Glimpses of Spring

This week we’ve had days that reach the fifties and Emily and I have spent the majority of our time outside. I am really going to like spring and summer with a toddler. She plays hard outside, gets dirty (I don’t love the sand that she ate six huge handfuls on Wednesday despite my attempts to convince her it was yucky), comes in starving and eats a whole lot at each meal, and sleeps reeeeaaaaly well at night (It is 8:00am and she is still sleeping even though she asked to go to bed at 5pm and was asleep by 5:30).  I love that she has friends to place chase with, run up the stairs and race down the slide with.  I love that she has things that she wants to do and see and brings me into her world outside. I love watching her and getting high-5s after she zooms down the slide on her way back to the playground stairs. I love seeing the huge smile on her face as she goes down the tall twirly slides for the first time or the short fast ones for the fortieth. I am touched by her interest in her friends when they get hurt – she signs cry over and over and keeps tabs until they are better, and then follows up about 10 minutes later by signing cry again and pointing to her friend.  I love how good it feels to sit around the dinner table, exhausted and invigorated from our day outside. I love falling into bed ready to sleep. 

I didn’t think staying inside this winter was so bad, but now I realized I have forgotten about life before October. We still have some cold (but hopefully not freezing) days ahead and I’m grateful because I need to make some preparations so that we can spend 85% of our waking hours outside. 

I took one picture at the park yesterday hoping to catch Emily’s hugely enthusiastic smile that she flashes all afternoon. When I got home I found this:

 I guess there was an intial moment of uncertainty about the adventure ahead.