April Showers

It has been raining all week. I must admit that normally a rainy week puts me in a funk. However, being that this is the first real rain of the spring season, I am reveling in it. The rain has suddenly made the entire world explode in varying shades of green. There is a certain shade of green...the hue of brand new leaves just beginning to bud on trees...that cannot be seen at any other time in any other place than early spring. It's a gorgeous, perfect, light shade of green that seemingly makes trees glisten. I think it is my very favorite color in the entire world. Seeing that color in the spring seems to somehow make the long, cold, dark winter a tiny bit more bearable.

Yesterday, as I pulled up in front of my house and got out of my car after a day at work, Sophie and Nicholas both began excitedly screaming at me. "Momma! Momma! Come here! You have to see! You have to see!" I followed them to the side of the house to find that the rain had caused our tulips to open. The tulips that had just begun sprouting a week ago were fully open and reaching toward the skies. Having a touch of Alzheimer's (I am convinced), I could not remember what color tulips I had planted last year. All week, the kids and I debated what color the tulips would be when they opened. I was delighted to find tall, proud, regal red tulips in the my yard. I believe that I also planted yellow ones (maybe?), but those have yet to open. I can't wait to see how excited the kids are when the other tulips decide to bloom.

In addition to the trees and flowers, my children discovered another joy of spring yesterday. After it had rained all day, the skies began to clear up briefly right as we were leaving my mom's house to head home. In her driveway, the kids spotted a long worm slowly making its way back to the grass. Immediately the kids stopped in their tracks, fascinated by the worm. All three crouched down in a little huddle to watch the worm wriggling its way toward the lawn. I explained to them that you will often see worms on the sidewalk following a rain storm....though I couldn't explain why. The kids were mesmerized. I felt a little guilty forcing them to part with the worm and climb into the van. I remember the days...years and years ago...when a worm could hold my attention. It thrills me that my children are able to find beauty and wonder in nature...in the small things that so many of us would never notice. After my post yesterday about my technology-obsessed children, I was filled with an overwhelming sense of relief and sheer joy seeing three little dirty-blonde heads crouching over a worm in the wet driveway. Ah....another one of the bizarre and completely unexpected things that fill me with delight as a parent. Weird, I know.