These St. Thomas sisters went viral on social media for letting it rain on their parade | CBC News (2025)

Isha Bhargava · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 24, 2025 4:53 PM EDT | Last Updated: April 24

When their mom took away their mobile phones for the day on Good Friday, sisters Lillie and Harper O'Reilly were given the old-fashioned order to go outside to play.

That's when the O'Reilly sisters noticed a huge puddle across the street fromtheir house in St. Thomas, Ont. They decided to craft a sign that read, "Splash us," and then stood in front of the puddle, waiting for vehicles to drive by.

"We thought why don't we create a sign and get cars to splash us with the puddle," said Lillie, 11. "A lot of cars drove into the puddle and splashed us, we were wet ...really wet," added Harper,10.

Some vehicles even went around the block and made aU-Turn, accelerating through the puddle for a second round of splashing, the girls said.

Impressed by the response the sisters gotfrompassersby in real life, their mom, Taylor Brooks, captured a video of the splashing and posted it on TikTok with the caption, "Remember when kids played outside?". It has since gone viral and garnered more than 10 million views,along with thousands of comments.

"Every single one of those vehicles went home and told someone what happened to them today. I know I would," wrote one TikTok user. "I think the adults had more fun than the kids," another viewer commented.

"You just know someone who had a rough day at work instantly started cackling when they did this. Entertaining for both sides," read another comment.

'Let them be bored' mom says

Brooks said she didn't expect the post to get so much attention and the family was stunned to seehow many people found themselves relating to the video. Shebelieve it's because kids playing outside withouttech devicesisn't as common anymore as it was a few decades ago.

"I personally think it's 90s nostalgia," said Brooks. "Lots of us grew up in the 80s and 90s, we had fun before technology and it just really resonated with people to see kids having fun, no devices and it just hit homefor a lot of people."

The comments on the video tend to agree. Many viewers recalled doing similar activities when they were children and complimented the O'Reilly sisters for being good sports.

Brooks's messageto other parents? A little boredom every now and then doesn't hurt and can motivate kids to come up with innovative ways to entertain themselves without technology.

"Just let them be bored for a few minutes, and they will come up with something. It was nice to see them doing something together, they were just outside enjoying every minute of it,sothey will figure out something and they will have fun. It's instinctual for them," she said.

The girlssaid they"definitely" plan to do this again, and theexperience taught them that they are able to have fun with less screen time and more outside time.

"Welearned that you don't need to spend every rainy day inside on your phone," said Lillie.

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