Hints of Spring

It arrived, finally – quietly, magically, unassumingly, happily.  And it was welcome – very, very welcome!

Today was our first “Spring is coming! It’s really coming!” sort of day, and we enjoyed it – every minute of it, Gabe – layered at school in his furry coat, hat, mittens and snowpants because those are their rules, and me with short sleeves and windows rolled down, pretending not to get annoyed when the wind rustled my hair a little too much.

Breaking out of our little “pick-Gabe-up-from-school-come-home-and-watch-tv-until-Phineas-and-Ferb-rot-out-our-brains” rut, I decided today was the day to cash in on a little bargain Gabe and I made, a bargain whereby I filled his water cup an extra time and he agreed to let me experiment with my new camera lens and take pictures of him. I sound like a most awesome mother, don’t I? It’s tv and bribes all around, baby! I don’t think I usually let my mothering go quite this far toward Total Lackadaisical Slackerish Bribery.  But what can I say?  Tahd is on his fifth week out of town in a row, and we’ve hit the wall.  Or perhaps more accurately, we hit the wall some time ago and now we’re just careening along glibly, a little giddy and a little more punchy.

But back to our breaking of The Rut.

Gabe got four choices of locations – the church behind our house, the beach, our town’s quaint downtown plaza, or the park.  And the winner was?

Hint: it’s a no-brainer…

The park!  So off we trudged – ball, sword, and slinky in hand – him intending to play and me intending to take pictures while he played.  Not entirely sure about the purpose of the props he selected.  I’m quite sure I couldn’t even being to guess what was in his imagination at the moment he selected the The Chosen Few.  I’m sure it was good, although we never got around to actually enacting his vision.

Pretty sure the slinky made it into at least 75% of our pictures, a nice little splash of rainbow color!

True to his word, he let me pause him periodically and snap a few photos here and there.  Even “posed” for a few and took my photo once.

We ran about the park like crazy people, running over ramps, jumping on jiggly bridges, gingerly tiptoeing through remnants of snow, and laying down in the mulch to get the desired angle.  Little life lesson – having mulch in your underpants does not feel good.

And then after an hour of hide and seek, king and queen, slides, swings, mud and snow we dragged our damp, happy selves off to a restaurant for a little date.

Enchanted today by the promise of spring, it felt good to remember that just like the seasons, life is a faithful ebb and flow.  I can’t wait for the one that is on the horizon!