auntbijou | Playing in the rain...

I'm watching one of my favorite sights in the world. My kids, soaking wet, playing in the rain. Sometimes, they run at random, shouting and waving their arms. Sometimes they stand still, tilting their heads back and trying to watch the drops coming down, squinting when one hits them in the eye, and falling down in giggles when one hits a tickly spot. There are no muddy spots, yet, so I don't have to worry about insisting the Husbandly One hose them off before coming into the house. ("Aw, honey, they can just get straight into the shower!" Then ten minutes later, "Hey!!! Who said you could track all this mud in the house??")

I am amazed that the HO managed to get the Impossible Son to put on a pair of swimming trunks. This is quite a feat, since our son is still at the Age of Nudity. You know, it starts around the middle of the third year, and is usually over with by the age of five, but Mr. Manzie seems to be just tromping right on through that. The second he comes in the door after shopping, or playing, the clothes fly off, and he's FREEEEEEE!!!! The Impertinent Daughter, at ten, is at the age where that sort of thing is embarrassing, so she spends her time following him, waving a pair of boxers at him and saying, "Look! They have Spiderman on them! Don't you want to wear these? Please???"   He will go through eight changes of clothing a day (can you say diva?), and as many pair of underwear. Once they've been on, they're DIRTY.

"No, Mama, I can't wear those!"

"But... you just had them on three minutes ago! They're clean, you barely wore them for thirty seconds!"

"I know, but now, they're DIRTY! They've got ME all over them!"

And no, I can't throw them back in his drawer and say, "Hey look, I found another pair!" He recognizes them.

"No, Mama, those are the Batman underwear I was wearing this MORNING, when we went to the STORE... remember??"

Is it no wonder laundry piles up around here?

The Impertinent Daughter goes through many changes of clothing as well, but not because she's not satisfied with her clothing. No, it's worse than that.  It's... costume changes. She'll put on an extra large tee shirt, and a pair of soccer socks, all the way up her thighs, tie the tee with a scarf for a belt, find every bracelet and bangle she owns, or get the shower curtain rings for more, and wrap a towel around her head because she's a "princess." Or a "Warrior." Or a "Princess Warrior." Or a "Warrior Princess." Whatever. Sometimes, she's Legolas. And her little brother, because he's five and smaller than her, is always a hobbit, usually Frodo. Now, understand, my daughter has read   The Lord of the Rings multiple times, and we've had discussions about it many times. But in her alternate universe of this world, the hobbits are ALL troublemakers, and Legolas is their chief victim, and he's constantly threatening to make mincemeat out of them in retaliation. I'm sure Tolkien is spinning in his grave at the things she gets those characters to do, and if we ever manage to get a scanner compatible with our system, I'll have to put up a few of her LOTR comics, which are hysterical if only for the situations she puts them in!

Ah, I see they have discovered that if you turn an umbrella upside down and let it fill up with water, you get an interesting deluge effect when you turn it back right side up, dumping water all over yourself and your partner. At least the flowers are getting a drink, too, and I'm sure that once the cat dries off, he'll forgive them. Eventually.

Oh well, I think I'll curl back up on the bed and read some more of Angie Sage's "Septimus Heap" book, Flyte. Love the illustrations, and it's captured my interest. I think my daughter is enjoying being able to dump her books on me. I've already read the entire Gregor the Overlander series, thanks to her. Auntie is one of those bookworms who gets so absorbed in what she's reading that the rest of the world ceases to exist. The Husbandly One likes to say that if the house fell down around me, I wouldn't notice unless part of the roof knocked the book out of my hands. What can I say? I'm focused!