Sunshine After the Rain
Rain...and then rain...and more rain. And then, sunshine after the rain, and when the sun came out, so did we. We went out to the strawberry patch to pick some more berries. Those plants had exploded again! Amelia, Joseph, Benjamin and Mathilda were all helping me pick them for a while. Eventually Amelia started squishing all of them and then transferred all of that berry red juice to my pant legs as she held on. It didn't take long for them to become distracted and one by one they wandered away to explore other wonders of nature in our yard. They found a mullberry tree with fruit ready for picking, but quickly moved on to the more inviting mud puddle.
That's part of what summer is about right? Playing in the mud, being stained with berry juice, dancing in the rain puddles.
We ended the day with a spontaneous trip to Mahoney State Park. Baseball was cancelled due to all of the rain, so with kids not quite dressed to really go anywhere, we went anyway. Joshua has been asking for a haircut...not just a haircut, but a mohawk. He got to have one tonight--for the night. This led to another mohawk for Joe, a half shaved/half not shaved head for Jon and a strip mowed right down the middle for Ben. This is how we arrived at Mahoney. I'm sure we were quite the spectacle. As if we're not when we just keep piling out of the Suburban anyway! At this point, everyone just assumes that Julia is our oldest daughter! We were a motley crew!
Once home, the rest of the hairs on little heads were shaved too. "I look like Uncle Cash", Ben exclaimed. Well...that was after all hairs were shaved! We decided that spontanaety is the way to go. There are no preconceived expectations that way, so really, no disappointments.
I stayed and continued to pick strawberries because there were just so many of them. Everytime I pushed a leaf aside, a bright red cluster of fruit was revealed. Even when I thought I had gotten them all, there were more. I finally left that patch with my bowl overflowing, khaki shorts painted with sticky red fingerprints and the sound of my children laughing somewhere nearby...that laugh that makes you know that there's gonna be a mess to clean up. What is it about mud and kids? We can't walk within 10 yards of mud without getting it somewhere on someone. They had thoroughly enjoyed themselves in the mud. Amelia too! It was not the dark slimy wet mud, rather the sticky, tan, clay type mud. You would have thought they had all just come from the spa...the healing mud massage.
Joe in his pajama pants and temporary mohawk.
