A Rainy May Day

May was billed to my (by Brian) as an "easy" month.  Unfortunately, it didn't quite fit my definition of "easy".  We started off the month with a vacation week for Brian and the apartment-hunting trip to Boston.  While it was technically our first vacation together since well before Sarah was born, and we did have some lazy mornings to sleep in and got to go to dinner without wrangling children and highchairs and so on, it was a busy and slightly stressful trip.  And not quite as restful as I had imagined.  Then we came back to a pretty easy week for Brian, followed by a killer Friday-Sunday call weekend.  The following week Brian made it home for most dinners, but with the early mornings he was pretty beat in the evenings.  So the whole family was looking forward to a whole weekend off for Daddy.  Unfortunately Brian was sick sick that weekend with a terrible headache (migraine?) that cause him to sleep practically the whole weekend away.

On Saturday afternoon I started wallowing in self-pity, since the break (for me) and family time I was hoping to have that weekend had disappeared before my eyes.  But thankfully I thought to suggest a walk in the rain to the kids (it was sprinkling slightly).  We all got on our rain gear and headed down the street.  Nathan requested a "big puddle" to splash in, remembering months ago when we splashed in our rain-boots in a neighbor's driveway.  Unfortunately we made it to the end of the street without finding a decent sized puddle.  Then, across the street, I spied a GREAT puddle!  We splashed for a while then Nathan wanted to go back home and get some cars to wash in the puddle.

We strolled back home (where Nathan also discarded his rain gear since it had stopped sprinkling by that point) and both kids found a few cars to take back to the puddle with us.  I grabbed my camera, of course!  Washing cars was fun for a while, but soon gave way to crazy jumps...

...big splashes...

...and purposefully rolling in the water.

Nathan got WET, but was loving it!

Sarah decided she needed a quick break (she loves to mimic how Nathan goes potty on trees outside, and I finally had my camera to capture her in action!).

And I got one of my favorite shots of Nathan in a long time!

I'm so thankful that the kids and I ended up having a fun and memorable afternoon activity!  It was also a great reminder to me that if if we're having a rough day, just a little bit of extra effort on my part can really turn the day around!  The kids and I stayed and played at the puddle and watched passing cars until well past dinnertime, until a sudden meltdown from a tired, wet and hungry child forced us to quickly retreat home where we found Brian just getting up from his nap!