Playing in the Rain

Here is what I wrote Tuesday, but didn't post:

The rain that the clouds had been hinting at since yesterday and promising for the past couple of hours just hit. A neighbor dad and about a zillion kids of various ages are out in the parking lot, some playing soccer. A chubby boy of about 11 is the biggest; he is light skinned and his brown hair is short except for a tail. He has no shirt and wears long baggy shorts. The tag on the back of his shorts is sticking up, the dark triangle against his lower back looking like a trendy tattoo.
A small girl of 5 or 6 is unselfconsciously and slowly rotating in the rain.
A slim girl, maybe 10, with milk-chocolate skin and blond frizzy hair pulled into a high ponytail wearing a yellow tank-dress with blue flowers, has joined the soccer game.
I see only what passes in front of my big picture window. Two chunky pre-teen girls are walking around with a bare-bottomed girl-baby. The soccer ball moves to and fro, moved by various feet.
A teenage girl rides up on her bike and joins the soccer game. She wears a blue and red basketball shirt with “New York 2” on front and back and purple flowered shorts. Her hair is long and straight under a white baseball cap.
The girl in the flowered dress keeps wringing her dress out. A little boy ( 4-5) starts to cry when the soccer ball goes past him, and the girl goes over and wrings a corner of her dress out on his head to distract him.
The rain is coming in great torrents, at about a 45 degree angle. It’s so loud on my roof that I can’t hear the kids any more, though the dad’s deep voice is distinguishable. There is a collision in the soccer game and some crying ensues. The oldest boy gently leads the hurt girl of maybe seven off to the front porch area, then rejoins the game.
Blow up toys emerge. A tiny wading pool, more like a blow-up bathtub, is taken to the roof gutter spout and filled with water, then carried—with much difficulty—back near the front of the apartment where the bare bottomed baby girl is put into it.
A small pool floatie is used to scoot the smallest boy (about 3 or 4) back and forth down the center of the parking lot where the water runs deepest. He is knocked off regularly by running aground or running into a soccer player. He’s not sure whether he loves it or hates it.
More soccer is played, then the bikes come out and several kids are riding in circles around the parking lot, just as they do when it’s not raining.
The rain is really coming down again right now and the dad is holding the little baby, patting her back and kissing her, and letting her get fully wet. Now in the relative protection of the apartment entrance overhang, she’s being swaddled in a towel and taken inside.