Like Mother Like Son

One of Grandma Laurie's favorite stories about me is about my ability to seek out sprinklers in the neighborhood when I was not much older than Jumpin' J is now. As the story goes she found me in a neighbor's yard in my soaking wet clothes jumping through the sprinkler. I promptly got in trouble for running through the neighbor's sprinkler with my clothes on. Apparently the only part of that statement that soaked into my brain was the "clothes on" part because not much later she found me in another neighbor's yard running through their sprinkler butt-naked with my clothes in a small pile on the neighbor's porch. Alas for most of my life this story has been brought out at embarrassing times so that as an adult I had forgotten the fun in the story, sprinklers!!!

Yesterday we went to visit Grandma Laurie and like the sprinkler seeking missile that his mom was J found the set of sprinklers that were on right next to the car. At first it was just running through the puddles. Then it was crouching down to touch the fountain from the broken sprinkler.



And then it was all out play, running from one sprinkler to another to catch the water.



He showed Grandma Laurie how to blow bubbles.



And finally he showed us how to swim in the puddle.



I will never forget the look of pure joy on his face when he looked up at me from his spot squatting next to the sprinkler with the water sparkling on his face and in his hair. How great it is to be a kid. I was laughing so hard my belly hurt; it was awesome!

Reflecting on the story about my own sprinkler adventures I can only imagine what joy I must have found in the neighbor's sprinkler and can only wonder how my mom kept from laughing out loud when she tried to discipline me...