Tuesday

At 5:45, Sparrow decides to test his vocal chords, chatting up a storm in his little bed, which stands in the little room he shares at the farmhouse with Snowdrop. (Both are sleeping over for a few days.) I give him a few minutes to settle down, but he continues to talk and Snowdrop is by now quite awake, so I take him downstairs and tell the little girl to keep on sleeping until her alarm goes off (at 7:15). Unfortunately, she does not want to miss all the action downstairs and so this is how I find myself up with two playful kids at the wee hours of the morning.












(He is strong. Good thing the gate separating his space from hers snaps shut tightly.)






It is a school morning. Still, we all sit down to breakfast together. A habit I cannot break.

Wet and cool outside. Warm and cozy in the kitchen. (Ed dispenses the maple syrup. Always.)





During the meal, we play word spelling games. Looking over to a chipper Sparrow, I note once again that he is in disgrace! (This is what we say when he wakes up way too early). Snowdrop asks me if I know what "disgrace" means. I am about to offer a definition, but she beats me to it, explaining that it is when you do something that is wrong, but not so wrong that you'd go to jail for it.

She is correct -- there are many shades of "wrong" in this world and Sparrow's chatter at predawn hours ranks low on a scale of "unsatisfactory to awful," nonetheless, we will all be tired today. Except for Sparrow, who will neatly compensate for his errors by taking long naps.






(Outside, the lilac is ending its week of loveliness. Hey, do you see who likes to play high up in its branches? It's Dance!)






Are we ready to go? (I am to drop off Snowdrop at school. Later in the day, I'll be returning Sparrow to his home and picking up the girl, for our usual quiet afternoon together.)

Snowdrop, can Sparrow borrow a pair of your bright pink socks? Thank you!






(The two guys do not shy away from pink...)






The school drop off is perhaps a tad chaotic. Sparrow is tagging along and normally, this is an inconsequential thing, but today he decides, just for the ten minutes we are in the school building, to be completely unhappy. And the class is getting ready for a field trip, by school bus -- a first such ride for the little girl. (She is very excited about that part.) And I haven't done a drop off in years so I only slightly remember the routines.

Well that's okay. Every drop off person has had a screaming infant in tow at one point or another. And Sparrow calms down the minute we leave, resuming his winning smile and easy going ways the minute I put him down on the farmhouse floor.

Later, as he naps, I take stock of the garden. There are plump buds throughout, the plumpest certainly belonging to the iris and peony.






But at the moment, color can only be found in potted annuals. (Stop Sign lends her small form to give you perspective!)






Among the perennials in the flower fields, just about the only blooms right now are from flowers that are white!

Anemonie...






Iris...






In the afternoon, Snowdrop is here again. She always pays homage to whatever is blooming, sniffing out the most fragrant whites today (without a doubt that honor would go to the potted alyssum)...






And then we switch to play. Her energies rebound...






... she is all twirls and dances once again.






The evening is quiet. It's a sudden switch from two days of crazy busy. I don't mind either extreme, though perhaps in shorter doses than in past years.  Oh, but I do miss the little ones. When they smile, the whole place shimmers and sparkles. I wish we had had better weather so that we weren't so housebound, but looking at states to the east and south of us, I have to say, by comparison, we had a very lucky run of it. No one lost a roof. No trees were uprooted.

With only one eye open and only partway, I must sign off! Good night little ones everywhere. Good night parents, good night grandparents.