this is what early spring feels like!

You could smell it from the first hours of the morning: the warming of the air. It's that same fragrance of snow melting into the earth that we get in spring.

Breakfast, sunny, happy.





We have a complicated morning and a mishmash of tasks to move through, but one thing we know for sure: in the afternoon, Ed and I are taking Snowdrop out for winter play.

She is delighted to see him at pick up time. My grandma and grandpa are both here! -- she tells everyone, as if they hadn't spotted the towering frame of ahah.

I tell her we're going to go to the park with our sled and skis. She is excited: we're going skating, she reports to her best buddy. Skiing, sledding, skating -- they're variants on the same theme!

She walks Ed out.






...and we drive to the park with the disc golf hills. But whereas yesterday, you could count on an inch of snow cover, today the south facing slopes are completely bare. It's 38F (3C) and our snow has disappeared.

You might feel frustrated: too cold last week, too warm this week. But there is hope! We're so close to our county park! Snowdrop, do you want to go see the secret pond??

We have the big sled. We have her skis. But what's truly magical about the frozen pond is that it's pristine and undisturbed. We can step out among the humbling footsteps of animals. And of course, the snow has yet to melt.

Snowdrop immediately falls into a snow angel pose. Beautiful!







And she is thrilled to step into the skis, even as she is unprepared for the slippery nature of her first trial run. (Me too! The light dusting of snow covers a glassy sheet of ice. Keeping upright is not easy, not even for me!)







We make progress!






But she longs for the freedom to just move!

We switch to the sled. She is stable, but Ed takes a solid tumble!






We make our way off the pond...






Maybe walking is the best strategy?






Hey, I wouldn't mind being pulled around some!
Snowdrop finds this to be hilariously funny!






Eventually she spots a playground. I've been telling her playgrounds are closed for the winter, but today is remarkable in that it hasn't the feel of winter at all. Swing again, Snowdrop!






The big slide? Go for it!






You'd think that winter garb would stand in her way, but she is so deprived of outdoor cavorting that she throws herself at the climbing structure in total glee.






Later, at home, she settles into her story telling. From one play scene to the next, she spins her tales. I come in, add a few lines, retreat, listen, come back.

We can do this for a long, long time.






Toward evening she tells me -- I have a surprise.
Say what? A surprise?
She runs to the other room. She trips over the carpet and falls flat on her face. I hurt my nose!
Oh, I'm so sorry! I hold her. She sobs -- I was going to get the surprise and I fell!
And then in the next breath -- but I am happy now.

She goes to the other room and hauls out her "surprise" -- my yoga mat.





We can sit on it and read these books. She hands over her selections.


Children can warm every corner of your heart.


I admit to this being a gorgeous day. Not too cold. Sunny. Absolutely gorgeous. But it doesn't take away from my fervent desire for one mighty snowfall this year... For the forts, castles and snow people we can build. For the crunch, the shimmer and the sparkle. Just one. Huge. Snowfall.

Though I will admit -- today was quite spectacular. Springlike. Beautiful.

winter crazies

Sometimes, one has to do what has to be done. After breakfast, I clean the farmhouse while Ed attends to the loss in the family of a colleague. Such is life.





If you think that's a rough beginning to a Sunday, let me add to it: Ed had a flat tire on the coldest day of this season (yesterday) and my tire, too, is failing rapidly. And so another chunk of the morning has to be set aside to repairing these malfunctions.

It's very tempting to then settle into the quiet of the farmhouse and read books and sip tea for the rest of the day. But no. This wont do. Not when the Arctic blast has finally flown the coop and the air is pleasantly just below freezing!

We pack up Snowdrop's outdoor props -- the big girl sled and her (newly acquired for her birthday) toddler skis and head out to the light inclines of the golf disc park.

Well you might wonder how it is that I can test the toddler skis even as I've passed the toddler stage many decades ago. Well, I read that they can be worn from shoe size toddler 6 (Snowdrop is an 8) all the way to adult size 10 (I'm a 7). So we can share!

Actually, I just wanted to get a feel for the skis. What can she do with them? How might they be used?

And I find myself confirming very quickly that that these boards should stay within your backyard, preferably a level backyard, with no inclines to speak of.

Me, I dared take them to the hills, thinking surely that my wealth of skiing experience would allow me to stay upright.





Ha!

I fell good and hard.


Ed tries out the sled.





That worked well enough, despite the very gentle incline.

We go down together, just for the heck of it. Selfie!





And the winter sky looked lovely and the geese flew by and the sun tried hard to push through the silver clouds.





With great guffaws and no broken bones, we retreat back to the car (no flat tires! yeah!) and slowly head home.


The young family is here for dinner tonight and of course, Snowdrop rushes to see if I have put up her birthday gift -- the winter chalet from Playmobil. I have. She is delighted.







The girl is in great form, chomping away at pasta and big fat shrimp, smothered in porcini sauce.






And of course, there is the dessert: the birthday cake.






Tomorrow, for the first time in weeks, we're to climb all the way to the freezing point. How good is that!

climbing

We're scaling the thermometer today, one baby step at a time. By late afternoon, we will have reached great heights: 12F (-11C). Like I said, baby steps -- but more importantly, they're steady and full of promise.

But the morning is bristly cold. When I walk out to the barn, the cheepers hover by the barn door. Why are you so late? (I'm not late. The cheepers exaggerate.)






Here's a rare close-up of the single-footed girls. (It's nearly impossible to have them all face you and not move about.)





I give them leftover pizza crusts, chicken feed and corn. Enjoy!

The early morning walk back to the farmhouse is always beautiful. I've done my task. I can turn my attention to what I see along the path. We've had some bitter cold these past weeks, but I surely appreciate the copious amount of sunshine that has come our way. I'll take cold and sunny over warmer and dreary any day!





Ed and I have sort of a working breakfast in that we talk about various work issues (his more than mine as, in case you've forgotten, I am no longer employed).  Hence the computer at the table.





Mornings like this are precious: he hasn't work calls streaming in all day (it's the weekend after all), and I am in no hurry to get things done. Indeed, I spend the entire morning chatting with him as I put together a birthday present for Snowdrop.

It's a Playmobil toy that I did not have time to assemble in advance. The target age for the whole Playmobil stuff is 4 plus and initially, I wasn't sure she could handle the tiny parts that require delicate precision as you play with them, but I tested her on smaller sets and she was both fine and, more importantly, patient with herself when things didn't initially stay in place in the way that they should. (Playmobil figured prominently in my daughters' lives as well, which I suppose adds support to the idea that you buy for your charges toys that you yourself don't mind incorporating into your hours of play with them.)





In the afternoon, Ed suggests that, given the heat wave, we should take a walk.

I hesitate. I applaud the upswing in temperatures, but calling it a heat wave is perhaps a bit of a stretch.

We'll do a quick loop and head back.

He's right, of course. We've been dealt a double whammy: weeks of cold and too little snow. Despite the winter weather, we haven't been able to use our cross country skis once this season. And there are no great snows in the forecast. We need to fins pleasure in winter hikes again.

Okay, let's walk.

Brrrrr!

In fact, once we get going, the movement and the sun combine to make it an exhilarating set of minutes!

We head out from our county park onto Lake Waubesa.  Ice fisher people (well, I've only seen men so let's call them fishermen) have been drilling holes and hauling in fish for a several weeks now, but I have to admit, I always feel a tiny bit knotty in my stomach when we head out onto the lake. There is ice, sure, but below that sheet of ice, there is water. Well yes, trucks and RV's have sped across it, but might it crack anyway? (No it can't, but still, when you see the deep crevices and fissures in the ice, your imagination runs wild.)





As we continue to chat in our walk toward the fishermen (who seem to fish in clumps), it suddenly strikes me that we are the only ones talking. We switch to a whisper.

Could it be that the beauty of a quiet afternoon on the lake is what ice fishermen really long for? Even more than catching something of substance?






A selfie: this is about as bundled as you'll see us.





Back on solid ground... Longing for more snow...





Appreciating the beauty of the shadows cast by the great oaks that line this portion of the lake...






The inland pond (where the turtles hang out in the summer) is, of course, frozen as well. Here, the tracks are only of animals...






A final loop toward Ed's favorite tree. Yes, Ed has a favorite tree: it's an old oak that bends and leans this way and that. He claims it is full of character!






At the farmhouse again. I make a wee cup of milky espresso and cut myself a pice of birthday cake.





One of you asked if this cake was, in the end, a success.

I'll give a qualified yes, in that Ed and I both love it. A thin slice is enough to have you appreciate the subtle flavors -- of the cake, the caramel, the ganache (I used way less ganache than they suggested). But when you bake a cake, you have to think of your customer. Just to put it in context: you'll not find this kind of cake in a French pastry shop because it looks too... plain. If you're going to spend long hours on creating a pastry for a party (even a small party), visual effects matter. This really isn't a cake I'd push for a birthday party for a little kid. Snowdrop liked it enough (as she would any chocolate cake). She liked the strawberries that I placed around it equally much!  Still, Ed and I are the ones stuck with the leftovers, so perhaps on balance, it was a good use of baking hours!

 A quiet evening, a happy evening. Cake and a promise of better weather. Were I a cat, I would purr.

adding years

Late last night, I lost myself in an internet chase. I'd read an article in the paper, and from there, I followed a link to a person whom I once knew, and this then lead me to someone else, who in turn was closely associated with the little girl I took care of when I returned to the US at age 18, acting as an au pair to her family.

I lived with the young girl and her parents for a small handful of years and it is no surprise that she was close to me and I felt a huge amount of affection for her as well. But when I left, moving away from New York to pursue my further studies in Chicago, I did not stay in touch -- with her or her family.

There are many reasons for it: they are prominent New Yorkers. I was just a glorified baby sitter. However fond we were of each other, it was a fondness not born of familial ties or even friendship. I was hired help. Once an employment connection is severed, you really need to move on.

I read about the family in the papers all the time, but they are who they are and I am elsewhere -- in my own orbit, which, as it turns out, evolved into a life that took me into other professions over and beyond being a nanny -- though some might argue that in my senior years, I have come full circle, returning to these duties that I once did well and maybe for that reason still enjoy doing -- at least to the extent that they involve now charges that are within my own family.

I write all this because last night, all those articles and family references lead me to wonder -- what is my former charge up to these days?

It's not hard to find out. It turns out that she was quite recently on FaceBook. I see that she has children of her own (I guess I sort of knew that) and those children are now older than their mom was when I cared for her.

And here's the really shocking truth: My charge was 7 when I entered her life. I was 18. I don't know why I never did the math, but it surely means that she is now herself nearing retirement.

Well that just blew my mind! I think of her as the girl I teased and hugged and laughed with at age seven, eight, nine. Somehow, she moved from that, to approaching senior status.


Today is Snowdrop's birthday. I am more excited by this than if it were my own birthday. And yet, I know (just as I knew with my au pair charge) that these young years of hers, where I am by Snowdrop's side for so many of her important moments, are just a jumpstart for what will surely be a grand and independent life -- one that will spin in its own gorgeous direction. 


We wake up to the coldest day yet. Thankfully, it is the last of the Arctic days. We've had far too many. We are so ready to move on.

Breakfast. Early for us: Ed has work commitments and I have a cake to bake.





You'd think that this baking of a cake is a trivial deal, but it's not. I choose a Tartine cake out of their cookbook and it is damn pain in the ass recipe and of course, Snowdrop wouldn't care if I used a cake mix -- she doesn't eat more than two bites of any cake. Surely she won't notice that this one is thinly coated with home cooked caramel and delicately covered in deep chocolate genache, all in between four layers of bittersweet chocolate cake. (To give me credit, Snowdrop did request a cake that's chocolate and with penguins. I deliver on both counts.)

(Spreading the caramel...)






And now it's time to pick up the girl. As luck would have it, Snowdrop had requested to go back to what she calls the "enchanted garden" after school -- the tropical greenhouse at our local Olbrich Gardens. It's a great day for it: it's steamy warm inside! I join up with her parents there.











After, we retreat to the farmhouse. Presents!






And dinner, which thankfully is only pizza, because the cake is ridiculously demanding. There, finally done.






The evening is terrific. Snowdrop, despite the fact that she hasn't napped all week and has pushed her parents on bedtime for several day now, is in great form.






We eat...






Snowdrop has us all try on each others hats...






We pause for some appropriate books, just to calm things down a bit...






And then comes the cake...






And shockaroo! She gives a puff...






And I guess those lungs have grown, because the candles are out!






What is there left to do but sing?

We cycle through many rounds of "Down by the Bay."






Everyone is, by now, exhausted. Everyone.






Except for Snowdrop.

She's happy to slip into her pajamas. And then resume her story telling.







Later... The family goes home. I tidy up and sit down to write.

Happy birthday, Snowdrop! And keep that smile going, forever and ever!