Playing in the Sprinkler

I was watering the yard, tonight, in my usual way. Which kind of plays out like this: I go out, set up the sprinkler, then come in and set the timer and ignore the water until the timer goes off.

When I do the front lawn, I always worry a little about having it spray on the sidewalk, but that's the only way to get the boulevard watered.

Tonight, while watching TV, I glanced up and saw someone running through the water. Someone very small running through the water.

And then stopping. And letting the water catch up to him.

And then running back through it again.

And, finally, running all the way through and kind of high-fiving the much bigger person who was crouched just out of reach of the oscillating sprinkler.

It was, I realized fairly quickly, the two-year-old (I think that's about right) who lives next door, and his father. They are frequently out playing on "our" sidewalk, because the walk in front of their house is pretty short and their boulevard is all full of plantings - whereas our walk is rather long and the boulevard is just grass.

We occasionally see the whole family of five out for walks (the two-year-old has a very young sibling, and there's also a small dog), but lately the outdoor time has mainly been father/son time. And I'm guessing - just a hunch - that tonight the sprinkler time would not have been approved by his mom. Or, probably, anyone's mom for that matter.

But it was just so great to sit and watch him. To see him running back and forth in the water - dodging the sprinkler, then charging it full force - and always back to his dad.

I think we all do that, to some degree, no matter how old we get. The sprinklers just change along the way.