In Which Connor Plays Hard And Eden Sees The Seasons

The kids both had pretty good days today; I used my respite care time to take Eden out for a little mother-daughter time while Connor enjoyed listening to music and playing on his rocking horse at home.  He was pretty tuckered out by the end of the day and went down quickly, which I'm happy about.  The quad rugby game tomorrow might be loud, and he always has fewer sensory issues in regards to loud noises if he's well rested.

Recently I made a questionable parenting decision and introduced Eden to donuts, and she has now decided that they are her new favorite treat.  So we went out and ate donuts at four in the afternoon, because hey, any time is a good time for donuts.  Then we did a bit of shopping and headed home.

I finally took down the pine wreath on our door today and started decorating for spring; even though we've still got nearly a month until the season is here it's really starting to feel like it's coming up soon!  Eden's been noticing all the bulbs pushing up in the garden-- last year she was too overwhelmed to really notice the changing season.  

In Thailand they have three seasons: hot and wet, hot and dry, and slightly cooler.  And by 'slightly  cooler,' I mean only ninety degrees.  So the whole concept of the seasons changing is pretty fascinating for her.  She also lived in a pretty urban area before she joined our family, and I don't think she had a lot of opportunities to notice things like new growth on plants or the habits of local wildlife because there was very little of that.  

She's getting to know our local hummingbird, Gus, very well because he's always more demanding in the winter time.  Today when Eden and I left the house, Gus was sitting on the top of our dwarf Japanese maple only inches from our front walk.  He was all puffed up and looked extremely put out that his feeder had run low.  We all eyed each other for a bit while he scolded us, and then he flew up to the top of a cherry tree and let us pass.  There are no hummingbirds in Thailand, so Eden thinks he's pretty amazing.  I'm so glad I get to share this sort of thing with her!

But close encounters with hummingbirds aside, my girl is thoroughly tired of winter by this point and has announced that fall is her favorite season so far because it's "a little bit hot, but not a lot hot."  

We'll see what she thinks of spring this time around!

~Jess