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Mud Bowl
May 23, 2008
by KANE WAI
So it’s May 10th. It's the day of the second annual Mud Bowl. It’s starting to be a tradition amongst the “big kids” of the Stonebriar Community Church High School Ministry. Of course I had to bring Ethan. For one thing, these big kids are his “favorites.” Every Sunday he would come with me to “The Hub” to say hello to everyone and have Pinky (one very excitable and energetic big kid) flip him upside down. The other kids are quite fond of him as well.There is never the lack of chasing, tickling, flipping and turning of my child when he is in The Hub.
So here we are, on a nice not-so-hot and not-so-sunny Saturday morning, we put on our grungy clothes and headed for the field of mud next to the church. Football in one hand and a pail and a shovel in the other. Ready to get dirty. Really dirty.
I did, however, make a parental mistake which my son will later pay for, say, during his wedding rehearsal dinner. I forgot to make him take care of his business at the potty. So now you know where this story is going.
The mud was a welcoming site to Ethan, after hearing about this Mud Bowl thing for a few days and never has he in his short life seen the muddiness that was before his very eyes. He happily began digging and filling his bucket with the little plastic shovel he brought with him. Meanwhile, I, being the brilliant parent, seeing how much fun he was having digging on his own, decided to walk over to the other side of the field, about 20 yards downfield where Ethan was literally talking to and laughing at the mud, I began a conversation with my fellow volunteers at the event, including the Youth Pastor’s wife, Carley, who began telling me about the blogs she’s been reading written by one of her friends who is also one of Ethan’s babysitters. So as the conversation was slowly being steered toward Ethan’s funny conversations with Stephanie, one of the late comers to the conversation asked about who we were talking about and as soon as Carley said Ethan’s name, the entire group of us turned our heads toward the end of the field where Ethan was playing. The moment could not have been more appropriate – about half a second of deathly silence, followed by roaring laughter of the crowd – minus Ethan’s poor ol’ dad.
There was MY son, with his shorts down around his ankles (Yes, you can now begin picturing in your mind what he was doing), hosing down the mud field in an uninhibited, unassuming and exhilarating release of what seemed like the longest bathroom break known to mankind. Hoover Dam has seen lesser spills than what I witnessed in horror and humor.
As I made my way over, my first instinct was to tell him to stop. But any self-respecting man would know that you can’t just stop. Not for a three-year-old anyway. So I just let him finish and promptly filled the puddle he made with what mud I could gather with his bucket.
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