Symphonic Metamorphosis

Signs of Spring in Minnesota--at least at the Kotrba's house:

• Trip to SAM's club for world's largest box of band-aids
• Cats lose fur by the hand-fulls
• Mosquitos and ticks
• Little ferns that come up in sidewalk cracks get surgically transplanted to the woods
• Every load of laundry is "extra soil" and "extended wash"
• If you leave garden tools in the yard you can lose them under the snow the next day

We had the all-American family weekend.  Family outing Friday night to the Mall of America--anyplace where Mom and Dad can get a decent glass of wine and the kids can go on a roller-coaster is worth visiting a couple times a year.  Calvin was beside himself at the Apple store.  Swimming lessons and yard-work on Saturday.  We grilled hamburgers and Maggie stopped by for a surprise visit just as Bill was taking them off the grill, she must have smelled them.  

In a post-Easter rebellion, Sunday morning I went to the church of sleeping late and puttering in the garden.  Chocolate chip pancakes for lunch.  Bill left for California last night, ensuring that it would be snowing by this morning.  

Mary made friends with a butterfly outside this weekend.  She named her Sue.  Sue kept coming back to visit even after a couple catch and release sessions.  Might have something to do with Mary wearing pink?  Calvin went on to burst her bubble by suggesting that there might be more than one Sue. . . but watching her sing and play and jump from rock to rock reminded me of when I was seven years old and had butterfly friends too.  

I've been thinking about how these next two months are the last days that Calvin and Mary will be at the same school.  After this they will always be at different schools.  They just grow up.  

I heard Paul Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphosis while I was tackling the laundry this morning.  Seems like yesterday I was playing the French horn part in High School.  That is an awesome horn part and I had a little tender moment about that but it passed very quickly.  A  bunch of my students are college shopping and that too seems like a moment ago.  Next thing it will be Calvin and Mary.

Rainy days and Mondays. . . . I'm gonna give the kids an extra hug and an extra cookie after school.