Rub-a-Dub-Dub

Rub-a-dub-dub, who's this in a tub?

And where is he bathing?

He's on the front driveway, and ssssssshhhh....he thinks he's in a kiddie pool.

We just had to get out and celebrate this second over-ninety-degree day, so the girls dug out their play swimming suits (as opposed to their nice ones that will be worn in public). We slathered on sunscreen, and I watched the girls wiggle in the excitement of getting back out in the sprinkler again after a long winter.

Then Miss Mouse asked the obvious question: How are we going to play in the sprinkler since our hose burned up?

Hmmm....You've got a point there, my dear.

Thank goodness for our wonderful neighbors! We're currently borrowing their hose.

I also realized a problem with putting Mighty Mouse in a kiddie pool while the girls ran through the sprinkler: the kiddie pool hit the dumpster last week, too.

You can see, I solved the problem with ingenuity. Or maybe I just solved the problem. Or maybe I created more of a problem. I don't know, but we had fun.  I put out Mighty's baby pool, filled it with water, heated it up on the hot pavement, and when he woke from his nap yesterday afternoon, it was perfectly heated for him to take a dip.

While he dipped, the girls and I polished off an entire carton of strawberries. Normally I am pretty cheap with the fresh berries and ration them carefully. This time, though, they had been on a really good sale, and they were really good berries that demanded to be eaten. I figured three of us gorging on strawberries for $2.00 or so wasn't really all that expensive of a treat! Each little berry was a pop of summer. Yum!

The not-so-perfect part of this was all the pine needles. You can see them in the photos. With the strong wind we had, and really with any hint of a breeze these days, the needles were blowing from our poor, now-deceased evergreen tree in the back and raining down all over the yard, perhaps our neighbors' yards, as well. Ick. I had to take Mighty Mouse out so that he wouldn't eat them. I even had to dig one out of his mouth. Youch. So, Mighty Mouse's first "pool" experience was in a tub filled with evergreen needles. Very masculine of him, yes?

Oh, we have so much fun with this little guy. The most fun thing, though, for me is seeing how much fun everyone else in the household has with him. My heart gets all warm and melty and mushy when I see how much they love each other. Notice in this picture where I had stood up to get a better view of Mighty, Sunny can't keep her hands off him? She didn't want me even that far from her brother while he was in water - our little rebel middle child is a rule-follower when it comes to some things (though with some of the ideas she comes up with I still can't say I'd trust her any farther than I could throw a stick....). But she was definitely determined to keep him safe - and touched - at all times. He's so sweet and squishy, I didn't really mind having to take him out and wrap him in a giant beach towel and then snuggle him while the girls finished up in the sprinkler. It's hard to be too upset about a snuggly boy with bare feet begging to be rubbed on your lap. Though the evergreen-needles-in-the-pink-swim-diaper-because-that's-what-we-had-on-hand were sort of sad.

Welcome back, Summer!