Trying to capture the essence of the movement to reconnect kids and nature—much less your book offering guidance and ideas for doing so—in a mere two minutes is no small feat.
I've fallen a bit behind lately; it's been more than three weeks since my last post here.
Not coincidentally, it's also been just over three weeks since we brought home Charlie, the little ball of energy and fur who's been filling our days with the highs and lows of puppihood.
This past weekend brought more snow—a surprise in that the inch or so in the forecast ended up as nearly five inches of light, fluffy powder. Here's Charlie, now eleven weeks old, exploring his first snowfall:
And here's a look at Charlie and The Bean, getting ready to romp in the snow together:
And, ever resourceful, Thoreau came up with a good use for the cardbox box in which Charlie's crate was packaged—a surprisingly efficient homemade sled. (That's my boy!)
Talk about impeccable timing. Winter break for Thoreau and The Bean began with the end of the school day on Friday, December 18th. And, just a few hours later, the first of the snowflakes began to fall. And fall.
By the time we turned in for the night, our neighborhood was already feathered in white. By the time we woke up Saturday morning, it was an alien world cloaked in at least a foot of snow. And at the time this photo of our backyard and patio was taken, there were several more inches yet to fall. Our best guess at the final total was somewhere around 16 inches—maybe more.
Three-quarters of the way through the snowfallIt was almost too much of a good thing. The Bean, confronted with snowdrifts nearly up to her waist, could barely navigate the stuff—but was having the time of her life, nonetheless.
Shoveling the driveway took place in several passes over two days, but once I'd created a large enough pile, Thoreau had fun tunneling through it, as you can see here:
When we arrived in southeastern Maine for the week between Christmas and the New Year, it was strange to find it green, having grown accustomed to the white blanket of snow back home. But on New Year's Eve, it did snow—giving us a postcard-perfect glimpse of Green Acre as we left Maine and headed to Pennsylvania to ring in the New Year with my mother, brother and sister-in-law.
And while it was only a couple of inches, fresh snow greeted us there, too. On New Year's Day, The Bean set to work on the red-nosed reindeer, seen here:
Meanwhile, Thoreau and Gabby were hard at work building a snow fort from giant snowballs—and demonstrating just why kids sleep so well after a day spent playing in the snow:
The snow was all but gone when we finally returned home, but Thoreau discovered a bit of it preserved in this unique find—a "snow fossil" etched into the underside of his sled:
Of course, this winter wonderland was surpassed by the even bigger snow that fell in early February 2010, somewhere between 30 and 36 inches when all was said and done!
I'm always making peace with the fact that in parenting, "perfect" isn't a realistic option, no matter how well-intentioned we may be.
Let's face it; there are plenty of days when "pretty good"—should we manage to reach that lofty summit—passes for a rousing success. And sometimes, in our household filled with two spirited siblings, we most readily achieve the station of "big happy family" by splitting up. One child and one parent, two separate activities.
Choose your tongue-in-cheek euphemism: Man-to-man defense. Divide and conquer. Lord of the Flies. I prefer the kinder, gentler vernacular of the Parent Encouragement Program: Special Time.
Call it what you will, when used judiciously it's a surefire way to defuse sibling rivalry and strengthen parent-child bonds at the same time.
So it happened that our family recently had such "special time" outings on successive Sundays, Bliss and I alternating afternoons with Thoreau and The Bean. And it also happened that I took both of them to the same place—Great Falls Park. It's an incredible sight, where the Potomac narrows and falls spectacularly just a few miles upstream of Washington, DC.
The Bean, as you can see, was especially fascinated by the kayakers challenging the rapids below:
And Thoreau loved the view from atop the rocks above the river, spotting vultures and ospreys and other assorted migrating birds:
But here's the wonderful thing: they both made the day completely, unselfishly, their own. And, seeing it through their eyes, I got to see it all for the first time again—and twice, at that.
It had all the makings of a lazy Sunday, this first day to catch our breath after slipping back into the stream of school days, homework, ballet classes and soccer games—a stream whose currents can be unexpectedly strong, carrying you through days, even weeks, before you realize it.
But this afternoon we decided to get out and get moving—just, perhaps, not too quickly. Thoreau and I walked to the wooded park less than a mile from our door and enjoyed a quiet hike along the stream there, seeing ducks and deer, sunfish and water striders.
And, best of all, we took some time away from all that doing just to enjoy being.
One last hurrah for a summer filled with tide pools and fireflies that faded all too fast.
In which Thoreau and I discover great clusters of fall webworms on the sweetgum tree behind our house...
Add this to the gathering signs—such as the first woolly bear of the season, found this past weekend—that fall soon will be upon us:
Neither Thoreau nor I know exactly how fall webworms manage to synchronize their herky-jerky motions in this way—but, as you can see, he is quite fascinated by it. (And, as you can't see, so am I!)
Who knows? Maybe he'll be the next David Attenborough, one day...
Sunday, March 14, 2010 at 3:49PM 
