long, dark weekend

It has been too long. Have you missed me? I always wonder if I am the sort of person people miss when I'm not around.

This weekend was one of those tedious sorts of never-ending events that, um, never ended. Here it is, Tuesday night, and I feel like it was just Saturday. Or whatever day yesterday was. I think I am going to consider yesterday and today the same day, because I was up with HB ninety thousand million gajillion times in the night and wee small hours of this morning, thanks to his high fever and superpointy incisor teeth. They are so sharp and pointy, yet they refuse to pop through the gum and be actual, real, live teeth. Why is that?

I am sure part of it was the Series Of Barfing Episodes, Etc., and I will spare you the etc., and everyone's General Crankiness, and Teething, and Not Getting To Do What One Desires, but it was painful. And gross. And long. And exhausting. I'm not complaining, really, because if I was complaining, I'd be going into great detail about my deepest, darkest (and they were dark) thoughts and feelings. I'm just giving a name to the Series of Unfortunate Events that has been the past seven days.

But today. And by today, I mean after the most recent breakfast consumed in my house. Today was Glorious. It was drizzling a happy little springtime drizzle, and the big kids went out to play. MyGal's hair was a damp frame to her pink-cheeked face, and NumberOneSon's hair had gone completely curly thanks to the moisture. They chased each other up and down the sidewalk and through the mud pit that is my front yard. Silly kids, in their pajamas and puddle boots and jackets. HB eventually woke up, still feverish and sobbing, and none of the usual tricks would cheer him. I opened up the front door so he could watch the other two playing.

We breathed the smell of earth. The scent of wet, thawed-out, just-rained spring earth is heavenly. As we stood there, soaking in the first real taste of springtime we've had this year, the robins chittered happily, the breeze brushed our cheeks, and the sun was shining boldly.

And all of the blech faded away. HB couldn't even wait for shoes, he was out the door before I realized he was gone. The back yard was littered with fallen twigs, branches and snowdrops, MyGal's favorite sign of springtime. There were hundreds, maybe even thousands of them, in clumps of twenty or thirty that made little polka-dotty designs in the grass. Not all of the snowdrops survived the day. She picked bouquets for our neighbors, and I tied them with bows made of pale pink yarn.

I'd like to think I'd have appreciated today as much as I did, even without the long, dark winter that was punctuated so strongly by this long, dark weekend. But maybe not.