New Thing #4: When life hands you mudpies...blow bubbles!

Today the Little People and I went over to Nan & Grandad's house to water their garden. LP1 is really into the book "Mud Puddle" by Robert Munsch (in fact, she's digging the entire Munsch oeuvre these days), so I thought both LP would enjoy an afternoon of playing in mud puddles and making mudpies in the wet garden. Our children came in the Washable version so a little dirt would be nothing. I packed towels, a large bucket and an assortment of child-sized shovels for what I thought would be the ultimate mud experience. I had visions of happy, dirty children I could rinse off in the sprinkler and photos of little mudpeople.

                         All the fixin's for a first-class mudfest...just add water!

I stripped the LP down to their diapers, slathered on the sunscreen and requisite hats and set them loose in the backyard...only to discover that they most assuredly DID NOT want anything to do with the mud. No sir. They did not want any part of wet grass or digging with shovels or making footprints in the garden.

The best laid plans...sigh.

Fortunately I had also thrown some bubbles into the bucket. I have yet to meet a child that doesn't love bubbles. The day was not entirely ruined. We sat down on the deck as the sprinkler went from side to side and blew bubbles together. LP1 chased them down, caught them, popped them and finally mastered the fine art of blowing bubbles through a tiny plastic wand. LP2 watched them warily at first and soon gave one of his trademark giant toothless grins. He also approved and it was not long before he was reaching up to grab them and crawling over to the container, trying to figure out how he could get in on the action.

                                   Today, they really were the World's Best Bubbles

It wasn't long before LP1 was blowing bubbles for LP2 and the two of them were laughing together. It might not have been the day I pictured us having when we first set out but I'm okay with that.