While the Daddy is Away, the Hippies Shall Play

YerTheBestDaddy is away for the weekend with the boys, riding their mountain bikes up north, and so the girls here in the south have gone WILD. I've always cultivated dreams of becoming a commune dwelling hippy, and short of doing that, at least I can let the children run around without their shoes on in the forest and then play in mud holes.


There is absolutely nothing in the world wrong with playing in a good mud hole every now and again, especially on a warm day in late summer. It rained for quite a bit of the night last night and continued until early this afternoon. After visiting with friends for coffee and play, we set off to a park near the lake with the purpose of finding a stone (had to be magical) to use as our base for stone soup. We tromped through the wooded park and pulled just the right stone out of the water, then went for the above referenced shoeless hike. That was fun for about the first ten minutes, but then our feet started to hurt (of course) and I ended up carrying Iris on my back. We still had fun though, with Bella setting a brave lead down the path.
Back at the parking lot, the girls proceeded to get muddy from head to toe while having the time of their lives. They would run across the parking lot while shouting "Cannonball!" and then jump with great drama into the various puddles. They also spent a great deal of time constructing mud pies and a mud wall.
It was straight to the bathtub with them upon our return home. Bella later put the magical stone into the soup and it smells delicious from here.

A little people city now waits my construction. I wonder sometimes if other children expect their parents to play pretend with them all the time? Did I cause this or is it just due to the personalities of my children? It seems like my imagination was depleted as a child or something, because I just don't have the energy for playing pretend any more. I'd rather be in the background cooking and cleaning, and maybe having time to myself, while they play, instead of being a "guy" along with them. But just now as I type these words, Bella has left the room crying because I told her to play with her sister instead of standing over my shoulder every second. It's hard to balance this crew sometimes.

Iris just asked, "Bella, why are you crying?". Apparently even hippies cry sometimes. We miss the daddy.