Singing in the Rain

Maybe it was the rain today that made me think of a rainy day in elementary school when Emma had a friend over on a weekend day. It was a very rainy day outside so the two girls were playing inside. After a while, though, they felt like they had exhausted all our bags of tricks and wanted to go outside. To their surprise, I encouraged them to go. It was warm, no thunder or lightning, why not? I told them about a time in college when a friend and I had done the very same thing. It was a blast. “In fact,” I said “if you don’t mind, I’ll come with you.”

We gave Emma’s friend some clothes to change into so she wouldn’t ruin her own. We found our boots and an extra pair for Emma’s friend, grabbed some rain jackets and umbrellas and took off into the rain. We worked our way around the block, jumping in every puddle and seeing who could get the most mud on the other two. Now that I think of it, it was kind of funny that we were wearing rain jackets and carrying umbrellas, since the object quickly became getting as wet and muddy as possible. The umbrellas did add to the authenticity, though, when we sang the obligatory “Singing in the Rain”. “Singing in the Rain” was followed by a lot of other songs. It was an Emma adventure after all, and Emma adventures always involve singing.

When we got back to the house we were positively soaked and very muddy. The rain and mud had gotten up under our rain jackets and Emma had a huge splatter of mud that ran all the way up her back. She was quite pleased with herself and proudly showed off her muddy back for the camera, as shown in the photo above. We exchanged our wet clothes for nice, dry, clean clothes and had some hot chocolate while we told Peter and Sarah all about the trip around the block. It was every bit as fun as the time I did it with my friend in college and something I’ll never forget. I bet Emma remembers it fondly, too. I wonder if her friend still does.