The National Day of Calendar doesn’t explain when Step in a Puddle and Splash Your Friend Day was started, by whom, or what for, but admit it, if you see a child splashing in a puddle it makes you smile. There is something fun and freeing when you see or do it.
Way back when, my best girl chum was a classmate named Barb. We must have been seven or eight. She would come home on the school bus with me on occasion. Our favorite pastime was making “secret” mud holes in the defunct garden, so it must have been late October when we did it. Our goal was to have one of my older sisters step in it. I don’t remember that ever happening. One time we didn’t mark the booby trap and Barb stepped in it with her school sneakers on. My mother was not very happy with us and did her best to clean the sneaks. I am still laughing that it was one of us that stepped in the mud.
I picked my grandson up from school yesterday. There was sloppy snow near the exit door of the school. I can’t tell you how many fifth grade boys had to stomp in that slop. They looked at the student next to them to see if they had splashed them, then laughed if they were successful. I smiled inwardly.
When I first started dating my husband we were at a summer picnic. The weather was as warm as could be but it was pouring. We decided we might as well dance in the rain. Our friends thought we were acting like children. Oh well. It’s a great memory and we had fun doing it.
I’m sure most of you have seen the video of the toddler “walking” the dog. The one where the dog is standing there, the leash lies on the ground, and the child is stomping in puddles. It’s a good thing some parts of us never grow old no matter how many birthdays we celebrate.
It’s supposed to rain today in my neck of the woods in New York state. I’m glad there will be some puddles to splash in.
Sue Spitulnik 