April Snow

"It's snowing, Mum - LOOK!" she says with all the awe of her very first snowfall. I am having more trouble getting excited about this unexpected spring bounty. When spring officially arrived, we were off in Florida - and Isabelle seems to have taken the notions about seasonal weather patterns as hard rules. This means that in winter, it is cold and it snows. In spring, it is sunny and a bit warm and there are flowers. In summer, it is hot and we swim. In fall, it is cool and the leaves fall off the trees. And all the myriad parts of nature obey our calendar exactly.
But having some 30-odd Toronto Aprils under my belt, I know that there's always at least one good snowfall in April. My birthday is at the end of the month (32 this year for anyone wondering how odd odd is) and I can recall there being snow on the ground - and not just way back when we walked to school for 5 miles uphill both ways.
To be 5 again. To think that the world is governed by absolute rules. I remember being quite unnerved when Trudeau was replaced by Mulroney. We weren't a particularly politically active family, but my mom had a place in her heart for the dapper intellectual who could cut a rug and it was a fairly big deal. I thought Prime Ministers were like kings and ruled until they died - age has taught me that we are very lucky that my five year old vision of absolute monarchy was wrong. Fresh blood is a good thing - a notion that's probably lost on a five year old to whom everything is fresh.
Back to the snow - it's pretty really. And fun. And telling - in the summer, I'd never be able to see the bird prints that hopped across the front porch, then down the steps and around the house, eating up the goldfish crakers crumbs we trailed in yesterday or the squirrel prints leading suspiciously up to my empty bird feeder. Hey, if it's going to be cold, I'd rather have snow to entertain us.