Seasons

This is the time of year when the ducklings start thinking I am mean.

"Go outside and play," I say.

"It's too cold," they whine.

"Put on your coat and boots," I say.

"It's too hard/I can't find them/they hurt my feet/Noooooo!" they whine.

In vain do I point out that the sun is actually shining briefly or at least that it's not pouring down rain. In vain do I warn that stormy days are coming and we will all be crawling the walls with cabin fever. Summer is fresh in their minds and winter is far away. And compared to summer, the weather is lousy.

Dash finally got his boots on and went out one day only to come back in and ask me to fill the wading pool.

"I wanna fish!" he said.

"You can't play in water, it's too cold," I said. "Just pretend and fish in the grass."

"Fish don't live in the grass. Fish live in the water."

"You can't play in water. It's too cold. Pretend you're hunting deer. Deer live in the grass."

"No, I want to fish."

"You can't play in water, it's too cold."

(drastic condensation of conversation to conserve bandwidth)

Finally he wailed, "Why is it so cold every day now?"

I guess it is too much to remember that fall follows summer and winter follows fall when you've only seen it happen three times. And therefore equally hard to remember that spring follows winter. Sometimes it's hard to remember when you've seen it thirty-three times.

But mostly I remember, and I go and put my boots and jacket on and walk in the drizzle, because I know winter is coming.