Today was supposed to be partly cloudy. I was surprised to see that weather report this morning, since the past few days have predicted thunderstorms. Naturally, despite having a number of days with the threat of thunderstorms, we did not actually get any until today, once the weather powers-that-be decided they must have been wrong. Way to be wrong twice in a row, guys. Next time, just stick with your initial forecast. Even if you're wrong, you're still only wrong once. Changing it and then having it be the way you originally guessed makes you seem wrong twice.
Anyway, once the thunder had passed and we were merely stuck on "heavy rainstorm", I asked the kidlets if they would like to go outside with their boots and umbrellas and splash around for awhile. I am fairly certain I have never seen them react so quickly when I asked them if they'd like to play outside. They all had their boots on and were hunting down umbrellas before the words even finished coming out of my mouth.
The kidlets raced outside and splished and splashed to their hearts content. They ran through puddles, attempted flying leaps in order to see who could produce the biggest splash, and turned their umbrellas upside-down to try and catch the water. All was well until my little sensory guy, the one who detests actually having his clothing or himself wet, fell on his belly into a puddle of murky water.
My little man froze and could not even pull himself up on his own. That task was left up to me. He walked about as if petrified, and held his body stiff as a board. He seemed miserable. He had also managed to flatten his umbrella and was thoroughly upset that he could not put it up over his head anymore. It appeared as if the kidlets' playtime was going to come to an end.
As my drenched son was doing his stiff-legged walk up to our back porch, I wondered if he would be okay with getting even more wet. You see, he and I share a lot of the same sensory issues, and I can't stand being partially wet either. However, I used to love going on long walks in the pouring rain as long as I could get completely soaked. Individual drips or splashes on my clothing drove me crazy, but I could handle the sensation if I was drenched, provided it continued raining. The second it stopped pouring or I went inside, I needed to immediately get into dry clothing. I wondered if my son was the same way, so I asked him if he would like to forget his broken umbrella and just play in the rain.
There was a pause while all three kidlets processed what I was telling them. In a flurry of tossed umbrellas, all three started cavorting in the downpour. My completely upset son became a gleefully scampering little boy as they all played. The girls threw themselves into the task of getting soaked. My son no longer worried about his partially wet clothing and instead went about making it completely drenched. Now that they were no longer worried about accidentally getting wet, they could play with wild abandon. And so they did.
After a nice, long frolic in the rain, we once again heard a distant peal of thunder and went back into the house. I threw a towel around each kidlet and they each put on dry clothing. We dumped their filled rain boots out on our porch and left them outside to dry out sometime within the next year or so. Now that I know all three are fine with getting drenched, I think we'll go for flip flops and bathing suits next time.
I am so glad that my kidlets liked being outside in the rain as much as I used to enjoy it. It has been a number of years since I have frolicked in the rain, and I do indeed miss it. Watching an overly-drenched tree come crashing down just a few feet in front of me has kept me from enjoying rainstorms in recent history. (My thoughts at the time, as I was staring out my kitchen window at that lovely downpour, were, "I should go find my shoes and go for a walk in the...TREE!" It scared the dickens out of me, which is fairly impressive given that the only Dickens I knew about at the time was Charles.) I think it's time I start cavorting in the rain once more, this time in the presence of my three very cheerful kidlets.
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