Warm days

Here in Washington we've had a very slow starting Spring.  Every week we'll have one or two decent days, then back to cold and rainy.   Two weekends ago I took Dade to the Beach, which turned into less relaxing and more wrestling him away from other peoples things.  First it was a shovel (even though I brought one with us), then a ball, then another ball, then a stroller.   He also at one point wanted to run into the water.    Next time we'll go on a less crowded day.   But that does explain why the only pictures I really got were when we first got there and he was content to sit and dig with his own shovel. 



The next weekend Michael went with us to a park where Dade loves to swing, and again play in the sand. I really don't understand why playground sand seems so much dirtier than beach sand.

The weather is very tricky.  Right now it's looks really nice outside, but it's still jacket weather with the cold wind.   We might go out to play later.

a good mother

"Everybody know that a good mother gives her children a feeling of trust and stability.  She is their earth.  She is the one they can count on for the things that matter most of all.  She is their food and their bed and the extra blanket when it grows cold in the night; she is their warmth and their health and their shelter, she is the one they want to be near when they cry.  She is the only person n the whole world or in a whole lifetime who can be these things to her children.  There is no substitute for her.  Somehow even her clothes feel different to her children's hands from anybody else's clothes.  Only to touch her skirt or her collar or her sleeve makes a troubled child feel better.  And often when a child wants her this is all a mother has time to give.  She is always moving.  She has so many things to do.  She can't sit down in a chair and talk nonsense right in the middle of a busy day.  Sometimes a child has a great urge to talk what its mother calls nonsense.  Sometimes even a child's worry about death and about the beginning and the end of the universe seems like nonsense to the busy mother when she knows by taking one quick animal sniff of him that there is nothing wrong with him."

The above is a quote from The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway.    If you ever get the chance I would suggest picking up this book.  It's an autobiography of a very insightful woman.