Playing In The Rain

We’ve gone out in the rain with the children before but it’s been some time.   It’s likely been about a year ago, when April comes around, bringing warm showers that both tinkle and pummel down with gusting winds that blow umbrellas askew.

Tonight after dinner my daughter was asking if it was raining.   I told her it was raining a little bit and if she wanted to go out in the rain that was fine with me.   I told her when she came back in she could take her wet clothes off and put on her pajamas (or “night nights” as we call them).   She went to talk to my husband about the going out in the rain thing, possibly wondering if she needed a second opinion on the advisability of such action.

She had only just headed out the door when I heard the wind pick up and the rain start to pelt down.  My son heard it too and apparently he was also interested in going outside.   He came running downstairs, yelling for his sister, saying it was raining again and the outside awaited them.

There was some door opening and closings, in and out running and confusion for the next bit because they wanted rain boots, rain coats and definitely, without question they had to have their umbrellas.    Fully geared up. we sent them outside with a stern warning they were not allowed to come inside without waiting for a towel at the door.  

That was about an hour before bedtime.   My husband and I largely forgot about them while we cleaned up the dinner, finished the laundry and re-tidied the house.   Intermittently we’d hear happy screams and laughter from outside, causing us to look out the window and cringe at how muddy they must be getting at the swing set while at the same time smiling at the joy they were experiencing in the simple fact of water landing on their bodies while they played together.

I think they would be out there still, in the dark, laughing in the rain, if we hadn’t brought them in for bedtime.   I miss being a child.

The Big Boy Update:  My son lost his second tooth today.   He didn’t even seem that out of sorts when it came out.  He was in the bonus room before dinner and yelled down the stairs, “my tooth fell out”.  He got a tissue for the blood and we put the tooth in a bag.   There is now a dollar under his pillow (we decided a small, but paper-version of currency would be reasonable for teeth).   He is looking forward to more teeth falling out.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter can spell her name both in cursive (regular class) and in braille (vision impairment work).   She loves to write her name and does it with her finger all the time in the air, on the ground with chalk, etc.   She also has one other word she loves to spell:  rooster.   Her VI teacher says she’s the only preschooler who can spell rooster.   Today she brought home a necklace she made with braille beads that spelled Rooster and a sheet of braille type where she wrote out rooster more than once.   I’m not sure what the obsession is, but she likes roosters a lot.