How to win the Mother of the Year award

First, go to the park on a cool Portland morning. The temperature outside is about 50 degrees. Dress your kids appropriately in layers with jackets on top. Go to a fun park that has a rose garden AND a playground, along with a community center and a swimming pool.

Let the kids have fun running around and playing in the gravel and building elaborate "nests" for their baby puppies (Mateo) for a long time. Take some fun pictures.

Here's the nest for the pretend puppies. Apparently they were napping very well in there...

Then, progress to the playground part of the park, which is completely shaded and freezing. Let your partner in crime go off to the nice, warm coffee shop across the street to work on her continuing education credits.

Become increasingly frustrated that the kids want to play in this area forever while you are standing there freezing. Give your son a timeout on a nearby bench when he kicks his sister. Realize that the bench is in the only sunny area around. Realize, simultaneously along with your children, that the bench is located at the park's water feature.

Make a deal with your son that he can watch the water feature in action if he can figure out how to turn it on. It has a couple of touch points that kids can hit to turn it on, but the markings have long since worn off, so you figure he'll never be able to do it.

Sit happily in the sun as your children run around randomly hitting the parts of the water feature and then running away screeching from water that never comes.

Until... it does.

Yes, they have turned it on. You can't believe it and neither can they. You figure that they will never get too close to it, because it is cold out even in the sun. You turn out to be wrong.

They go wild, soaking themselves from head to toe and having the time of their lives. Instead of intervening, you decide to take some pictures to document the occasion. Kids will be kids, right? Unfortunately, it takes you so long to drag yourself out of your comfy spot in the sun that most of the photos are of the end of the water extravaganza. It's really a tough life sometimes....

Numerous parents pass by with their kids during this time, all with the same look of disapproval that you would have had had you been in their position. But, hey, you're finally sitting in the sun! And the kids are playing by themselves! And they are happy and not hitting each other! You think this must actually be what we were meant to do this morning.

This was when the water was starting to run out, but he was in there when it was gushing, too.

They are soaked through absolutely to the skin, through their jackets and pants and shoes and everything, and still running, running, running through the water in glee. They can't believe their luck! Your wife eventually arrives back and gives you a hot drink as her seal of approval!

So what if it doesn't win you a Mother of the Year award. It does win you two happy kids who trot happily to the car when asked, after the water has all run out, so that they can be stripped naked for the ride home. And, you plop them in the hot tub when you all get home, so everyone is, in the end, warm and dry.

I will now happily accept my award, whatever it may be for...