Wet Shoe Chronicles

It all began innocently enough with a fast-melting snow storm a couple of weeks ago. Our friends came to do some sledding, but Oliver could not be coaxed away from the puddles. He had his big snow boots on so I didn't see a problem with allowing him to stomp and splash to his hearts content. Oh, how wrong I was. Since that day Oliver has had an absolute obsession with puddles. He makes a bee-line for every puddle and there is no holding him back. Case in point:

Incident 1: We decided to visit Sam at school, just for a minute. We took Ollie out of his car seat and before we knew it he was running to a mud puddle that neither of us had seen. He took two steps into the puddle, slipped, fell on his back and was covered with thick gooey mud. We had to strip him down and head back home.

Incident 2: Ollie and I go to Mother Goose time at the library each week. Afterward Oliver likes to go throw rocks into the river on the other side of the parking lot. We have found that the safest place to throw said rocks is from the bridge. We had already gathered and thrown several. I was waiting for Oliver at the bottom of the bridge while he searched out new rocks. I watched him walk to the other side of a little hill but didn't think much of it until I heard him calling my name. As I walked closer I could see that the city had piled a huge amount of snow there and that the run-off had created a big pond/puddle. I found Oliver standing chest deep in freezing cold water. Again, we stripped him down and headed home.

Incident 3: We went with some friends to Chattfield Botanical Gardens. They have a kids area with a big treehouse and a pond surrounded by rocks just for throwing in. Of course Oliver was in heaven. While he was busy throwing rocks I turned to talk to my friend for just a second, when I turned back I saw that Oliver had waded out to the middle of the pond. I guess he thought his chances of getting the rocks to land in the water would be increased if he were standing in it. It was a warm enough day that I just let him wander around wet and muddy.

Incident 4: The weather finally warmed up and Ollie and I headed to our favorite park. The park has a river running through it and Oliver insisted on climbing down to the bank to throw rocks. He was doing just fine until he stepped on a wobbly rock, slipped and fell onto his bum in the river. It wasn't deep, but he was wet enough to again warrant being stripped down and taken home.

I understand that with toddler boys such incidents are to be expected. Our trouble was that all of this happened over the course of about ten days, with plenty of other minor incidents sprinkled in. Now, I am all about letting kids be kids, our problem was that we were running out of shoes. (They take a couple of days to dry out you know). Even his church shoes were soaked. I am happy to report that after a trip to Target and several local consignment stores we now have a pair of shoes for every day of the week. I don't stress about puddles, I just take and extra pair of shoes. Now that the weather is warm enough I put him in shorts and can worry even less about him stomping in puddles. Of course, this does create other problems, such as the poison ivy he sat down in yesterday. Boys, hmmm.