Pre-Spring

Right now we are in the season I like to call Pre-Spring. Depending on the weather and how fast everything melts, we may have a few days or up to a month of pre-spring. This is the time of year when the snow melts a little bit every day, the concrete and lawns become more visible and the mud starts to appear. But at night, it is cold enough that everything freezes over again, causing all kinds of fun variations on ice and puddles.

When I was little I remember this being one of my favorite seasons. When I was in kindergarten, my friend Colleen and I spent a whole week creating a small lake in her back lane by simply moving all the snow we could find in her neighbourhood into one puddle so that it melted and turned into one big sink hole. At the time it seemed enormous, although now I would guess it was maybe 8 or 10 feet across.

It is fun to introduce the boys to this season. Aaron is just excited to be outside for the first time he can remember. He points out pine cones, trees, rocks, cars, snow, fences, and houses to me. He squirms to get out of my arms and then stands there, dumbfounded by the sheer immensity of his surroundings. He demands that I come down to his level, then points at everything and says "eh" until I give it a name. Then he walks around for a little while, takes his mitts off and pokes at things, and tries to run away.

Andrew is having a lot of fun exploring all the different kinds of ice. We walk down our back lane and he kicks the snowbanks, stomps through patches of mud and smashes thin layers of ice, soaking his boots in the water below. He slips and slides over the thick, slick ice where the gutters usually are in front of our house. He cracks pieces of thin, icy-snow that melted to slush yesterday and then refroze and delights in the crunching sound his boots make. He trekks out the the sandbox and attempts to dig in the frozen sand, and examines the melting water in his plastic house. He is a scientist, examining and cataloging and experimenting with these variations on the theme of ice.