A Lift

I lay in bed at 5 a.m., cursing this early-waking habit I've taken up lately, using the time to ponder what I should write about here next ("It should be light and fun - I've been too serious of late - I'll scare people off," I told myself), and listening to the rain pitter-patter on the siding outside.  Two hours later, I groggily stumbled back to my warm bed from the couch I'd taken refuge on when I couldn't get back to sleep at 5.  Gideon was bounding through the house, clambering around our bed and peeking out the window in our room to see if Sally was getting wet in the backyard.  Several times - in the typical toddler repeat fashion - he announced that it was raining, that he could see the rain.

But he was wrong.  He wasn't seeing rain at all.

I think Jeremy enjoyed my reaction more than Gideon's to the flurries of snow tumbling down out of the gray early-dawn sky, commenting, "The little girl Amy came out to play."

Of course, though, in the end, Gideon was the one whom we got all bundled up and snapped photos of as he paraded around our snowy backyard, making "tracks" in the snow.  He was the one that got completely soaked (at least the outer layer) splashing in the puddles left by the overnight rain.  He was the one who's face was speckled with mud and hands were red-cold when he finally decided he was ready to come in.

He warmed up in front of the fire in the fireplace while we changed clothes.  He and I shared hot multi-grain cereal, sprinkled with pats of butter, brown sugar and cinnamon and he sipped his hot cocoa while I had my coffee.

The snow fell in huge flakes for two hours, but it's switched back to rain now and the inch accumulation on the car is slowly sliding off and disintegrating on the cement below.  It will all be gone by noon.

But it sure was a treat while it lasted.