Every year we mark the change if the seasons by digging out our rubber boots and searching for the best puddle, usually muddy, a few list mittens and chip bags floating, but pure fun.
When I was a kid this event got more and more extravagant as we would find ways to make life size boats to float down those giant ditches. Thankfully, my kids are happy with buckets, shovels, and sticks!
The key with these special times in childhood, like do many others, is to not over think it.
What I mean by that is:
•Don't think about how gross the water is, I mean we all know that there are all kinds of gross living things that will make you sick in a second. I have a neighbor that cringes every time we go to local park, covered in sand & mud. I say it boosts our immune system and probably is better for our skin than constantly dosing the kids with purel chemicals!
•Wet feet, pants, hands, and coats are natural consequences to having a good time, and will not give you pneumonia, despite what my grandma used to say. Just warm up as soon as you get in. Kids have to learn for themselves.
•Less is more. It's a free activity, which may be more memorable than that expensive water park! And it's free vitamin D, which is all the rage to pop in pill form, but way more fun to receive au natural!
•A free lesson in environmental science. Let the kids see the workings of drainage, gravity, pollution, etc. a textbook is good, but experience is a great teacher, too. It is a great time to be your kid's teacher.
•Just a good old excuse to have time to talk. As we were walking home, Matty held my hand and I just to him I loved him. Turned into a talk about how God loves him even more, and on from there.
What a great afternoon, glad we invested in those rain boots!
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