Rain or Shine

Some days seem to drag on. Some days seem like a never ending cycle of herding kids to and from the kitchen, to and from their plates of food, to and from the potty, and to and from their rooms for naps/quiet time. They feel like days of endless chastising and correcting and redirecting and praising and counter-wiping and baby-face cleaning and book reading and pacify-ing.

These days aren't necessarily bad. They are full of little things that will hopefully add up to good kids and a happy family years down the road, but for now they just feel tiring and repetitive. Welcome to motherhood, I guess.

But that's why when we do something that's a little more exciting, even one tiny step outside the everyday monotony, I like to remember it. Recently, water has given us this opportunity. A week of hotmuggyhothotHOT was followed by a week of steady rain. A fun little juxtaposition for the kids and me.

This is how we get our water play in. Anyone remember a similar day a few years ago?

I remember being young and playing with the hose in the backyard. As Cambrie was flinging it from side to side, I remembered doing that, too, watching the silvery water rise and fall in arcs and hoops and fleets of hurtling water globules. I don't remember having a little brother that kept falling in the path (you know, "accidentally") of the knobby end of the hose, but I guess Cambrie can make her own memories there.

For those who missed it, he's a lean, mean, walking machine, now.

These kids are pretty fun to watch.

For a while it seemed our outside play was going to be put on hold because of all the rain this week. Thankfully, Cambrie loves a good rain adventure as much as I do.

These are the kind of wet, gray days I love.

James was not in the most amiable mood, so he stayed nice and dry with me.

Racing through the gutter waterfalls.

I could blame the camera phone, but she's really kind of a blur in real life, too.

Happy girl.

There. Now that these little moments have been photographed, archived, blogged, and shared, I'm one more step to, years down the road, having more fun and cute memories than boring and monotonous ones. Thank goodness for kids worth working for, weather worth playing in, and a healthy sense of perspective.