Emmy Lou's Adventures: Heralding the Spring

Today Emmeline had her first ride in a swing and we went for a long walk at Bellevue Park outside with our Birth Center friends. It was a balmy 67 degrees though it was overcast. Before today we have been walking in the two locals mall since it turned chilly in October/November. It was so refreshing to be out of doors for an extended amount of time. It was a tease, though, because it is supposed to stay rainy and chilly for the next several days. It is currently raining and we have a flood watch in affect (sigh).
I love the smell of spring: the fresh, wet mud, the slightly warmer air that carries on it a scent of budding flowers and trees, damp tree bark. These smells always bring me back to my childhood on the prairie. I am reminded of chilly Easter egg hunts, melting ice in the ditches, muddy shoes and discovering toys once long lost in the winter snow. The spring is beautiful in the Mid-Atlantic states, too. The UD campus has loads of magnolia trees that blossom in late March-early April. Our neighborhood has the most beautiful trees; though I do not know what they are called, they look like a cross between cherry blossoms and magnolia blossoms. The trees bloom for several weeks and then when they are good and ripe, the wind shakes them just right and the petals rain down to the street. It makes me think of the scene from Memoirs of a Geshia when Sayurie goes into the country to see the blooming trees. The petals float all around her like hundreds of tiny pink butterflies. When we first saw our house it was in the spring and these blossoms made the house all the more desirable. I can't wait to show Emmeline the blossoms, the birds, the flowers, the greenness of things... it is such a romantic, refreshing and hopeful season. No matter how harsh, gloomy or depressing the winter months have been, the promise of warm spring days and blooming nature is always around the corner.