The other day Little L, Axel and I were driving home. I opened the window just as we were waiting at the light on Central Avenue. We were minutes from home, but like Little L, I love the windows down when there's crisp air blowing in.

SPLAT!

A patch of white appeared on the front windshield.

"A bird pooped on our car!" Axel exclaimed.

"Oh my gosh, good thing it didn't get in the windows!" I said, rolling them up just in case the bird came back around.

Axel looked at me. "That was close." My window-opening could have been very ill-timed.

"Mama why it's a good thing the bird didn't poop in the car?" Little L chimed in from her perch in the backseat; we just changed her to a booster not long ago.

"Because then we'd have bird poop on us!" I explained.

I thought of a saying my mom taught me. When a bird flies by and poops in your eye.... Aren't you glad that elephants don't fly?

Looking at the large splotch on the windshield, I was indeed glad there were no elephants flying around Northeast Minneapolis.

"Should I just use the windshield wipers?" I asked Axel.

"No! That'll just rub it around!" he said from the passenger seat. "Just leave it. I'll clean it off when we get home."

"Papa, Papa, I can help you clean it off!" I credit Gamma with instilling a love of cleaning in Little L. The child comes home from school thrilled because they let her wash her own dishes.

We got home and piled out of the car. The next morning when Little L and I got in the car to go to school, the poop was still there.

"Mama, Mama, we have to clean it, Mama!" She really does not let things go. Maybe I could leave the car at her school and the kids could extract the dried bird poop as some sort of project? In fact, maybe they'd enjoy washing the whole car!

When I picked her up a couple hours later, the poop was still stuck to the front windshield. But as we were pulling into our driveway, something miraculous happened.

It was raining!

"Hey, do you think we should leave the car outside and see if the rain cleans the bird poop?" I asked Little L. Yes, I realize I was asking a four-year-old for advice, but, you know, desperate times.

"We can see what happens Mama!" she said, and we left the car in the driveway and hopped into the pouring rain.

Later that afternoon, Little L and I had to go take care of my brother David and his partner Ami's cat, who we'll call Damian to protect his privacy. As we neared the garage, we remembered.

"The car's not in the garage, love! Remember? We parked it outside!" I stopped typing in the code on the newly-installed keypad - thank you Axel, and thank you even more for not making me stand there while you did it.

"Let's see if the bird poop is gone, Mama. Do you think the rain might have tooken it away?" She grabbed my hand and led me towards the side gate.

We rounded the corner and spotted it: a crystal-clear windshield.

It was just as we'd hoped. Yes, Axel and I had been lazy about cleaning it ourselves, but Mother Nature had come to the rescue. Not only did we not have to clean it, we also didn't have to help Little L clean it. While I know it's the right thing in the long run to teach your kids to help you, it's a lot more work in the short term.

Today we had escaped that quandary. Thank you rain, for taking the bird poop away.