Taunting us with the odd sunny or mild day, buds appearing
on the trees and even crocuses peeking their tips through the snow, Spring has
been reluctant to show us her full beauty this year. I am not alone in feeling
that winter has been long. I’m simply done. I have been for about a month now.
I did however, feel a certain sadness last week as the
temperatures rose above zero and the snow began to melt. Sadness that I had
missed out on truly experiencing winter with my daughter.
I had three goals this winter: take her skating, go snow
shoeing, and build a snow man during an afternoon of rolling around in the snow.
None of those things happened for one reason or another. It was too windy... it
was too icy... the temperatures were too low... it was too icy... or on the days we had great snow and/or
weather I had to work or was in the grip of seasonal depression... also, did I
mention it was icy? So we spent our winter days doing music classes, making art
and going for drives to the locks to watch the water smash through the snow and
ice. While all of that was marvellous, and she
got to go skating a couple times this year (I just wasn’t there to see it), I
didn’t make it out on snowshoes and the snowman just didn’t happen for one
reason or another.
So, this weekend when it was apparent that Spring was being
a little shy again, and we had 6 inches of snow dumped on us I was surprised to
find myself thrilled. Walking outside Sunday morning in the mild air with all
this PERFECT snow fort, snowman, snowball making snow I knew that I would
finally get to have my winter day with my snow angel. It was perfect – snowball
fights (I think we have a future softball player), snow sculptures and yes, a snowman (a wee creepy thanks to the help of Papa (who I think secretly just wanted to get
it over with and made “balls” of snow quickly).
We held onto each other and
rolled across the lawn, clumps of snow sticking to the yarn of our scarves and
mittens. We poured maple syrup into clean snow and ate our failed attempt at
toffee. It was joyous and the first time I think I’ve truly just let my walls
down to let my inner child play since the fall.
How are you making out with our latest dumping of snow?
