WATFORD CITY, N.D. — Have you ever had to pressure wash the gumbo mud off the clothes and boots your children were wearing when they decided to go splash and roll in the giant mud puddle that had formed from a week of rain behind the dumpster in your yard?

As long as I’m living and they’re not dressed for town, I will never deny my daughters full access to a mud puddle. I stood under the awning of our entryway to protect myself from the rain, and in a matter of three minutes, those girls had ditched their muck boots and socks on the wet gravel and had covered themselves from head to toe in gray mud and rainwater.

I felt an urge in myself bubble up to go join them, remembering for a moment what it was like to be that carefree, but remembered the laundry and the supper on the stove and tur

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