I woke up Tuesday morning, startled by a vision outside my bedroom window. The curtains were slightly parted and I could swear I detected a hint of …..blue….in the sky. I couldn’t be sure, it had been a long time after all, but it seemed as though the sun was thinking about coming out?

What?!

With buoyed spirits we entered the day. It was Spring Break……and we might have sunshine!

After a morning play date and a nap for the baby, we drove to the Glenmore Reservoir, to bask in the blue skies. I was busy trying to extricate Percy from his carseat when the Gort yelled, pointing, ‘hey, we saw those kids at the mall yesterday.’

I looked across the parking lot. Sure enough, the acquaintance we’d seen in the mall coffee shop the previous day, was now unloading her children in the same parking lot at the Reservoir. In a city of a million people, in which I know 8 or 9, what are the odds of this happening?

So we, mothers of six boy-children, navigated the slushy, muddy trails together.

I’d like to take this opportunity to point out that boys will act even more outrageous than normal when surrounded by other boys [think: fraternities]. So there we were, two women traipsing behind five male children, all determined to get as wet and dirty as possible. Why walk on a cleared path when you can slosh through standing water? Why stick to a trail when you can climb a snow bank or slide down a mud-encased hillside? Why stand in mud when you can plop bottom-first into it?

I like to think I’m fairly ‘chilled’ about my kids getting dirty, but maybe I’m not. Especially when they start complaining about being too wet, or too cold, or too muddy. And especially when I’d planned on going to the grocery store afterwards; to restock our Mother-Hubbard-cupboards.

Instead, we drove home and two boys streaked across the pavement in bare feet; sporting shirts and underwear only. Their muddy pants and boots lay clumped together in my now-incredibly-dirty van.

‘What was the best part of your day?’ I asked the Gort at dinner. ‘Going for a walk with our friends,’ he decided. And, with this little piece of intelligence at my disposal, I emailed a friend and made plans to go for a walk at Edworthy park the next day. To continue this happy streak of friends and walks. (And then I did laundry at 10pm in an effort to salvage the muddy pants.)

Wednesday brought more blue skies. And to celebrate, I made pull-apart bread for a morning play-date.

Shortly after 2, we headed to Edworthy Park. Which is possibly even more water-logged than the Reservoir trails. My friend and I walked while the boy-children ran. And fell in ‘puddles’ and played with snow and walked through water up to their calves.

When we got to the car, the Gort’s pants were entirely wet. And the Hen looked like he’d been caught in a mudslide. ‘I’m never going on a walk ever again,’ my oldest complained in the extreme manner that is his custom. ‘This is the worst walk ever,’ he declared, ‘it’s worse than…..lasagna!’