Princess For a Day (Kind-of)...

This year the cold weather will not defeat me. I am determined, if not slightly crazed!
Waking up, it was cold and windy, but as an eternal optimist I convinced myself that the sun would prevail! My son said that he wanted to make a book that would tell other animal scientists what kind of leaves there were. I've heard people rave about Wells Reserve at Laudholm and thought it might be a great place to collect leaves, so we were off.  Upon entering the reserve, I was knocked down (yes, to the ground, bruise on my head, pathetically crying!) by my car door after an angry, strong gush of wind.  As my son was kissing my head to make my "boo-boo" go away, I almost retreated to the warmth of the car and contemplated using the "injury" (insert lots of drama here!) to go home and nap.  My son told me that my boo-boo was gone and that he had turned me into a princess.  How could I break his heart and say we had to leave because his kisses didn't work?  I'm a sucker for the magic of sweetness and love and so I persevered. 

From that point on, my son called me Princess Mommy for the day.  We decided to walk the Knight Trail and along the way we collected maple, oak, and birch leaves to use for our leaf identification book.  We observed many different kinds of seeds, heard quiet footsteps crashing through the woods, watched the squirrels scurrying around collecting acorns in their cheeks, looked for dragons camouflaged and hiding, used our magnifying glass to investigate mosses, ferns, and mushrooms, and raised our binoculars to take a closer look at the birds flying overhead.  As the trail turned into the Barrier Beach Trail, there was a large clearing that we decided to stop and have a picnic in.  After eating, we laid down, held hands, and became observers of the sky above.  With all of the wind, my 3 1/2 year old son was able to see how clouds moved throughout the sky and watched the white swirling within itself as they changed shape.  He suggested that it was fairies who liked to blow the clouds around so that they could make pictures.  Within the 20 minutes, we watched dark clouds quickly get replaced by lighter ones and felt the temperature changes that came with each.  Whenever the wind would really pick up we watched as the leaves fell down upon us and tried to catch as many as we could.  Dylan noticed that the seeds we had been observing earlier were now flying through the air, swirling down in spirals and he wanted to know why.  I closed my eyes and was thankful for these moments of peace, calm, and connectedness with my son, with the world. 

When we reached the Barrier Beach Trail we followed it down to the beach. Dylan (who apparently received my crazy gene) ripped off his sneakers and socks and ran down to the newly formed tidal pools left by low tide.  He found a few crabs, a starfish, many types of shells, and tried to layer flat rocks upon each other so that the ocean didn't "take" the water in the tidal pool away.  He was absorbed in a special place of mystery and was completely oblivious to the cold.  Dylan proudly presented me, the princess, with a large shell filled with sand, sea weed, and 2 dead crabs.  Do real princesses get dead crabs? 

Following the Laird-Norton Trail back to the Visitors Center was an easy walk and we were protected from the wind.  Dylan went off the trail and got his feet soaked.  "Oh man, it must be all that green stuff that made it so wet.  It's everywhere.  See it, Mommy Princess?"  What he was describing was all of the moss and I am confident that for years to come he will remember that moss means wet!  Wet feet and all we were smiling and happy.  All around us the air was fresh, the leaves fell like confetti from the sky, and we were alone to laugh, hold hands, sing, and wonder.  My mind was no longer racing with all that I had been worried about earlier that day, my son was engaged pretending to be an animal scientist, and I was completely present in the moment.  It's the little moments that matter when you allow them to.  It's nearly impossible to press stop on time, but that doesn't mean we can't and shouldn't press pause every now and then.  In the words of Ferris Bueller, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."  As if life as a princess couldn't get any better, Dylan said that we should stop and get ice cream on the way home because "That's what princesses like to eat.  And their little boys do to."  (Clearly, he isn't abiding by the "when you are wearing 3 layers and still freezing, with wet feet,  ice cream is out of the question rule....)

For more information on Wells Reserve at Laudholm, check out:
http://www.wellsreserve.org/
Happy Travels!