Tuesday

If you have a blog, say one that you've been writing daily for more than a dozen years, you may be tempted to occasionally look back on posts from long ago (don't you think that  some 10 years qualifies as long ago? I was 53 then and am 63 now -- woosh! that's a lifetime!).

I did that last night. Not for historic reasons but because I was a tiny bit interested in how the tone of my writing has changed.

It has. Greatly. I need only flip through any and all posts written in the summer of 2005 to prove my point. (It was a charged period in my life.)

I write about this because it struck me how a blog of this sort can demonstrate that we do evolve. That we're not doomed to stay crazy if we go through a crazy period in our lives (or staid if we choose a unadventurous path for a while). Isn't that reassuring?

Now back to the topic of the weather!

Windy, not too cold and most noticeably -- sunny! Here's a solid truth: I love blue skies intensely because of the fact that sometimes they are not blue. And so today, their crisp blueness are cause for joy (whereas if I lived in a place like Sorede -- 300 days of sunshine each year! -- I'd say ho hum).







Breakfast in the sun room. I was determined to cut Ed out of the photo! Chop chop -- no Ed!






I pick up Snowdrop from school and I am really prepared for an adventure! No coffee shop visit for us -- I went to a bakery earlier and purchased a snack for a picnic. She is in high spirits! And why shouldn't she be? Snowdrops are in their most beautiful phase right now!






But it is windy. Really windy. We go to the park. She tries valiantly to eat her bit of croissant while in the swing, but the hair just flies into her face. I pin it back a bit with a clip (that's all I could find in my purse). She touches it every now and then to see if it's there.We've moved a long way from the time where she would just pull it out!











Sky so blue... lake so deeply blue... a lone sea gull. Sea guw, gaga! That's a sea guw! (My, does the girl have good vision!)






We walk to her home then. Fish jig, gaga! Play the fish jig! Ask nicely! Please!!

She dances with her hole spirit.






Late afternoon. The girl naps. Her mom comes home to finish preparations for what is for them a special day -- her daddy's birthday. When Snowdrop wakes up, there's a cake in the oven and there are balloons everywhere! Is she excited? Is she?!






















I leave the young family to their celebrations.

Day is done. But oh, that sunshine! It lingers with me... So beautiful... So warming of the spirit.

Monday

A misty cloudy sultry day. Not warm, but warmer. Not sunny but wind filled. What can you make of it? What can you do with it?

We talk about our plans for this week. Ed is playing hard-to-get with my morning photo and so I move my camera away from his presence and focus on the flowers. It's the kind of day when you need to focus on whatever flowers you may have inside. (He then of course places himself right in the thick of things. As Snowdrop would say -- oh that ahah!)






It seems that we have finally caught an opossum in the barn. But is this the predator that has been stalking the coop? Who knows. I do note that the cheepers are much more content to hang around the barn today. As if they feel safer now. (Except for Java, who wanders over to the farmhouse and then complains bitterly that the other girls didn't tag along. I pick her up in her befuddled lonely state and carry her back to the barn.)






I'm not quite sure how to treat the afternoon with Snowdrop. It's warm, damp, windy... I give her some choices and let her take the lead.
We can go to the bakery, or to the coffee shop, or to the playground, or for a walk, or we can go adventuring! What would you like?
She hesitates. Too many choices perhaps... Let me try again.
Coffee shop? A walk?
No! Venturing!

Oh, how well I remember our adventuring when she was way younger! We would explore the world! And so we do just that today: we explore. We hunt flowers (finding the occasional snowdrop). We analyze yard decorations. We watch the children climb the school buses parked by the big elementary school.

We end up by the distant coffee shop and by now she is ready for a snack. I take a photo of us on a self timer because I notice that by coincidence, we are both wearing plaid shirts. Rare for her and rare for me!







At home, Ed takes over the camera, offering more evidence that the world can be bright and colorful and plaid, even on a sultry March day. Is it coincidence that Snowdrop runs toward the stack of recently read books and picks out the one about a girl who loves her plaid shirt?







We read it three times!






She is full of good cheer today and she really pushes nap time to its outer limits. Well, what's more important -- music or rest??






Eventually, to her dismay, nap wins. And I'll leave you with a post nap photo, because it's sleepy and sweet and gentle. All that I think is so good about this day.

Sunday

Well, you can't be grumpy at the weather when a little one wakes you up with a spirited "hi gaga, where are you gaga?"

That full-blown joy in waking up to a new day stays with Snowdrop and it rubs off on anyone whose path she crosses.

In the morning, it is my path.

From wake up (remember? ...she overnighted at the farmhouse) we go straight to breakfast. She shows off how she can feed herself now. Pumpkin and bananas and a cup of yogurt are her standards.
















A bath (which takes forever because she loves it so) and then we are ready for breakfast number two. With Ed.

Ahah! Come down ahah!






Oh, she's into breakfast part two. But she is also into arranging the various birds and chicks that I have collected over the years.






Afterwards, Ed retreats to the sheep shed to do some work. I am to take Snowdrop back to her home, but I linger. She is in such a good mood and I want to hang on to her spirit just a little bit longer. (I should note that being happy is her default state of mind, disrupted only when she is not well or when she is overcoming some developmental hurdle.)

What are you doing, Snowdrop?
Taking my dog for a walk.
(Ah. You don't have a dog. But hey, let not the small details of life hold you back.)






She wants to sing. She wants to dance. She is all music and smiles.






But it is time to go home. (Don't ask about the odd dress situation. It's not that cold and I run out of spare tights.)






In the afternoon I finally get Ed to agree to a short hike. He picks a nearby segment of the Ice Age Trail. We do not expect a pretty walk, but we are surprised: not by the landscape so much but by the beautiful sky which seems determined to create pockets of blue just for our walk.






(Through the forest)






(Across the prairie...)






(And again, the sky...)






Evening. The young family is here for dinner.

Hi Snowdrop!











And again there is music, there is dancing and there are the quiet moments. Here's the little one probably destroying some design of Ed's on his computer. He would never complain.






You cannot see much in the sky tonight. No matter. We need't see a beautiful galaxy to know that it is there. And yes, there is a moon hidden behind the puffy clouds and, too, all those specs of light that shine brightly on all our lives.

slogging through March

Are there Midwesterners who profess a love for the great outdoors in November and March?

They're lying. It just is not very pretty out there right now. You can post endless photos of little buds and yes, even daffodil sprouts and I'll acknowledge their wonderfulness for what they will soon reveal, but for now, they are like a tiny green spec in an ocean of gray and brown.

Still, we're on the right path. We know what's ahead. And so the slog through March is actually not a dispirited one. We can imagine April.

Breakfast is in the sun room because for one brief moment there is sun.







And the sun sticks with us as I pick up Snowdrop and her mom to go downtown for the weekly kids' music show -- an event that she has grown rather fond of.






But by the time we get out of the car (a mere three minutes later), the sun is gone, the sky turns gray and even though we're above freezing, we are just above freezing. Snowdrop is still sporting a grin, but me -- I can't wait to be indoors again.






(Color is everywhere, of course. Just not outside. Here's the little one paying attention to a very good if a bit loud band accompanying kids in their attempts to sing on stage. A sort of karaoke for little ones.)






In the afternoon, Ed works the yard for a short while, but for once, I do not join him. Turn up the outdoor furnace tomorrow and I'll be there digging and raking. For now, I concentrate on looking through seed and plant catalogues.



Evening. I go upstairs to finish some house cleaning task. Poor weather outside is a grand excuse to get indoor chores out of the way. What's this? A receding sun? Are the clouds really dispersing for the night? For the next day perhaps? Sunshine can make even a brown March day sing!





I hurry downstairs. Snowdrop is coming for an overnight at the farmhouse and I want to finish spinning the pizza dough into shape. I know, I know -- I always do a pizza for her stays at the farmhouse. It's so predictable and therefore so fine!

(Before the cheese)







There hasn't been a time when she didn't enjoy this crazy evening meal of ours. Not at the table, but in the living room, oftentimes with a nature or science show on the TV screen. Or worse -- with the news hour going strong.











After, the little girl discovers a stack of Maisy books. These were her go to favorites maybe a year ago. She has us sit together and each read a few. She takes on the responsibility of reading hers to her Polish rag doll.






It's getting awfully close to bedtime, but I have one more thing I want to do: it would be so grand to have us all dance a dance that is straight out of the repertoire I saved for my girls when March rolled in. I thought then it sounded Irish. It's not Irish -- it's actually from Newfoundland, but no matter: it's jiggy and bouncy and a total romp and Snowdrop puts all her heart into it.





We read a few books to settle us all for the night. And then I want to take her upstairs, but she has one more request: I want to look at the stars, gaga.

I'm not sure about that one. It seemed awfully cloudy, even at sunset. Still, I hold her close in her pj's and we step outside.

Oh, but it's a beautiful night! Yes, the moon shines brightly and a few stars twinkle their lovely diamond light.

Friday

To a large degree, we are responsible for our own happiness or lack thereof. Not fully -- you can't help being born into war, disease, poverty and other cataclysmic events. But for the average person who is lucky enough not to be plagued by any of these -- well, you plant your own garden, so to speak.

Except when you're little. As I go through the steps of ushering yet another generation of young ones (or more accurately -- one young one) through the everyday, because I am less rushed and less harried, I have more time to think about what I'm doing.Here's my take on today:

Snowdrop did not have the happiest after school hour and I'd say it was almost entirely my fault. She felt (and expressed!) the dissatisfaction with what were, in effect, dumb moves on my part.

You can't totally blame me. I was overly optimistic. All that sunshine!







True, I should have taken my cues from the cheepers who took an awfully long time to alight from the barn...






But I am dizzy with the sunshine and, too, with the knowledge that this is to be the last really cold day, probably for the rest of winter and surely for the spring that's just ahead.

So when I pick up the little girl at school, I decide to repeat yesterday's brief dance with the outdoors and I offer her an excursion (by car) to the local playground. For the swing.

Oh, she is happy with that!






Until her hood blows off in the wind. I put it back on. It blows off again. And again. Snapping it shut does not appease her. By now she is complaining that she really really wants her mitts. A smart gaga would have looked in her coat pocket and found a pair, but I was not feeling especially clever so I pulled her sleeve over her hands and told her to make do.

A two year old doesn't understand the term "make do."

I take a very unhappy girl out of the swing and drive her to the farmhouse. To add to her woes, she had splashed herself silly washing up after lunch in school and so once home, I have to disrobe and change her. I look down at the kitchen floor to see a very naked and very upset little girl with a tear stained face buried in the runner rug.

Good job, gaga!

The thing is, kids forgive you so quickly for your poor choices in life. Within a minute she is in my lap, saying over and over "I want my gaga," which of course melts my heart, especially since I very much felt she should be saying "I do NOT want my gaga, I want someone who knows how to care for a two year old," but there you have it.

Moments later, Snowdrop is playing with her characters while munching her very cheesy croissant. She arranges a very lovely scene where the Snowdrop lookalike character is pushing around the gaga lookalike in the toy wheelchair.






Following this, she demonstrates to me how well she can sing "ring around a rosy," with of course the requisite dance...






... and the part where "we all fall down."






I'm guessing it's a school game.

Onto crayons...






("What should I draw?")





... and the day's balance is restored.


Later, much later, we return to Snowdrop's home. As is often the case on Fridays, I linger with the young family. Snowdrop is so content when we're all there for her!  (She finds her mommy's badger cap... puts it on...)







This is when she blurts out her affections without hesitation. And sure enough, this is when I first hear her say boldly and bluntly -- I wuv gaga!

I leave them dancing. Her dad had clued her into the Finnish penguin dance on youtube the night before and though I swear this is not a version of it, I had to smile as I retreated. A dancing family:





There is a moon and it shines brightly on us -- on all of us. How cool is that!