My boys love spring.
There is something to be said about a long winter; it makes for vigorous play when the weather warms. We went for a brief walk today and Donovan couldn't go slow; he kept running, serpentine, up and down the ravine off the road. "I have so much speed in me, Mom!" he kept saying. Weston would have been right with him had he not dirtied two pairs of shoes already and now was clumbering behind in his brother's big snow boots.
This chalk whale is from Donovan's confident hand on our front stepping stones. He's quite the cartoonist these days. Tomorrow he goes back to school (alas, he sighs). Weston has loved having his best playmate around night and day. I know that sounds idyllic... it's simply true. They "get" each other and they like a lot of the same things. I think they would have played in the dirt pile all afternoon if I'd let them. Even favorite lunch foods hardly enticed them to come in and wash their hands.
I got my jeans and boots on after church and joined them in the dirt. They were creating an archeological dig for me to find buried treasures. (I kid you not... and I did not give them that idea.) So dig I did. I found many wonderful things buried under "tombstones" of rock under the earth. I found coins, toy cars, a miniature dinosaur, and a whole graveyard of twigs! They could hardly wait for me to find each treasure and half the time they kept giving me hints about where to dig. Then of course we couldn't find some of them and spent twenty minutes digging up the whole area for the last few treasures and they still can't quite remember now if we got everything. Perhaps some lucky soul 1,000 years from now will find a toy tractor and wonder which child was playing on this soil in the days of indulgent consumerism.
The community trampoline broke and Donovan lost his computer privilege so there was much more inventive fun today and that was good. I was without Dave because he was in Olds with the students doing a fundraising showcase. I hope it went well. He'll be gone all day tomorrow in Calgary as well. All I can say is I'm glad I have two days off from the show. My nose is dripping like a faucet and I am in no condition to "step on the boards" ... yet.
We lost power today for a an hour or so. Thankfully I had already been crock-potting the chicken for supper and I had made a big batch so I invited our neighbors the Andersons over for something that was still warm. It was funny because after I invited them, I got home and discovered the chicken was still a bit pink. I couldn't risk it. I sent Donovan scampering back over to cancel, but five minutes later there they were on my doorstep! [Donovan had actually told grandpa Hans, and not Vince.] Nonetheless, the power came back on and they were fine to wait for chicken to be fully cooked and even pitched in to clear the table and help prepare while the boys carried in about 30 toys for Hannah to play with. With the power back we got to add to our feast smoothies, salad, noodles, and strawberries with melted chocolate (of which I licked the bowl clean.) It was fun to hear little Hannah learning to play with sound. She'd sing into her cup and make it resonate real loud. It took me back. Samm and Vince were apologizing for the volume, but I loved it. She was really exploring her resonance; I wish some of my acting students had so much abandon!
Finally I got the boys thrown in the bath and into bed... late. With all the electric clocks blinking 88:88 after the outage, I had lost track of time with all this nightime daylight. It was after bedtime before the baths even started, but as you can see with old chocolate face Malone above, they really needed it.
So another dirty day, full of play.
A day of discovery: buried treasure, vocal resonance in a cup, and perfect timing with my cold and power outages not jeopardizing our meal, but ending in a serendipitous visit. Who could have guessed these blessing were waiting just under unfortunate circumstances?
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