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How to prepare for spring: Step 1) Let your son (who's 7) teach you yoga stretches he makes up. Start doing yoga again even if only a pose or two each day. 2) Notice the sun is shining more, the snow becoming soggy.
3) Visit the Schine Preserve. Bring two young children. Watch their feet and yours sink in the now-soft snow. Notice the names of trees ("black cherry," "Eastern pine," "pin oak"). Visit the natural playground; find it very cool especially the little tree-stump dollhouse with its straw sack on a pulley. Climb on things. Shake snow out of your boots. Dig out the log seesaw, which you find buried in the snow. Push one end with your foot and watch your 4-year-old bounce, laughing, up and down. Move on. Follow the white arrows and then the orange ones. Allow your son to take off his snow-soaked socks. Seek the quickest path back to the parking lot. Get slightly lost. Allow your son to wear one of your gloves on his right foot. Hurry along your 4-year-old who falls every two steps. Manage to not get frostbite.
4) Next day, get the bicycles out. Loosen helmet straps to make room for your earmuffs. Place your daughter on the back end of the trailer bike. Bring snacks. Begin spring training for the sport of riding/walking/pushing up steep driveways in the neighborhood in order to speed down. Take breaks to pick up baby pinecones. Splash through puddles. Stop to let your daughter sit up on a wall over a stream to eat her snack. Watch as your son throws sticks into the stream and gets too close for comfort to the water's edge. Try not to panic when your 4-year-old joins in. Manage to keep both kids from falling in the icy drink. Notice your boots are soaked. Feel cold and happy as you herd your teammates home.
Amanda Geffner is a writer and psychotherapist living in Weston. Email her at Amamike123@aol.com.
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