puddle of mud

Coming home tonight I was trying to get geared up for three lively 6 year olds...well 2 of them will be 6 in a few days...

Then I drive up and see two of them.  Covered in mud and water.  It rained today...a lot.  And they were riding their four wheelers in it at one point.

Not the rain. 

In the mud puddles.  Six year olds live for mud puddles.  As soon as I get out of the car I see their wet muddy little bodies...I try to steer them away from the mud puddles...they are on foot now...and heading for the big one at the edge of the yard.

The mother of all mud puddles.

Then I get distracted.  I see the garden.  Wet.  Green.  Lush.

I enter the house and realize I have received my lens hood in the mail... That's all it takes for me to grab Big Girl and head out the door.

Kids are forgotten.  Mostly.  I don't think they can drown in a mud puddle.  I make a vain attempt to tell them to "get OUT OF THE MUD PUDDLE!"  This is hollered over my shoulder in my scariest Grammy voice.  But my eye is on the garden.  I get a couple shots but realize I need to move closer to get a better shot.

So I step into the garden.  And promptly sink up to my ankles in wet Alabama mud.

Steve has plowed...it rained, and it made gooshy mud.


I don't know what to do.  Standing there frozen I try to figure out...do I back out and quit?  Do I scream for help?  What to do?

Well if I back out, then getting muddy is a waste of time for nothing.  And I really want these photos.

If I scream, I become a mud magnet, and I will have 2 six year olds up to their knees in mud beside me.  I hear them laughing and figure they are having enough fun.  I don't want to have to hose them down before we go in...

I advance step by step in the mud, carefully, so I don't end up on my back with Big Girl pointed at the sky.  Every step I take, the mud sucks at my feet, trying to take my fancy Yellow Box sandals (read: flip flops with sequins) off my feet. 

We have lost shoes in the garden over the years this way you know...sucked off our feet and swallowed in the mire.

So I am laughing, not too loudly, and stepping, and shooting...my focus was a bit off in some of the shots because the mud shifted and threw me around a bit.

But I had fun.  And got the kids in before they totally destroyed my best mud puddle.

Washed the mud off my sandals in the bathroom sink after wiping most of it off in the yard...

Had to dig the toilet paper stopping up the sink out of the drain first.

Maddie had tried to dry her hands on toilet paper.  Which is why my hand towel hanging up still looked fresh.

*sigh*