It's spring!

Well, it feels like it, anyway. The daffodils are out, the dogwoods are in bloom, the air is slightly warm...it feels as if we've left our very mild winter behind. My worry is, what's going to happen when April and May come around? Will we have a second spring or will it already be summer?

I took Rachel to the park yesterday while Drew went grocery shopping. Doug and Linda came up and generously gave us a revolving egg-shaped chair with a hood that the boys had liked when they were Rachel's age. She loved twirling around in it and pulling the hood over herself to hide. We're looking forward to the day she tries to hide while reading a book and doesn't want to deal with Mommy and Daddy.

I was pretty tired. Between watching the Winter Olympics and recovering from the intense stress of worrying about whether I'd lose my job during last week's layoffs (I didn't, and I feel extremely lucky but sad for the folks I knew who did) I haven't gotten much sleep. So instead of accompanying Rachel up and down the slide, I just watched her as she wandered off to the ramp of the play structure at Laurelhurst Park, climbed the stairs to the slide and slid down, all by herself! She did this over and over and over. I loved watching her, although I also remarked to Linda that it was nice to be able to have a grownup conversation while our kids horsed around.