Spring

Spring is coming.

I know it is coming, because this morning, there were a million dead worms sprawled across the sidewalk, chased from their homes by last night's rain, and then frozen into brown sticky worm corpses overnight.

Worm corpses smell like spring.

I know it is spring, because the little boy who walks to school with Jonathan has been wearing shorts to school. Teeth chattering, cheeks pink in the frosty morning air, he declares that he is not cold. It is warm outside. Almost hot. And he only stopped to zip his sweatshirt because his shirt was a little wet underneath. This morning I sent him home to get a jacket.

Little boys pretending it is warm enough to wear shorts reminds me of spring.

And I know it is spring, because the heads of 260 tulips, and about 20 daffodils, are beginning to break through the cold mud in the garden. Remember how I planted 260 tulips in October? They are actually coming up! Really! They are.

See?

I am going to go outside with a clipboard this weekend, and count them all. I will make sure that all 260 are accounted for, because putting all 260 of them into the ground was a giant pain.

Tulips actually growing?

Looks like spring.