We really need rain at the moment and, if it must rain, today was the best sort of rainy day for toddlers. It was wet overnight and in the morning, but temperatures remained mild and the skies brightened in the afternoon. This meant it was perfect weather for puddles which, for toddlers, is what rainy days are all about.
I really don’t like taking the boys to indoors play areas at any time–they just have too much energy for those places–but I really hate taking them to indoors play spaces on wet winter days when they are crowded with frustrated and often sickly kids. It always ends in tantrums or fevers. Plus, the boys love the wet. So now when it rains I just take the kids outside. What is it the Scandinavians say? There’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes?
tracking the run-off
Sometimes we do a Serious Wet Weather Hike on the weekends. Stevens Creek is one of our favorite and super muddy destinations as the rain really brings the wildlife out. Hidden Villa also has awesome puddles after a storm. Other times we just do a rain walk down the street which is what we did today. It’s a little disappointing that the City of Palo Alto put storm drains in our road last year as this has had a deleterious effect on our street’s puddles, but the little ones had fun following the run-off down the street and working out where it fed into the creek. And the local park still had puddles galore. In the end, we spent just about the whole day outside as usual.
When do boys grow out of this?
Where do you like to take your kids to enjoy some outdoors rain time? I’m always looking for inspiration on this one. And the more puddles the better.
[as a side note, I often find the weather forecasts exaggerate the chance of rain round here and I’ve come to relay on this radar program to let me know what storms are actually in the area. It’s pretty good at forecasting the following 6 hours – perfect for planning toddler outings].
The Outdoors Parent 