Cattail snow

On Monday, it was the kind of sticky heat that wakes you up. I would have liked to shower (although why bother with the humidity) and I would have liked to sleep in, but with both of those options off the table I slathered Henry in sunscreen (and me, too) and headed out with Darby with the goal of not being inside. On the way to Manson Park, we stopped by his cousins' house to see if anyone wanted to come with us. We picked up three more kids and a bucket of plastic trucks and tried to the take the shadiest route to the park. The sun was so bright and hot the skin on my feet felt scretched like it was cooking in my flip flops.

I let Henry out of the stroller once we were well into the grassy area and he walked over to Andrew (his only boy cousin, four months older than Henry) and said, "Andrew, hand." For twenty feet or so, they walked hand-in-hand although when I tried to take a picture with my phone, they'd fold into each other or break apart momentarily when one or the other would see a cool leaf or stick so every picture looked like one was about to shove the other or that that had just happened. 

We made our way to the biggest tree in the park. A tree that looks like one from a children’s book – thick, ropey trunk with wide-reaching branches swooping down like an umbrella with mossy grass underneath that probably never feels completely dry. I parked the stroller and sat on the only midly-graffitied metal bench. After ambling trips to the slide, swings and monkey bars, we all returned to the tree. Ava (8) and Noley (5), an honorary cousin, skipped towards the hidden mini-pond to gather cattails, calling them corn dogs. Once they had a few in each hand, they ran back and started pinching them apart, scattering the hairy, feathered dandelion fuzz over a patch in the grass. They said they were making a snow bath for the boys (Andrew and Henry). Meanwhile, Henry and Andrew pushed dump trucks and Elmo racecars and rounded trains through the tufts of grass, grinding soft almost mud into the plastic wheels.

Once Ava and Noley’d created enough of a ground cover, they invited the boys over.
“Come take a bath,” they coaxed them. “C’mon, Henry. C’mon Andrew,” they trilled. Andrew did not fall for this. He sidestepped to the other side of the tree, peaking around from behind the trunk. Henry was intrigued and went to them, dropping the yellow and green trucks from his hands.

“Snow!” he cried like he’d played in it before, and he reached his hands out to grab the fluff. He stood in front of them while they blew cattail snow in his hair and face, blinking his eyes fast when a feather caught in his eyelashes. Andrew inched closer, but wanted nothing to do with the “snow.” Henry sat in it. Then laid down. He had it up his back and in his shorts. Andrew, watching from behind the tree, shook his head at Henry being silly. Ava was giggling and Noley was enjoying being one of the big kids for a change. Henry was laughing his chortling Henry laugh that makes people in restaurants turn and smile. Watching him having the purest form of fun with the white light of the sun heating the grass outside of the tree’s shade, I kept thinking, this is why we moved here.