The Magic of a Puddle

After He Said Cancer | A Memoir

“Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury. Play is a necessity.” – Kay Redfield Jamison.

Giant smiles were plastered on their wet faces, and I could see they were bursting to tell me something. Their faces were radiant. My oldest daughter practically ran up the walkway and my husband carried our two-year-old. 

They had returned from an outing to the Seattle Arboretum. It was a favorite destination for my husband and our young daughters. This time, they returned soaked and covered – almost head to toe – in mud. The children and their father seemed to have been equally entertained by this adventure.

“It was SO BIG,” the three-year-old said with wide eyes, opening her arms to show the size of ‘it’.

I assumed they found a giant puddle in the park and jumped in it until their clothes were soaked. And then they jumped in it some more for good measure. One look at my husband’s smiling face confirmed my suspicion.

“You wouldn’t believe it, love,” he said. “It was a LAKE. Maybe 20 by 20 feet? I have never seen a puddle so big.”

Our youngest daughter’s body began to shake a little. Cold shivers were setting in.  How long they had been playing in wet clothes? Probably too long.

“Let’s get your clothes off and go straight into the bath,” I said and turned to start running the bath water but thought better of it. First, I needed to get this sopping crew out of their wet clothes.

The clothes clung to their bodies, and they were shivering. After several attempts to disrobe the toddlers, my husband lifted each one up so that I could pull off their clothes. Their skin was cold and wet, but the smiles were still lingering.

Their clothes were memorable because they were so mud stained that they were hardly recognizable as the same clothes in which they left the house. Our oldest daughter was wearing a green rain jacket with large white polka dots. Now, the green was confined to small sections above her waist and a few small patches peeking out from a layer of brown. The youngest wore purple leggings and a purple jacket, a color coordination we hadn’t planned. Every piece was soaked and covered in mud. Her short blond hair was caked in mud.

What on Earth had they done to come back in this state? If he told me that they had rolled around in a pig sty, I would have believed it.  

 I picked up the youngest as she was so shivering so much, I didn’t think she could walk to the bathroom.

“I have to show you the pictures. You won’t believe it,” he said with glee as we made our way to the bathroom. I turned on the bathwater, adjusted the temperature, and lifted them into the tub one-by-one. A plastic container of bath toys was next to the tub, and I poured them into the water, to their great delight. They got busy examining each toy as it floated by, continuing their mission of make-believe.

My husband’s great joy was taking our young daughters out to walk in the woods, play in a park, or jump in a puddle. He believed strongly that children needed time outside to exercise their small bodies and calm their minds. Nature was inherently calming. When they were cranky or full of mischief, he would sweep them up for an outing. They would usually return tired, happy, and hungry. Just like today.

Today was special because the size of the puddle was so remarkable. Like peas in a pod, they had played in a puddle that I would have probably walked by. For an entire hour.

He was quite good at thinking about the world from our daughters’ perspective and how to provide them with their physical needs of exercise, play, and time in nature. In some ways, he was still a child and I had forgotten how to be a child.

“The only problem is that they need to get outside,” he used to say. Then, they would take off on a mission of exploration. I smiled at the thought of the girls and my husband playing in a giant puddle, with him letting them explore to their hearts’ content. Giving them as much freedom as possible, even at this young age, was the beginning of him showing them respect. They were young, but they could be in charge of their bodies and indulge their curiosities of the natural world.

From the bathroom, I could see my husband down the hall. He was going out to his car with a spray bottle and a roll of Scott towels. The girls had hardly gotten out of the car, and he was going back to clean up the muddy mess they had made. He liked having a clean and well-stocked car. Diapers, baby wipes, diaper cream, and binkies were squirreled away in every seat pocket, console, and compartment. Just when I thought we were out of diapers and needed one emergently, another would miraculously appear from a new place in his car.

I looked back at the girls playing in the bathtub, where the water was slowly turning gray. They were quietly playing with the toys. They are getting tired, I thought. After dinner, we can plan for an early bedtime.

Just then, my husband popped his head back in the door. “I think we should shoot for an early bedtime,” he said in a loud voice.

“Agree,” I shouted back, grateful for his partnership in raising our young daughters. After their adventure, the girls would sleep well tonight.

And with any luck, so would I.

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