Back when we were being drowned by one rainy day after another, Hayley and I quickly got bored of the usual ways to pass the time, such as coloring, playing Snakes and Ladders, and playing Backyardigans-style games. When I looked at the weather channel that evening and realized that we were going to have yet another day of downpours the next day, I had a mild panic attack and then I announced, “Tomorrow is Monkey Butt Day.”

What?

Yes, we invented a holiday. I’ve called Hayley Monkey Butt for years now and it just popped into my head out of sheer desperation. I asked her what we could do to celebrate the day. We bantered back and forth and came up with a festive holiday that made the crappy weather just a little easier to bear.

In the morning, I greeted her with a very cheery “Happy Monkey Butt Day!” which she echoed back to me five hundred times that day. For breakfast she had chocolate milk (I don’t know, it made sense) and I made her cinnamon toast with thinly sliced banana on top. We called it Monkey Toast and she loved it. (I elected to have a bagel with my coffee but it smelled good and she ate every last crumb so it was apparently delicious.)

We pretended to be monkeys playing in the jungle, with the couch being a tree and twisted towels being vines. We also spread a blue blanket on the floor for a lovely pond to splash in.

Later in the day, when Breanna was napping, we made some monkey decorations to hang on the wall.

I also made her a mask, which she thought was hilarious.

For supper, we didn’t have anything terribly out of the ordinary but we managed to bring some of the festivities to the table. I had wanted to make Monkey Bread for dessert but our grocery store didn’t have any refrigerated biscuits (what the hell?) so George picked up crescent rolls instead. I was disappointed at first, since you can’t make Monkey Bread out of crescent rolls. Then, I said, “Let’s make them anyway! We can call them Monkey tails and eat them with our supper!”

Hey, it convinced her. Also, she did an excellent job making them; I made two and she did the rest. All I had to do was actually put them in the oven to bake. She was very proud of them.

It was a huge hit and it was such a simple thing. For days and days afterwards, she kept talking about it and the monkey decorations are still on the wall. I’ll have to think of a new holiday soon.