Puddles, a.k.a. germaphobe nightmare.

I'm sure most of you won't be able to relate to this, but if you know me at all you know I'm slightly controlling, a bit of a germaphobe, and I like things to be well planned. Needless to say, having a 3 year old and a newborn stretches me daily.

A few weeks ago it was raining; a nice, gentle, steady rain. I told Elianna that if she took a good nap we'd play in the rain when she woke up. By the time she woke up the rain had stopped. I was relieved that I wouldn't have to play in the rain, getting wet and cold and probably dirty. This relief was short lived however as I watched her little heart break when she realized we wouldn't get to play. And so, in a moment of insanity/guilt/rare impulsiveness I offered, "we could play in the puddles!"

"What!", I thought, "what did you just say?"

Oh, the joy on her sweet little face! I couldn't take it back. Darn.

So out we went. Much to my horror the only puddles I saw were in the gutter. Oh no, she'd seen the puddles too. No getting out of it now. Crap. Breathing deeply, calming my nerves, putting on a brave face (poor kid is already neurotic enough with me as her mom she doesn't need one more thing to worry about) we went into the puddle. The puddle that was in the gutter. IN THE GUTTER! Ugh. Did I mention that we were barefoot? Yes. Barefoot. In a gutter. A GUTTER! Ok. I think you get it, I was not thrilled. I resisted every natural impulse and we played. For 10 minutes (baby steps, ok?) we played in the gutter puddle (gag). A dead bee floated by. She screamed (told you she was neurotic). I played it off, telling her it was ok (puke). I even gave her a stick to poke the bee with. Now, what did I want to do? I wanted to go back inside and give her a good lecture on decomposition and bacteria and scrub us both down with antibacterial soap (I would say bleach but I'm scared of bleach - more on that in another post). So see, I ignored my instincts and instead we played. She had a blast, swishing her hands in the muck, getting mud between her toes (still grosses me out). I tolerated it, choosing to focus on her delight instead of my impulses. I loved watching her play. It was fantastic! And after 10 minutes we went inside and I scrubbed us both down with antibacterial soap! :) We both got to do what we wanted! Though instead of a talk about germs I just asked her if she'd had fun.

The best part? We didn't die. We didn't contract a rare skin disease.  We didn't even get sick. I guess there are worse things than germs; like missing out on a super sweet moment with my super sweet little girl.