I feared this might happen and it did.
The first warm-ish, non- blizzardy, soupy, gritty, dirty, boots-with-splash-pants instead of snow pants, buses are running, schools are open, above zero degree-day, the kids were going to go totally berserk and they did.
We finished dinner and I said, “Shall we go outside?” and nobody knew how to deal with it.
Two of the kids raced out with sandals and no jackets, the other was still sliding on her snow pants and asking me to reach her hat with ear flaps from her drawer in the closet before finally making our way outside.
Within seconds, one kid was on a sled, attempting to smear as much dirt on the bottom of our last functioning toboggan rendering it completely useless should there be another snow fall in my lifetime. (Dear God, may that never happen again and if you really do exist, may you send chocolate covered pretzels instead of snowflakes from now on). I don’t know why I have to keep repeating myself on this issue.
In a five minute span, we had already exhausted all seven hula-hoops, tied the skipping ropes together and jumped to “My mother has a pancake, she gave it to her friend….or something like that…….I don’t know most of the words but I’m solid at humming the tune, Jack falls down an elevator shaft, how many spankings will he get?” (and so on and so forth)
The kids were ravenous for the warm weather. They reminded me of the contestants on the first season of Survivor who went 30 days without a meal and then were presented a giant steak dinner for the first time except my kids were without sun and the steak in this scenario was a dry patch of driveway to hop on a pogo-stick.
They ran their scooters up and down the street, pulled Chloe in the wagon, said warm-weather things like, “Can we have ice cream or fresh pineapple?” Even their insults to each other were about being better at doing fair-weather activities like being the fastest to run to the mailbox or finding the weirdest thing in the melting snow bank. Hanna’s was a slam-dunk. She found the letter “G” missing from the back of my rand Caravan.
The basketballs, rubber craters, unearthed from being swallowed by end of season mud paddies.
The bubble maker was in high gear but I had to draw a sidewalk chalk line in the sand when it came to putting air in the bike tires and setting up the lemonade stand.
We’re all excited, no one more than me the “Spring Fairy” who now gets to put everything away.
