The little flowers have sprung and Lake Erie has thawed. I've put away the winter coats and gloves and got out the summer shoes, particularly crocs for Jude. Brian's started cleaning and organizing the garage. The boys are playing outside more in the early evening light. It is so wonderful to air out the house and spend time outdoors again.
On Saturday, I decided to take the boys on a walk to our neighborhood beach. What I hadn't realized was that they had just recently paved the road (which badly needed it). This meant that Jude on his little blue car and Tam on his bigwheel bike are REALLY Fast now with no potholes to slow them down. I had a wicked hard time keeping up with them...I need to get skates or a bike :-)
At the beach, the water was as smooth as glass. Peaceful. I got a good many skips with rocks thrown across its surface. It was so awesome to see the water moving again and not frozen with ice and snow. Both boys asked to go in the water immediately. I conceded to letting them take off their shoes and socks. I thought the water was still pretty bloody cold, but the boys stuck feet in with tremendous joy.
We brought just a couple of little shovels and castle-shaped buckets so that the boys could make their first sand-castles of the year. Jude is old enough now to understand how to make castles on his own with the wet sand. Tam was having fun making piles and then stomping on them or slicing them with sticks claiming he was a ninja. Here's Tamlin smiling proud over his first sandcastle of the season :-)
Jude tired of the castle project and decided to clamor out on the break-wall. He's grown so much in confidence and with his long legs. I let him walk out all by himself (but under my watchful eye and I my readiness to jump in after him). My baby is growing up! Swimming lessons will be a must this year.
While playing, friends came down to the beach too. They have a daughter the same age as Tamlin and a son the same age as Jude. We see them frequently at neighborhood gatherings. All the kids play well together, especially now that the littler ones are older. Their mom and stood around talking about the kids and school. We both can't believe how quickly the year has gone by and that our kiddos will be first graders soon. Then, I hear
SPLASH.
Yep.
Tamlin has decided it was warm enough to go wading in the water. Within moments, he has waded out to his "rock", which means he was in the water up to his armpits.
"It's not cold, momma!" he yells through chattering teeth.
Then...
SPLASH.
Jude's in the water too. He stays close to shore, only about waist deep. Sigh. If they weren't so gloriously happy to be swimming, I would have been more upset. Luckily, I had brought sweatshirts, so when they were done getting wet, I whipped off the soaked shirts and had something dry for them to wear home.
As we were drying off, soaking in the setting sun, we go to see another neighbor zooming around overhead.He has a lawn chair, with a fan on the back and a parachute overhead. He was zipping back and forth and doing barrel-rolls. We all had fun waving as he came down low over the beach.
Smiles for everyone.
The ride back-home was a bit slower, as the boys were so much more tired.
They slept well that night.
And my heart was happy.
