Spring Has Arrived

Spring has definitely sprung up around the park these past few days. It’s been snowing cherry blossoms out front and in the back the lilacs are a pungent deep purple, their new branches casting shadows over the bleeding hearts, delphiniums and lemon balm. Though there was rain there was plenty of sun as well - enough to go to the parade, enough to go to the fair and enough to watch the older boy take in his first T-ball practice of the season.

Sweetie wound up having to work Sunday evening and so left after she had seen the best hitter on the team smack the hell out of the ball, and star first baseman gobbled up everything thrown his way. Imagine our surprise to discover that not only were they the same kid, a handsome blond haired blue eyed boy of six, but that he belonged to us! Ike came with and enjoyed the errant throws and kids playing in that powdery field dust, laughing most of the time, or sucking in his breath that the wind had tried to take away or after the sun got in his eyes.

After practice the boys and I went shopping where uncharacteristically Ike pitched a fit. I don’t know what I’m gonna do if Ike decides to stop liking the store. It’s always been an oasis for me, knowing that if all else fails I can pack him up crying, put him in the van and head out to the super market, where before your very eye’s, he turns from an inconsolable boy of four, into the loving Buddha what we’ve all come to know and love so well.

He cried the whole time we were there. The older boy pushed the cart and I pushed Ike and though other people might have thrown in the towel early on a shopping experience like that, it was the only time I had to get it done and so we were staying until everything on my list got put into the basket. I’m not sure, but I got a sneaking suspicion that Ike wanted to be the one to push the cart. Later on that night Sweetie said he did the same thing to her last time she went with the older boy. Most of the time when we shop, I put a hand-basket on his chair up behind his head, where it fits perfectly between the handles and the back of his headrest. I wonder if he’s always seen it as his job to carry the groceries and didn’t like watching his older brother take his job away. Well as soon as we get his new chair, I’m gonna get one of those wheelchair shopping cart thingies and attach it to the front some how – screw the basket, let’s see what he thinks about being the one in charge of an entire shopping cart.

Since the weather was still looking decent by the time we got home I decided to start the coals and cook a little pork tenderloin for dinner. Ike was watching a video and the older boy was playing with a friend, and I got under the mistaken impression that while the coals were heating up I could put groceries away and get started on dinner. Five minutes later I’m rushing about the back yard digging the garden umbrella out from under the single-wide, and realizing that with the stand being broken, I was going to have to stand their like an idiot watching the rain coming down in sheets and hoping that it would slow down long enough to get a little grilling in and get dinner on the table.

It did, I did and I even was able to get the older boy into the bath, wash his hair before bed, make his lunch and give Ike his medicine before I turned in myself, all tired and worn. Sweetie got home right before I drifted off to sleep and we talked about the Cherry Blossom Festival load-out, sugar-free raspberry Jell-O and four-year-old shopping cart etiquette theory.

This morning the cherry blossoms, wet with rain, are stuck to the dirt road in the same spiral patterns as when they were still dancing in the wind, all swept up in the drifts and eddies of an early spring breeze.

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