Puddle-Stomping

We turn the corner in the rain, puddles in the cobblestones and my glasses smudged with water. We dodge people with umbrellas, black umbrellas, pink umbrellas, red polka-dotted umbrellas. I'm clutching my camera and yet, when I see my favorite sight yet today, I don't take a single photo.

There he is, yellow rain slicker and rubber wellies and bare head, blonde hair slicked to his forehead...a little boy, so sweet, so wet, so little boy...stomping merrily away in an enormous rain puddle.

You couldn't help but laugh if you saw him, laugh unexpectedly, with just sheer, surprised delight.

We walk past and he stops a moment to look quizzedly at the small crowd of smiling onlookers, but only a moment. I look back quickly before turning the corner and there he is, stomping away as happily as a very wet, wet clam.

If clams wear rain slickers and rubber yellow boots, that is.