11

"Uh-oh."

The eruption of water coming out of the fountain ceased abruptly, collapsing like a tumbling tower of blocks. Willa must have thought that it broke. Seconds pass, before water shoots up again out of several in-ground fountains that circle a sundial in front of Norlin Library. The expression on her unguarded face is priceless- her lips drawn down on her face, pursed in an "o." I am pretty sure there is nothing like it in all the world and consciously tuck the memory of it away in my heart, like a magazine clipping for a scrapbook.

When we woke up that Saturday morning, neither Davis nor I had felt like making breakfast. So, after getting everyone dressed, feeding the chickens, and making ourselves iced coffees, we decided to bike to Woodgrain Bagels before stopping at the Boulder Farmer's Market to drop off a check and, then, biking back home to grab the car to head out to the county fair in Longmont. 

We took a different route than usual to go downtown. As we were winding our way through the CU campus, we passed an in-ground fountain outside of Norlin Library and I made a mental note to bring Willa back here- in a swimsuit, with a towel- so that she could splash around. As we were having breakfast, we realized that we had forgotten the checkbook. Zut! We scrapped our plans to go to the Farmer's Market and, all of sudden, found ourselves with some time to kill before we needed to go home. Planners by nature and devotees of routine, we were indecisive about how to pass an hour. Frustrated by our own equivocations, we just headed for home. We went back the way we had come and, on the way, we passed the fountain again.

On impulse, I called out to Davis to stop. Why not! It seemed a shame to waste the opportunity. It didn't take long to think through how we could allow Willa to play in the fountain and keep her dry on the way home. We took off Willa's vest, pants, and diaper cover but left her in her shirt and cloth diaper. When it came time to go home, we would towel her off with my sweatshirt, change her into a clean, dry cloth diaper, and put her in the remaining dry clothes.

Trepidatious at first, Willa clung to Davis' hand and stood very still as the fountain water shot up out of the ground under her feet at intervals. Eventually, she put her foot over the spots where the water came out of the ground. Occasionally, the diverted water would hit her in the face and the look of shock on her face made us laugh. Emboldened, she hit the towers of water with her hands. And, once we started to see shivers, we knew it was time to go. So, we dried her off, dressed her in her dry clothes, and bagged up the wet stuff in plastic bags that I keep on hand for changing out her cloth diapers. As we biked home, I marveled at the happiness and contentment that I felt, which seemed disproportionate to how banal our activity was.

And, yet, there was something undeniably magical about our experience. Taking a new route to our destination made me more alert to our surroundings. Discovering the fountain on campus before the start of the fall semester accentuated the feeling that we had stumbled upon a hidden treasure. We're so used to seeing the world with our adult blinders on- foreclosed to possibility and adventure. It makes me think that we should make an effort to take a different route more often.