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.