The Dirt on Us

I feel like I am going a bit against the grain. I am probably unconventional. And... I like the mom it's making me. With firstborn I was terrified of germs and things that bite. Now I tell them to run towards things that bite, and, well, my kids are dirty. A lot. But we are living. There is this one life we have, and its days go by too fast and there is too much to do and see.

I see moms at the zoo who never let their toddlers out of the stroller, and I am sad for the tied down curiosity dying to be free. I realize that when little Princess sits to "play in the dirt" in the petting zoo, that the sand is half goat pooh. Fantastic thing about skin? It washes! No, I don't let her brother tell her it's black beans, but, go on little lady, pet the goat, pick up the sand, feel, smell, learn!

My boys are such boys! How do you squash the boy in a boy? It crushes them. So, they come to me smeared in mulberries, caked in dirt, after peeing on trees. Can you get such a belly laugh from a clean boy who has been told to play nice?

We snake hunt, play in the mud, build tire swings, wrestle turtles, frogs, and toads, try exotic foods, get bug bites, and experience what the world has to offer. We aren't afraid to get dirty and be who we are.

Public bathrooms and hospital germs still scare me. I reserve the right to be inconsistently odd about microbes. 

OH, and thank goodness for that chlorine in the pool. Otherwise, the boys' feet might not ever get clean this summer...  ;o)