It had become apparent to me, as I watched my daughter pick up her pretty fluorescent pink ball to throw down the lane in an effort to hit some/most/all of the pins, that she still had dirt on her face from being outside earlier today.
Her hair was back in a pony-tail, gathered at the nape of her neck, tattered in places, curls slightly matted, sweat had seeped into her golden tresses and they shined in an unclean way on her head. As adorable as she was, she was in desperate need of a bath something fierce. The added grime from the bowling alley wasn’t going to help her cleanliness matters any, but you could see from the smile that kept sprawling across her face that she was happy.
It didn’t matter if she got all the pins down or not, or that she had remnants of playing outside painted on her face in streaks – she was happy, and dancing, and being a complete goofball alongside her siblings, dancing to the barely-heard music in the background.
They all seemed a little worse-for-wear with dirt behind their ears and under their fingernails, dirt I hadn’t noticed before we left, or dirt they attempted to get off but were unsuccessful but too excited about bowling to try harder to remove.
It didn’t matter of my children were the sloppiest ones there (they weren’t). What mattered was they were outside, enjoying the sun and the dirt, and jumping and living for their activeness outside, making the most of their Spring Break outdoors for most of their day.
My kids have dirt, and I will surely have to wash those tubs of the dirt rings they left behind, but those dirt rings signify they played well. And that makes me happy.
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