Same Kid, Different Driveway

It's the last day of school for your twin kindergarteners, a fact that you--oh so typically--seem to have forgotten until this morning, when you are also reminded that this means a noon dismissal. You are quickly baking a mini pound cake (using eggs from your own chickens and goat milk that you milked with your own hands) for each of the four teachers who nourished and enhanced the lives of your six-year-olds for the past nine months, while simultaneously trying to write them each a note about how truly thankful you are for all that they do. You have 45 minutes left before pick-up, and only one card completed. You have been trying to entertain your two-year-old with an episode (or 3) of Charlie and Lola on the portable dvd player, but you look up from your prose to see his pajama bottoms running out the door into the wet morning. In the time it takes you to cap your pen, glance at your still-baking pound cakes, and follow him outside, he has already managed to jump in two different puddles.

Do you:

a) Grab your toddler and carry him back inside to watch more videos, locking the door behind you.

b) Explain to your toddler that he can jump in the puddles after he puts some more appropriate clothes (and boots!) on, and after you finish baking your pound cakes.

OR

c) Go back inside by yourself to grab your camera so that you can photograph your puddle jumping rain lover in his #1 element.


And just for the record? The children were collected from school, and the cards and still-warm cakes were delivered right on time. But even if things hadn't worked out so June Cleaver-ly, everything still would have been OK. Because the frantic energy of a mom who often feels more like a poser than an actual parent of school-aged children had been replaced by the joyful energy of a mom freshly reminded about what matters most of all: taking the time to play in the mud.