Lowe took a dip in the marina today. He was playing down on the dock when he suddenly decided it would be funny to throw a bucket in the water. Then throw it in again. And again. It was funny right up until the last time when I picked the bucket out and put it away so he couldn’t do it any more.

That’s when he decided to throw a little tantrum. Standing there a couple of feet in from the edge of the dock he suddenly threw his head backward to yell out his displeasure with me. Instead what happened was he threw his head back, lost his center of gravity, and continued backwards—one step, two steps, splash.

I was standing right there of course, so saving him required nothing more than bending over to grab him by the shirt. He came up looking like a wet cat.

Ouest had been standing on the boat talking to me and saw the whole thing happen. I looked up and saw her eyes as big as dinner plates, “Me tell Mama.” She spun on her heel and disappeared down below.

“Mama! Mama! Lolo fall down in the water.”

Ali was already on her way out, having heard the ker-plunk while fixing dinner. By the time she climbed the stairs I already had the hose running over Lowe’s head. This marina water is nasty.

Those are magnets not stickers, meaning either that Ouest is going to grow up to discover she has some sort of superpower, or that she really needs a shower.

I am “The Claw” and I can scare Ouest into doing whatever I ask. Seriously. All I have to do is grab my forearm with one hand and make a claw with the other and I can bend her to my will. It’s like she knows I’m just playing, but is never 100% sure. So if the claw says, “Finish your dinner.” Ouest says, “Okay, okay, me hungry now.” At the same time she’s worrying about just how far I’m going to take the claw thing, she is busy putting on her own claw persona. She likes it when we team up on Lowe or Mama. Lowe though, as the pictures show, isn’t the least bit afraid of “The Claw.”