All around people were inside their houses sitting around enjoying the downtime or making use of this time that there wasn't much else to do with. Some simply snacked and would read, others fixed up rooms by cleaning, painting, or redecorating.

From a bay window a little boy looked out watching the water cascading down the outside of the window. Turning his head he would look through another window to look at the yard. Looking at the yard the rain coated the grass and made it glisten. A young tree that had been planted the summer before was now getting nourishment other than from the hose. The tree swayed in the wind while the leaves seemed to reach out to catch the rain.

Behind him in the kitchen he could hear his mother flipping through the newspaper and sorting the sections out laying them on the table. Out through the window between the spots where rain was running down he looked towards the street and the other houses and yards. He could see the puddles and streams starting to form on the streets and sidewalks surely he would be able to go out later and find worms wriggling about on the sidewalks trying to return to the grass. Sometimes he would place them back in the grass, and others he would put in a puddle. He wondered if worms would drown or if they had the ability to be either in land or water. Watching them he couldn't really tell.

His mother called from the kitchen asking if he wanted to come give her a hand. He got up uncrossing his legs from sitting on the pillow mat that was seated in the bay window. Walking into the kitchen he saw his mother at the sink doing dishes. She had already gotten out the step stool for him to get up to the sink. He stood there while his mother scrubbed and then rinsed the dishes off, waiting for her so he could dry them off. Towards the end of the dishes the mother squirted her son with a short blast of the hose, then gave her son the privilege of spraying the dishes. The both of them giggled and smiled at each other as they teased each other while finishing the dishes.

They finished the rest of the dishes, but continued to goof around picking up handfuls of soap bubbles and blowing them at each other. The mother lifted the boy off the stool and put him on the ground and began to tickle him. The boy still had a handful of bubbles and put them on her hair. She kept tickling him and then paused for a moment and put some bubbles on her finger and dabbed his nose. Hovering over him he giggled and she gave a warm smile until she got up off of the floor and then picked him up placing him on his feet and tapping him on the behind telling him to go and play while she put the dishes away.

Running from the kitchen the boy stopped to look out the window once more and then ran towards the stairs up to his room. He burst through the door and from the kitchen all his mother could hear were the heavy footsteps and loud noises coming from the boys room. She closed the cabinets and went to the pantry closet and then stepped out of the kitchen and went to the base of the stairs. Yelling up asking if he was ready yet, seconds later the boy emerged from his room in his bright yellow slicker and galoshes. He ran down the steps meeting his mother with her coat on and an umbrella. He grabbed onto her hand and they went out the front door. The both of them stood on the front step as it drizzled. The little boy lowered his head and had a slightly sad face on. His mother squeezed his hand and he looked up and saw her smiling at him. They stepped onto the walkway and skipped down the driveway onto the sidewalk.

She raced him to the first puddle they caught eyes on and jumped right into it. Hopping up and down the sidewalk into the puddles and running around, the rain started to pick up again. They stopped and the mother looked at the boy and they both began to laugh and go about with even more energy.

After all that excitement they turned jumping into walking and began to go around the neighborhood. They reached a barren playground abandoned until drier days only inhabited now by the ducks that played in the nearby pond. The two watched as the ducks waddled in and out of puddles, flew around landing gracefully in the pond, or quacking at one another. The rain was again at a drizzle and the little boy took his mother by the hand and took her along to the swings. They sat on the wet swings and pumped back and forth swinging to their own desire.

The boy swung until he was going what was high enough for him and then jumped off flying through the air. The mother managed a smaller jump and then the two went back on their way home. When they got in the house the boy took his galoshes off at the door and ran right upstairs. The mother hung the coat and umbrella up and followed. She ran a bath for him and got him ready and in, then she went and took a shower.

The mother finished and went back to the kitchen to fix some soup and sandwiches for them. In the meantime, while she sat at the table she heard singing coming from upstairs. The singing stopped for a while and in a few minutes the boy came down and joined his mother.

When they both finished eating the mother sipped on her tea and began to read again, and the boy finished off his juice and started to walk out of the kitchen. He stopped looking back at his mother and said with a smile, "Thanks mom".