First stop was the park, with all of it's tempting and satisfying puddles. Evie rarely misses an opportunity to jump in a puddle, so I dressed her in her stylish pink rain gear to help her stay as dry as possible. Here she contemplates a puddle that I decided was a little too muddy and gross looking. You can see the joy in her face at the possibility of getting her boots into that puddle, but I ruined it for her.
The next puddle was much cleaner AND had a slight waterfall feature. It passed my inspection and Evie spent a glorious 10 minutes splashing around and sitting in it. Unfortunately, her stylish pink rain gear is not as waterproof as one would hope, so despite my efforts she still got a little damp.
On our way to the next puddle, we stumbled across a dog who was very focused on something in a ditch.
Upon closer inspection, we discovered that the thing in the ditch was not one, but two rather large crawfish (or crayfish as they call them here). Despite her Louisiana heritage, Evie was absolutely not interested in getting anywhere near the crawfish. She was very careful to keep her distance and when one of the crawfish started moving with its angry little claws in the air, she said "Nooooooooo!" and backed off. I can't wait to see what she does when she encounters the mammoth sized roaches that we have in Louisiana. She is not a lover of nature at this point, especially if nature is of the bug or creepy crawly variety. She's even a little wary of butterflies.
After a successful morning of puddle jumping, the rain moved in so we headed home for some arts and crafts. I underestimated the effect that arts and crafts would have on my sanity. I had this great plan that Evie would sit quietly and paint a card for Jim, who had just passed his driving test in England (yay Jim!) and that she would keep all artwork and art mess on her art table. About five minutes later, there was art stuff scattered all over the room and I was desperately trying to keep things under control. Silly me. But Evie was having a blast.
I hung the final product, along with everything else she did that day, up on a makeshift clothes/art line in our sunroom and every morning when she goes in to eat her breakfast, she points proudly at her art and says "WOW!!!" Now I just have to accept the mess and let her do it again.
The next day was another rainy day, but Evie has a rainy day friend named Rufus, so we met Rufus and his mom at a cafe in an alley and Evie and Rufus splashed around in the rain and puddles, while we ate carrot cake under the cafe awning. Evie was NOT dressed in her pretty pink rain gear and thus got pretty soggy, but she and Rufus were having the time of their lives. Sitting on the steps of local businesses and kissing the lady on the poster outside of the hair salon were two very entertaining activities.
Another fun game to play was "take off my rain hood and stand under a stream of water coming off of the awning." When I told Evie that she had to wear her hood and pointed out that Rufus was also wearing his, she went up to Rufus and took his hood off, too. Very cheeky (to put it Englishly)!
Back at home, it finally was the weekend and the rain stopped and there were ample opportunities to play outside in the garden without getting wet. Not satisfied with the lack of puddles, Evie decided to create her own And jump in them. Flashy shoes and stylish cardigan are courtesy of her grandparents.
Stay tuned to see what kind of outside adventures we manage to plan once the weather is COLD and rainy...which it will be soon.
