Blessing In Disguise

Some of you may know about the time I locked Caleb in the house by himself while he was napping.  That was back in February.  And no one has a copy of our house key.  And Jadie had just left for a chiropractor appointment (when his sciatic nerve was killing him).  Needless to say, he was a no show for his appointment because I called him and he came rushing home.

So today Caleb and I got locked out of the house shortly after four this afternoon.  And I think Caleb was the culprit this time.  Fortunately, it was only about an hour before Jadie would be home and so I sucked it up and prepared for an hour of sweat without the luxury of air conditioning.  During the first five minutes, I began thinking about how sunny it was and how Jadie had said the other day that it only takes fifteen minutes of sun to get a severe sunburn.  I tried to think of a way to get Caleb to play with his golf club set in the shade.  I know, it sounded like a hopeless cause in my head too.  I opted for the inflatable pool that was still on the porch and inflated from last week.  I dragged it over to our lone patch of shade and turned on the water hose.  I lugged my patio chair over to the pool so I could keep cool by sitting with my feet in the water.  

Though he was tentative and looked to me every few seconds as if to say "can I really do this, mom?", I convinced him to take off his clothes and his diaper and splash around in the water.   And although I had hauled about ten old magazines out to the patio table to peruse through, I decided it would be best to spend the hour focusing on Caleb (you know, making sure he didn't swallow a gallon of water or drown).

This hour of being forced to stay in the backyard turned out to be quite an amusing event for the two of us.  Caleb lay back in the water, made waterfalls going down my legs with the water hose, and pretended to buckle himself into an imaginary seat in the pool using the water hose as a seat belt.  At one point, I asked him to swim like a dolphin.  His response made me laugh out loud...he stood up and jumped across the pool, splashing as he landed.  Of course, that was his interpretation of the dolphins jumping out of the water at Sea World last week.  Isn't it amazing how children perceive things?

Of course there are no pictures of this sporadic afternoon dip in the pool.  My camera was inside enjoying the cool AC.  Secondly, my child was without clothing.  What kind of mother would I be if I posted something like that?  You should detect a hint of sarcasm.

Alright now, I'm giving you an assignment.  I want to hear from you!  Can you think of a time when something that could have been annoying turned out to be much better than what you originally had in mind for yourself?