A Fishy Spring

This photo does not accurately represent the sunny day average. Which in total has been 4. As in 4 days total. This picture was taken on one of those days...Notice Leo's single tear of joy.

Well, here it is, the spring we've all been gasping for and the forecast is predicting three weeks of rain. 

The vitamin D deprivation has eased into the bottom of the chart and put its feet up for a long stay. 

This morning Leo categorically refused to swallow the spoonful of vit D infused and incredibly fancy and also incredibly expensive fish oil that I have pinned all our future happiness upon. As I sat there next to him, watching the stuff gently dribble out of his mouth and pool in his lap, where no doubt the incredibly fancy and expensive oil will make an equally incredible and lasting stain, and which because of I will have to change his whole outfit, making us yet again late for school, I wondered about the fallacies of life. This oil was supposed to make it all better by golly! And yet here I am, wrestling with a protesting cub, who in his throes of displeasure as I try to squeegee his shirt off him, manages to smear more of the vile stuff all over the table and chair, and in a parting shot, my face (maybe it's good for the complexion).

Life is grand, life is good, life is ok...life is....um..

Well.

It just is.

Slightly oily with a fishy tang.

 Spring is a weird time you know?

It's the time when we pull out all of our warm weather/vacation expectations that we packed away for the winter, blow the dust off them, and slowly watch them either disintegrate in the rain, sink into the mud, or flutter away with the rest of money eating moths. After this necessary weeding out of the riff raff, only the fittest and let's face it, the most practical (in other words; boring) expectations remain.

Now we can really buckle down to the serious business of planning spring and summer.

Having children is a sure fire way to prune the expectation tree because they always steal the shears and then go pyscho with them until all that's left is one branch, a couple trailing leaves and half a root or two. Then inevitably, they will ask you to hang a swing or something on this pitiful mess and become quite heartbroken when this turns out to be impossible.

Case in point, the trampoline that my ten year old daughter insisted needed rescuing from my parent's basement storage where it has been languishing for the past several years.

One relatively fine spring day, in which the snow drifts were happily transforming into piles of soggy muck, we staged the rescue mission. While Leo was happily shaving sheep, popping balloons, and probably hacking into Putin's email on the Ipad, Nika and I broke into the basement and unearthed the trampoline. Unfortunately from that high point, the rescue had to be completed in many numerous and tedious stages. We spent pretty much the whole afternoon carrying it, piece by piece out and over to our backyard. Then, triumphantly finding the screw driver after several long and tense moments searching through out the house, all our hopes were dashed upon the belated discovery of the simple fact that though the trampoline itself made it through the move, the screws holding it together apparently did not.  Thus the saga continued...for several days. Leo was driven to distraction having to look out on the enticing pieces of trampoline scattered all over the backyard, hearing it being referred to as that *@#*ing trampoline by the adults in aggravated tones, but not being able to use it as one! By the way, he calls it the jumpaline.

Eventually the darn thing came together, and we were able to enjoy whatever space left in our backyard while the kids (on occasion the cat, and yes....me) happily jump away on the giant and let's face it, ridiculous piece of outdoor fun. Apparently it is good for your health. Kinda like the fish oil.

So there you go, expectations, like a whole other host of things, never really pan out the way you envision them. That's not to say that it is always negative outcomes that you don't expect, it's the positive ones too!

I've pruned (with enthusiastic help from my children) not just the unruly branches of my expectation tree, but pretty much the whole thing out of my psyche.  There wasn't any room for it anyway, with that trampoline you know...and I couldn't afford to keep buying that fancy and expensive detergent that I had to get to take care of the fish oil stains.