Philosophy of Puddle-Jumping

Early May brought much-needed rain to Newburyport. The grass I was trying to grow out front sprouted! Yes. The flowers perked up. And, we've delighted in the opportunity to pull on our galoshes and go stomping through puddles—especially mud puddles. Getting soaked with muck until even their hair and cheeks are dotted with mud has real appeal to Henry and Sadie, it's an attraction akin to walking barefoot in the grass or eating with your hands. It’s freeing. And we’re all at our best when we feel free.

We laugh a little easier, and we release some of the built-up pressure of daily life and all its responsibilities. For Henry, maybe it’s his effort to write his S the right direction instead of the mirror-image way his mind so stubbornly keeps telling his hand to shape. For Sadie, maybe it’s the ongoing challenge to part with her very best friends—her pacifiers. Whatever it might be, these are little personal struggles that take up real estate in our brains, and when we let them get too big, they start spreading out and doing things like keeping us up at night or making our shoulder muscles feel tense.

Racing through a mud puddle at full speed and feeling the water splash up against your arms and face—it’s a way to physically remind our bodies that all that stuff is just small stuff, and that this is the real stuff of life. The S will face forward when the time is right, and sleep will eventually come without the soothing sensation of the “ba-ba.” We’ll get there. Someday.

But in the meantime, things like this—the fun stuff, the freedom to be ourselves and accept who we are right now, as is—that’s available every day when you take the time to remind yourself. After we get home, with water still sloshing in the bottom of our boots, we’re all a little happier, kinder, more cooperative, and ready to tackle another day of life.