Writing With Humor - The Naked Truth

On a typical Saturday afternoon, I wouldn't be upstairs in my bedroom, as any parent of preschoolers knows quite well.  Napping on the weekend is one of the casualties of becoming a parent.  This particular Saturday, however, I wasn't feeling well, so I decided to close myself away from the rest of the family to recuperate before starting another busy week.  We had just moved into our first home about six months ago, and it was finally spring.  My husband was mowing the lawn, and our then four-year-old daughter and three-year-old son were playing in the yard.  Or so I thought. 

            I heard the kids come in and then leave.  I thought they just came in to get a toy to take outside.  Silly me.  Had I been feeling well, I would've been downstairs to stop what was about to happen.  Apparently, our daughter had seen the neighbor's sprinklers down the block earlier in the day – you know the kind that oscillates?  The water danced back and forth, catching the sun's rays, hypnotizing my poor daughter, making her think that the neighbors had magic "sparkly" water.  When the kids came into the house, it turns out they hadn't been getting a toy.  They had stripped off all their clothes and ran down our street to play in the neighbor's sprinklers . . . totally naked.  The neighbor walked the kids back to our house and asked my husband if everything was okay in our household.  Fantastic.  Our first introduction to our neighbor, and here he was thinking we don't know how to take care of our kids.  I guess I'll be recuperating on the living room couch from now on.

9/1/08 
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This account makes me think about fun and creative ways to write about children in my novel.