a day in the life

it has been raining such an obnoxious amount here that words can barely do it justice. case in point: i was summoned to the window yesterday by both liam and susanna, who were excitedly pointing at something through the glass. "come here, mommy! look!" i joined them, expecting to see a bird's nest, or a rabbit hopping through the grass, or perhaps even a cool-looking truck in the street. but it was something far simpler than even those possibilities. "SUNSHINE!" they yelled, jumping up and down with delight. we then took the first opportunity in literally five days to get outdoors. we drove to our favorite playground, which was full of kids and moms with the exact same idea as we had (and more than just a small dose of cabin fever.) it's a great park, with swings, slides, a soccer field nearby, and even a babbling brook with a bridge crossing it. i was talking with another mom in the only way any two women can carry on a conversation at a playground: unfocused and distracted, unable to have more than two or three exchanges before being interrupted and then trying to remember what in the world we had been talking about before the interruption. i had one eye on liam, who was hanging from the monkey bars, and another in the opposite direction on susanna, as she chased a friend down the slide. the next thing i know, my darling son is standing on the ground with his shorts around his ankles, his little white hiney facing me and all the world to see. from the position of his hands, i instantly knew his intentions. i raced over to him in the knick of time, whisking his shorts back up to his waist with an incredulous, "what in the world are you doing?!" to which he replied, "i needed to pee-pee." oh. of course. what a silly thing to ask. after having a quick lesson on a more appropriate reaction to the need to empty one's bladder in the middle of a public place, we began to make our way to gather susanna and head on home, as we'd been there for quite a while already. her friend was still on the slide, but she was not. i began to scan the area, looking for my daughter, who was dressed in the sweetest little outfit, complete with coordinating hairbow and brand-new matching green mary janes. (one of the benefits of having a prisspot for a child is that she manages to stay pristinely clean no matter where she goes.) she wasn't on the swings, wasn't on a bench, and wasn't at a picnic table stealing another child's snack, as she has been known to do. so i expanded my search. before i worry any of my faithful readers unnecessarily, rest assured that an unspoken rule at this playground is that any mother will look out for any child, no matter if she knows the child or not. if a preschooler begins to wander off towards the soccer field in the search of four-leaf clovers, any parent will call him back without a second thought. if a child happens to take a tumble, within seconds she has five sets of arms to scoop her up, and probably with antiseptic in one hand and a band-aid in the other. so i knew she couldn't be far, and was most certainly under another mom's close supervision -- but i couldn't quite figure out what mischief she was into. and then i heard a mom yell up from the creek bank, "are you looking for a little girl with green mary janes? she's down here with us!" what the mom should have said was, "are you looking for a little girl who had the most adorable green mary janes on, but that are now a permanent shade of mud brown?" for when i followed the voice, i found my sweet princess -- the one who clamors for lipstick and nail polish and glittery sandals, who detests having even the tiniest bit of dirt on her hands -- ankle-deep in the creek. she was crouched over a pile of mossy rocks, wrestling them free from the sand and tossing them into the murky water with a small crowd of similarly-minded children, all of whom, by this point, were soaked. of course, the glaring difference was that they were all dressed for the occasion, wearing tattered playclothes and rainboots. but she didn't seem to notice, as she grinned up at me, attempting to smooth her hair out of her eyes with a filthy hand. i hated to extract her from her newfound fun -- the shoes were ruined at this point, so what was another article of clothing thrown into the mix? -- but i had that slight problem of a son who was in desperate need of a toilet, and now apparently for more than just one bodily function. i didn't even want to think about what he might do if we didn't reach a bathroom. it was time to go. chris called me on our way home to see what we were up to. i smiled, recognizing that even the most ordinary of afternoons could so quickly turn into something unexpected with our two children. i glanced at them in the rear-view mirror as they stuck their hands out the open windows with flushed and happy faces. "our afternoon at the park," i lovingly sighed, "was definitely no walk in the park."