Rainy Days

A few weeks ago, we were hit with a spring storm that encompassed the entire weekend. While the rain was desperately needed and welcomed, I was also very discouraged at the prospect of keeping my 4 year old cooped up indoors. We spend our weekends outside as much as possible. Whether our own backyard or the local park, I’m committed to getting my family a little sunshine everyday. As an added bonus, when I’m outside I can’t see that laundry that needs folding, but really, that’s not my main motivation. Really.

So Saturday morning came with thunder, lightning, dark clouds, and rain. Not even 9:00am yet and already we all feel like caged animals. I’ve thrown myself into doing that dreaded laundry and ten other things on my ever-present cleaning to-do list, my husband has disappeared into the office under the guise of “finishing up some work” (Apparently, his company now requires him to research GI Joe memorabilia on Ebay – who knew?), and my poor little son was stuck following me around “helping”, playing with the dog and generally whining. On one pass past the front door, I happened to notice the water was rising alarmingly fast and was already up over the curb. Flooding? It didn’t seem to be raining that hard. Turns out it wasn’t, a water main had broken and it required immediate fixing.

Within an hour or so we had a lot of activity on our street – trucks with flashing lights, workmen in raincoats, backhoes. They had to break through the concrete to get to the water main in order to fix it. All the commotion drew my son like a magnet. He was plastered against the front door, his little nose all smooshed up, his trusty Ellie Elephant under his arm, the dog obediently sitting next to him. I was so happy for his distraction so I could get some real work done. He kept me updated, though. He would come running to find me to tell me all about what was happening. It would interrupt me and I found myself pushing him away. But his excitement couldn’t be contained. I thought how lucky he was to be so easily entertained. Then I was struck with the thought that we could ALL be entertained by this. And maybe it would pull me out of my bad mood, and get us some quality family time.

I stopped my cleaning (like I needed an excuse), made a big bowl of popcorn, got some pillows and blankets and hearded the whole clan into the spare bedroom. We climbed up on the bed, pulled up the blinds and ate our popcorn while watching the action. We had more fun in the next few hours than I care to admit. Now THAT’s the right way to spend a rainy Saturday. And that laundry? Still there. And I still don’t care. I’m anxiously awaiting to hear the weather for this weekend and a part of me really hopes there’s rain in the forecast.