It’s Friday night and the week is ending quietly.  The dishwasher is at a low hum as it battles a week’s worth of my mess riding solo while the kids were both away at camp.  Each of the Lil’ Dubya’s were off in different directions – The Boy at our favorite summer camp about an hour away and The Girl headed east with the youth from our church for an amazing week at the beach.  Some kids have all the luck.

I’m used to having weeks without them – they spend a week at a time with their dad at least once a month.  But even during those times, I get to see them on an almost daily basis for one reason or another.  Not like this week.  Not when they’re both completely out of town and out of arms reach.  It’s very different when the house is pin drop silent for days at a time.  I’m not much for watching t.v. so it stays super quiet around here.

But now they’re home. Well, one is anyway.  The Boy came home this afternoon and is currently snuggled up in my bed watching cartoons as we both wait for The Girl’s bus to arrive back from youth camp (90 minutes late, not that I’m counting).

The madness of having a house full of their joyful noise will return shortly as well.  With them comes this electricity in the air that I can’t duplicate with my own putterings around the house, no matter how many times I step on a cat’s tail or slam a cabinet door.

It’s different.  They make it different.

They make it home.

Cross it off my list.  Because tonight, I danced in the rain.

The kids were down the street playing with friends and I had been cutting grass in the back yard when I felt the first droplets.  I was able to move the mower under cover just as the proverbial bottom fell out of the huge black cloud directly above my house.  I walked around to the front yard to greet the kids as they ran home to take cover in the garage.  We put the various assortment of skateboards and scooters away and then sought refuge inside where it was dry.

The Boy went to his room to watch some television as The Girl and I stepped back out onto the front porch to watch the rain.  There was no gradual build up of puddles and streams of water – the rain was coming down so hard and so fast, the streets were already beginning to flood.  The rain ran over the edge of the roof creating a curtain of water for The Girl to reach out and tickle with her fingertips.  She began to cup handfuls of the runoff water to fling back at me as we both shrieked in laughter. 

She mostly expected me to scold her, “stop that!”  What she didn’t expect was for me to wrap my arms around her in a bear hug and drag her out to the middle of the front lawn to play in the rain.  We ran to the front door to holler for The Boy to join us.  A brief moment of confusion crossed over him before he realized we were seriously playing in.the.rain. 

We sang and we danced.  We laughed and we splashed.  We joined hands and spun in circles.  We lifted our faces to the sky and caught raindrops on our tongues.  And we wrapped it up with a group hug.  Tonight, we created a memory.