Springtime with a Sparkle

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Springtime is chasing the zigzag path of dandelions through the yard to find each one. It is digging in mulch. It is dirt under the toe nails and the awareness that white clothing has a remarkably low success rate.  Springtime is blonde hair bobbing underneath the hose’s spray, giggling hysterically through the mist, and hiding under the deck table with Wallie for some shade. It is sidewalk chalk and kisses on skinned knees. It is eating bubbles and occasionally blowing them.

 Springtime is thunderstorms, and extra books at bedtime while the last of the light in the window dissolves into a quiet dark blue. It is our clothes smelling like the grill, and Wallie smelling like the yard, and Adalyn smelling like sunscreen and grass and the baby scent that never fails to soothe. Springtime is cloth diapers waving on the clothesline, little hands handing me the next one with the explanatory ‘deh!’ for diaper.

It is the cool of the library for storytime, where fresh chubby arms and ankles are nearly edible because they’ve been hiding all winter, and where parents smile simply because it’s sunny and we don’t have to keep track of coats and hats and mittens.  Springtime is playgrounds and slides: squeaky slides, short slides, plastic slides, lightning fast slides, and those really high ones that make Daddy’s hands clammy. It is meeting new parents, and kids who have never met holding hands as they climb through a tunnel, the older ones watching out for the littlest. It is the heart palpitations every time she gets near a hole that’s big enough for a curious climber to fall through, and the constant effort to let her run on asphalt without yelling “Be careful!”

Springtime is the wonder of new plants poking up from the ground, bracing their fresh stalks for the encouraging pats given by little, wondering hands.  It is convincing Adalyn not to step on my herbs for the 500th time as she rearranges their labels in the ground.  It is for open windows, so when she hears school bus go by, she can rush to the door to watch the wheels go round and round.  It is for miniature watering cans, and shoveling pebbles into a pail for hours.

Springtime is for visits from her people, for field trips to the farmhouse, to meet new babies, to watch bulldozers and point and exclaim with glee as they roar.  It is for days to run around clad only in a diaper and dirt and a bow to hold back that forelock that will forever hang in her eyes. It is for growing, and a time to wonder, astonished at the rapidly-changing, ever-evolving child that is yours, running and jumping and laughing, pushing upwards like a flower towards the sky, knowing nothing can stop her.

Well, except maybe naptime. 







(Thanks to amazing Framed by Amanda Photography for that shot of our sidewalk art!)



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