Spring Days

As we spent part of our Earth Day inside making Earth necklaces, my friend says to me, "You would think that they would have made Earth Day in May instead of April so that it would be more likely to be a warm, sunny day than a cool rainy one." So true. We have had our share of pleasant, cool Spring days; a few insanely hot days and many rainy days.

I find that this time of year my mood is so affected by the weather. After so much time spent indoors with the kids all winter, I want to spend every day outside smelling the flowers, planting, catching snails and exploring.

Our days outside are spent going to natural areas, playgrounds, a lot of time in the backyard making huge messes (the kiddie pool was brought out last week when it reached 90 degrees) and riding bikes and trikes at the nearby schoolyard. It truly all seems so exciting because we haven't done much of it in months. I keep wondering if Spring Fever only refers to how crazy people have gotten historically waiting for Spring to arrive (or is that Cabin Fever) or how ecstatic people become when they can finally live outside again.

On rainy days, we have to be more creative and thanks to the Universe for our friends so we all have companionship on days spent inside. Miranda can entertain herself endlessly with dressing up which usually involves shoes, a hat of some variety and a "pretty" dress put on over her clothes. She is also dabbling in the chest of dress up clothes and runs around in a cape saying "Miranda superman." Since we started potty training, the dress up activities also involve underwear and pull-ups and did I mention that she likes to change her socks about five times a day and requests to change all of her clothes after she poops. I am sure you can understand why I want sunny days to be able take them outside...















Today was a rainy day and we spent the morning running errands and having a "play-doh" lunch with a friend.

In the afternoon, Jove and I did an invisible ink activity that I remember doing with my mom (thanks, mom!!).


I must have been older because I remember it so vividly, holding my invisible message up to one of our living room lamps waiting for my message to appear. Jove painted a mystery word in lime juice to mail to his friend and painted some dinosaurs and other pictures.












Miranda discovered my stash of new paintbrushes that we got at the craft store and she wanted to paint. Out of clean-up avoidance, I set her up to paint with water on the blackboard side our easel. She loves painting with water and did it a lot last year outside on the back patio and sidewalk. It is really a perfect way to allow them to paint more often without the set-up and clean-up of water colors or acrylics. She pointed to her work and said "nighttime."