I may have been mean mom last night when I kept taking Alison inside because she wouldn’t ride her tricycle, but I think I redeemed myself this morning. Yesterday, it got real cloudy and looked like it might rain while we were having lunch and I told Alison that if it did rain I would let her wear her “Suzy Season” coat and take her out to splash in the puddles after her nap. Well, it didn’t rain and we went for a walk instead.

That brings us to this morning. It was a cool and cloudy morning. While looking out the window, Alison noticed that it was raining but said nothing more about it. But I decided that we would go out and splash in the puddles. After her snack and her favorite tv program, and while she was sitting on the potty, I told her we were going to do something special. She started trying to guess what it might be.....crayons, painting with a paintbrush, finger painting, playing downstairs, anything she could come up with, I think. She was very excited when I grabbed her raincoat and told her we were going outside.

Because it was still raining, and I didn’t have a raincoat, I grabbed my umbrella and we headed for the biggest puddle in the driveway. She splashed around a little bit and then decided she wanted to hold the umbrella. So I gave it to her and grabbed Kevin’s golf umbrella and we went back to splashing in the puddles. Then we took a walk to our neighbors’ (two houses down) in search of more puddles. I was kicking myself for not having a camera handy --or a husband with a camera handy-- because Alison looked so cute when she periodically peeked out from under an umbrella that was really too big for her, and when she wasn’t peeking she reminded me of the dancing mushrooms from Fantasia. Even though she did okay with a big umbrella, now on my list of things to pick up for her, in addition to some “slop around in the mud and puddles” boots, is a little umbrella of her very own, one that will be a little easier for her to manage, so that we can do this again sometime.