Personally I would want someone to ask! I would not randomly click off a few pictures of someone else's kids and just ask they give me the same courtesy. Just my $.02 worth.
I like it. When you first suggested removing the pole tree, I knew what you meant but could not see a big difference in my mind. Now that it is gone, I see what you saw. I like it.
You are free to do anything to the picture you please...I have zero creative license on it LOL. I know where the tree is so I can always snap another couple 100 shots of it.
If I had some good post production software I probably could, but I am software poor right now. As I get better at composition and getting my exposure correct then I will move into some good software....baby steps. LOL
After reading/looking at Gregory's posts/pics I decided do play with water drops also...instead of the floating drop I went for the explosion...here are a couple.
The best part was my wife asking, "What in the world are you doing?" As I have a sandwich baggie suspended from the dining room lamp with a magnet dripping water. LOL