She actually enjoyed this

July 21, 2009
I sent out a news release today to all the Utah media agencies on water safety...basically reminding parents to never be more than an arm's length away from their kids when they are around water, in the hope that everyone will have a fun and safe Pioneer Day weekend. What I didn't anticipate, besides realizing how ghostly white I looked on KSL (I really need some better eye makeup too), was that our evening fun would consist of us practically drowning our own child with a water bottle. It started out like any other innocent evening with a picnic on the front lawn (seems to be the ONLY way we can get Pearl to eat dinner now). But what was to supposed to be a calm evening suddenly turned into a water fight, or shall I say a Jeff-soaks-mommy-and-Pearl fight. The next thing I know, Pearl and I are running around the front lawn screaming at Jeff to not get us wet. Ok, so I was the only one screaming for mercy while Pearl was yelling "More?!" and "Again?!" over and over. Considering that Jeff is faster than me and had the advantage of actually holding the water bottle, I think my screaming was totally justified, even if I did sound like a wussy girl. By the time I ran in the house to take cover under the auspice of washing the dishes, Pearl was naked and soaking wet but having a great time. We took the water shenanigans to the backyard where Pearl was more fascinated that the water would puddle up on her chair than she was by the actual squirting. She had so much fun that the only way we could convince her to come inside and dry off was to bribe her with a frozen custard treat from Nielsen's. We'll have to think of some new entertainment for tomorrow's picnic because I am now banning water bottles!