Odds and Ends

The weatherman and the calendar say the spring is coming, and I'm choosing to believe them. Sure it's moving as slow as molasses in January, but I'm beginning to see and hear the signs. The cardinals are singing, the air has that sort of bad rotten smell mixed with hopeful fresh smell, and joy of joys, the first green shoots of tulips are beginning to push up through the dirt (partially covered with snow).

Lately, Lucy seems to take these jumps in maturity, and I swear, it happens overnight. Some mornings I'll go into her room to get her up (on the rare mornings that happens. Usually mornings begin with me scrunched under the covers. Then I hear a "Thump. Thump thump thump thump thump. >door open< >another door open<>Hands on my face.< "Mom. It's not night anymore, I promise. It's light out. It's morning. It's time to get up. Can I watch TV? Also, I'm hungry. Can I have breakfast?") But. On the mornings I do get her up, sometimes it seems as though she's grown in the night, not necessarily physically, though that too, but it's like she went to sleep saying, "Baa baa black sheep" and woke up discussing the gross national product of Great Britain.

Yesterday was the first nice day really. In the afternoon we decided to go for a walk. Despite the mud everywhere and dirty, melting snow and uncovered garbage littering the walks, it was heaven. Lucy took a deep breath and said, "Mom, it smells like the WORLD out here!" She kept up a steady stream of enjoyable chatter all around, and when we got home we still didn't want to go inside, so we jumped rope out on the patio. For me, I was quite chuffed with myself that I could still even jump rope (up to 25 jumps!) and then felt like I was going to have a heart attack. Her jumping rope (excuse me, she calls it "skipping rope") consists of galumphing around, dragging the rope with her. She had on a pink shirt and some fancy flowered, flared pants I bought her ("I look just like Coco Calypso!" she said when I brought them home) and was so dear. Elaine and I sat and watched her and finally she said in a voice that sounded for all the world like a circus barker's "And now I have a treat for you kids because you've been so good. I am going to do a ballerina high jump!" She galloped around some more, doing the same stuff she'd been doing all along, but Elaine and I applauded her wildly.

And Elaine. She's a hoot. I'm so used to my serious older baby who carries the weight of the world on her shoulders, and here comes Miss Non-Stop Sunshine. Instead of just laughing at everything we do, now she tries to make us laugh. She reaches over (all of her own accord, I swear we didn't teach her this!) in the bathtub, grabs Lucy's foot, and says, "Tickle tickle tickle!" The other night I found her sitting up in her crib, her shirt pulled up, as she tickled her own tummy and said, "Tickle tickle tickle!" to herself.

Whenever I come in her room to get her, she's usually standing up, hanging on the rails of the crib, looking like some farm boy hanging over a fence. But when she sees me, she dives back down onto the mattress, curls up into a little ball, and laughs and laughs. The other morning, she was lounging in her (strap-in) rocking chair in the hall while I got ready in the bathroom. I could hear her fiddling around with a can of formula that was sitting on the floor (and that's all I need, to clean sticky white powder up from hardwood floors). So I said, "Elaine Frances, stop that." Abruptly the noise stopped, and then she began to cry (I didn't even need to see her to know that she stuck her bottom lip out first). Lucy, who was standing next to me, said with exaggerated patience, "Elaine, you really need to learn self-control."

So, these are my girls these days, spring is coming, we're happy and laughing (for the most part), and they're sprouting up faster than those tulips in the front yard.