A Thought

We think we've all come so far... but really, a grown up is just an adult teenager. During storytime at the library I listened to a group of mothers talk about a mother that wasn't there, and about how her kids are sick all the time, and she takes them out anyway, and about how awful that is... and I thought - HEY! They don't know what's going on there! I mean, I've been known to take Nick out with an awful sounding cold because if I waited for everyone to be 100% we'd never leave the house.

We've also found ourselves in a couple of places with sprinklers in the past few days, and we did not have bathing suits. My boys hardly waited for a yes or no before stripping off shoes and shirts and running into the water. And I let them. And I can feel the looks of other parents when someone else shouts " don't get wet!" or "You're wet enough!" I also know that I get looks whenever I put Andy down anywhere - the stroller is huge and the car seat too heavy these days, so I just pick him up. But sometimes I need to tie a shoe or pick up another child, so Andy goes down on the ground. And I can hear the gasps as his little legs hit the woodchips, or the grass, or the rug, or the sand.

My point is, parents are SO uptight about their kids in ways that just aren't that important to me. Do I want Andy eating woodchips? Of course not. But if he happens to put one in his mouth during the five seconds he's down there, he is probably not going to turn green and melt into a puddle of goo. And will my kids get cold on the way home? Probably. And it's 95 out, so they will probably be more comfortable than me. And then, when we get home, we'll change. And they may not look cool, but he, they are preschoolers and they don't know that. You might have packed the princess towel and the princess bathing suit with the pink hair ribbons, and you might have the sand 'n surf shoes with the water hat and the swim shirt... but hey, my kids are wetter than yours because they aren't afraid of getting wet and dirty.