The Mermaid Moment or Ode to a Summer Day

This is an illustration of the wonderful, long days of summer that, as I finally finish writing this, are slowly fading away .........

So, Jane and her friend, Emma, were having a tea party which I thought would end, after they had finished eating their little sandwiches and cookies, with beautifully clad, make-up covered girls retiring to Jane's room to play with dolls, dance, listen to music, and do whatever these two girls do when they spend hours upon hours together. But no. Soon they arrived in my room where I was busy doing one of the most loathsome of chores: folding the laundry. But that hated chore is for another post and entirely beside the point which is that the girls arrived in my room and had a request that went something like this:

We would like to put on swimsuits and then fill up the hot tub in your bathroom and then when we get too hot we'll run outside and cool off with the hose until we get cold and then we'll run back in and get back in the hot tub until we get too hot and then we'll go out and play in the hose until we get too cold and and we'll do this over and over and over and over again and it'll be so much fun!

I should mention that I do not have a hot tub, per se, in my bathroom, instead it is an adequate tub that does happen to have jets that probably spew gross gunk because they are rarely ever used. However, this did not matter to or even cross the minds of the little mermaids. Especially after their third trip running through my house without even attempting to use a towel.

It was after the first or second or maybe the third trip to the hose that they decided they needed goggles so they could forage on the bottom of the "wonderland de tub."



The goggles remained in place, never leaving their heads over the next while....possibly they became something of outgrowth on the lovely faces of the little ladies who were in the midst of a debate over whether they were to be land lovers or sea dwellers. Apparently, it really is a dilemma for little mermaids and these particular girls were quite invested in their decision because out came the snorkels and into the water the water they went! Again. And again.


However, the sea could not hold them forever; the call for land was simply too strong.....



The land, however, desperately needed to be adorned with water features. So these two budding engineers busied themselves in the design process.


Meanwhile, two little boys were wondering why there was extremely loud music coming from what was formerly known as "Mom and Dad's bathroom" which had now turned into something of a lagoon, but which was currently empty. So they followed the trail of wet, soggy footprints in the carpet and onto the wood floor out into the backyard to discover just what was going on. And I believe that they learned an important lesson that will probably stay with them for much of their lives: they had no idea what was going on in the minds of those girls.

So to sum up, a poem:

The summer day
It came to play
And lasted long
While we sang our songs
And played our games
And rhymed our names
And now we lament its passing........