Welcome, Spring!

It may be snowy in the mountains, but in Zürich today was a day to fling open the doors.  I think the temperature must have been 55 at least.  And where I come from, (Cleveland, Ohio) that's called shorts weather.

The trees have been blooming these last couple of weeks, especially the cherries. The snowdrops have been out for ages, and the daffodils are up now, too.  And now the lawns are blooming: I love the approach to landscaping they have here.  It's siimilar to my mother's, who planted crocus bulbs throughout our back yard so that, in spring, the lawn would be speckled with pretty flowers until it was finally dry enough to mow.  They've done that here, as well, and they've also added primroses of every color.  I can't tell you how much I enjoy my morning walks around the neighborhood.

Ella came home effervescent: her new English-speaking classmate started school today, and this was how Ella told me the news: "Guess what her name is? Ella! And guess what hairstyle she has? Braids!" (Ella's taken to wearing her hair in two long braids as well.) "And guess what hair color she has? Blond! And she lives in a big white rectangular apartment, too, and she doesn't have any pets, either!"  We noticed a new family moving in two buildings over.  I think Ella's new buddy might be a close neighbor as well, which will certainly make this summer more fun for her.  Now that there are two Ellas in the classroom, my Ella has become "Elizabeth" (her given name) full time. But Ella was happy to sacrifice her nickname in exchange for a friend.

Ella's tea party. Animals were invited and arrived in costume.  Back-up
(to Ella's right) now has a robot costume, and Jane is an airplane pilot.

After lunch, the kids got to decorate some cookies--we've had the dough in the fridge for a week, waiting for a free hour, but life, for some reason, is busy.  The three had a great time: I was amused when Joey sidled up the the table with Ella and Alex and dove right in, carefully and quietly positioning his chocolate chips.

The cookies were to be for a tea party that Ella's had set up in her room in anticipation for that same week.  The boys were treated to a nano puppet show, cookies, and a little tea cup filled, no, not with tea, but with candy from yesterday's parade.  That's ever so much better.

Stuffed with sugar, the kids started running around the house with a playground ball, playing what Ella called football.  But she's never watched a football game in her life, so her running commentary was a little off. They were being so funny that I stopped doing the dishes and typed as they were playing:

"Alex has the ball! He runs with it! But Ella steals it! But Alex has a secret weapon: a temper tantrum! But Ella fumbles, she fumbles! And Alex gets the ball! He runs with it! It's 3 to 2, Alex's favor! I love football! He's going to shoot! Wait, but Ella puts up her pillow shield! And Ella gets the ball! She shoots! She scoooooooores!"

Clearly it was time to take them outside.

A couple of days ago, Ella discovered that she could climb out our windows by vaulting over the railings, and she's taught Alex her trick. That added tang of sneaking over fences makes the great outside all the more fun. But then there's poor Joey, who stands at the railing, looking piteously at me: "Up? Up?"

We took the stairs, but joined the kids outside, where football morphed into some sort of superhero chase game involving painstakingly chalked rocks, pausing now and again to say hi to Alex's classmates as they wandered by, out walking with their mothers.

Springtime, I'm so glad you're here.

Alex and Ella, decorating rocks with little Me Too.