This morning I woke up to snow on the ground. It's winter in the new house! Fall has swept through, stripping bare the trees that seemed to comprise a vast and secret forest behind our home, revealing tops of townhouses over the bluffs. Now the earth is wrapped in its clean white blanket and the trees sparkle with magical bedazzlement.
At two and a half years old I wondered whether Natalie would even remember this white stuff. I needn't have worried. As soon as she woke up, Natalie ran to the window and started shouting. "Snow! It's rainin'. It's a beach? Come on come on 'et's p'ay inna SNOW!"
She was excited about each item of winter clothing I draped on or pulled her into, and the excitement lasted until we got outside. "I can't walk," she announced, so I carried her. Then she got fibers from the scarf in her mouth. A couple of minutes later, when I was about halfway through building a snowman, she was cold and wet enough that it was time to go back inside.
"We've got six more months of this, kiddo," I said. "Might as well get used to it now."