PICNIC SEASON IS THE BEST SEASON.

Spring is a strange season. I feel like anywhere you live, you can never nail it down. Spring weather is never consistent. It's blustery and rainy, and that's Spring. It's borderline Winter, but everyone is too stubborn to let their Spring expectations go so they just carry their coats begrudgingly, refusing to actually wear them and hiding their shivers, and that's Spring. It's overcast all day, but not a drop of rain has fallen from the sky, and that's Spring. But on this day, Thursday, it was the perfect Spring. It was what you expect Spring to be. It was the reason people live through Winter kind of Spring. The more seasons that I encounter, the more I learn to appreciate things about each season and the more I'm convinced that it's all about perspective. The only season I might never make peace with is Winter. The wool socks and hot chocolate and fluffy coats and snow and rest is all nice until Christmas, then I'm ready to go outside again and there's still three months left of crap weather. Anyway, perspective - I was a little disappointed this year when 'Spring' came around, yet it didn't feel like Spring at all. Blossoms were swirling and tulips were blooming and trees were budding, but the skies were gray and the wind was blustery. So I just decided to let Spring off the hook and tell her she could be whoever she wants to be, I won't judge, and that has made all the difference. I wake up without expectations, dress for the weather, and head outside no matter what. It's made for some interesting moments like getting caught in a downpour and sling-shotting my kid out of her stroller onto the sidewalk, but Spring and I, we're learning to love each other unconditionally.

Any day that involves sitting in the shade and doing absolutely nothing important is a good one in my book, and that's exactly what we did. I'm also convinced that food tastes better outside - we packed up some tuna salad pitas, half of a watermelon, and grape chia kombucha and polished it all off in twenty minutes. I've had plans to buy some swanky picnic gear to make our picnic outings feel like something out of a Disney movie, but it's bills or swanky picnic gear, so bills, I guess. I always seem to get in a funk when the seasons change, but I'm feeling surprisingly optimistic and inspired these days with a little touch of 'There's not enough time in the day.' Something about Spring just makes me want to write pages of goals, goals I didn't even knew I had!

Don't worry - I'm getting to the point here. We went on a picnic and as we were picnicking a preschool class marched by singing songs. If you missed my post on Instagram, Evie has an affinity for preschool kids and would probably give up the last two years of breastfeeding to be a preschool kid. Anytime a preschool class shows up to the playground, she freezes then chuckles to herself and says 'heyyyy!,' and anytime they leave, she collapses onto the ground ugly crying. So I thought our picnic would go South after she saw these kids marching and singing and couldn't go along, then their teacher asked them to stop and say 'hi!' and they all did with synchronized waves and it made her entire life worth living. Her face lit up, and if that wasn't enough of a high, I taught her how to make a wish on a dandelion and she looked at me like I had been hiding chocolate from her this entire time, her entire life or something. She blew and blew and blew all the dandelions she could find, wishing for a bike or a 'stooter' each time, then we both ran through the soccer fields with our arms outstretched with Ev yelling 'We're buh-dees, Mama! You do it wif me, Mama!' She would give me the stink eye anytime I would try to put my arms down to pick my camera up and get a shot of her. Some days this stay at home business is hard and I have to try really hard to find the joy in it, but on this day it was obvious. I wouldn't want to be doing any other job all day.

Happy jelly-shoes weather, friends!
Pack up a picnic and find yourselves a patch of shade this week!