Summer is here, and the sprinklers are running. And Michael is once again in a watery heaven.

I detailed Michael’s love of sprinklers here, so I won’t delve into the back story so much. Suffice it to say that since we are now seeing sprinklers pop up all over town, Michael is beside himself with glee.

Recently he discovered the glory of the Rain Bird, seeing one running in a neighbor’s yard. He practically dragged me over to look at it. The homeowner was standing in his open garage enjoying a cup of coffee as Michael and I trotted over and hunkered down over this sprinkler, which was merrily spurting away in the corner of the lawn.

I saw the man walk toward us, eyes narrowed, and knew I’d have to surrender the bare truth.

“He’s obsessed with sprinklers,” I said, hoping he was an understanding soul.

He was. He leaned down and showed Michael exactly how it worked, how it’s set, down to every spring and lever and cross piece. Michael was mesmerized.

And then he announced that he wants us to have a Rain Bird. He wants to buy one this weekend. I think he wants to keep it in his room.

We have a set of pop-up sprinklers at our house as well, run on a timer. Somehow I managed to screw it up such that it comes on twice every Wednesday and Sunday morning. For the life of me I cannot figure out how to undo that. So on those days, Michael is rewarded with not one but two separate shows, and he never misses a performance. When they’re running, he’ll be out there in his jammies and boots, running from one sprinkler to another to watch them spray. Mind you, he doesn’t like to get wet, he just wants to see them spraying.

Today, on the way to day care, we saw lots of sprinklers running on various lawns. Every one of them was a topic for conversation.

As we approached our destination, the conversation got silly:

“I’m going to marry a sprinkler,” he said, matter-of-factly.

“You’re going to marry a sprinkler?” I asked back, incredulous.

“Marry one! That’s silly!”

“Well, that’s what I heard!”

“If I marry a sprinkler, it would spray me!”

“Yes… but it would have one heck of a great bridal shower!”

(the sound of virtual crickets from the back seat)

Tough crowd.