?!  I NEVER saw that before!  That was amazin'.  Did you see that BIG shark?"  He went on and on.  And as we got ready for bed he wanted to tell Ben about it.  I got Ben on the phone.  "Papa, we saw, in the nature show, something that is really, really cool.  You never saw it.  It was amazin'.  It was a huge, huge, huge, HUGE, HUGE shark!"  Then, twenty minutes after tucking him in he wanted to tell me that when people come over and see that shark, and it jumps out of the water that I should tell them, um, tell them that... um, it's a SHARK.  So, upcoming guests, you may be watching some shark footage during your next visit.  Just lettin' you know.