Spring snow

I am so tired of snow. I know, I know, it's only April. April is Boulder's 2nd snowiest month, so getting tired of snow in April is just setting oneself up for misery. But I am tired of it. Here was the view out our front door this morning:

We got about 5 inches of the fluffy stuff, but because the ground is warm (remember that sunny zoo trip, on Friday?), it barely coated the streets and sidewalks. Quite a bit piled up on the grass, but that's melting fast. This is what our backyard looks like right now:

Is that ever a springtime picture! Green grass, trees starting to leaf out -- and snow all over the stupid fitzers, which I would like to pull out anyway, but Rocket Boy won't let me. The reason the snow hasn't melted off the bushes is that the air temperature is still really cold at 1 pm, in the low 30s.

Boos were not happy about the cold this morning but seemed neutral about the snow, even somewhat pleased. They're young, they don't have a strong sense of "spring" and how warm and lovely it ought to be. Here they are eating their breakfasts this morning.

Kid A is having a bowl of Trader Joe's Fruity O's, but Kid B is eating leftover Pesto Cavatappi from Noodles. It's fine -- it's food. I don't fuss if they're at least eating food. Yesterday we got up to discover that they had eaten a pack of peppermint gum that I'd stashed. Yep, munched it all right down. I said, "What did you eat!" and they said, nonchalantly, "Candy." Me: "That was not candy! That was gum!" Boos: "Oh. Sorry." I googled "Is it dangerous to swallow gum?" and learned that the gum will just pass through the intestines -- unless something goes wrong and it causes bowel obstruction. Boos have never suffered from constipation, so I think probably all that gum will just move on through. Wonder what it will do to the pipes?

We are about halfway through April, and it is just as jam-packed with activities as I thought it would be. More t-ball this week, if the snow melts in time for tomorrow's game and if it doesn't rain/snow again on Thursday. Swim lessons are going fine. My book group meets tonight. The kids have both Good Friday and Easter Monday off, though the school district claims these are "spring conference exchange days," nothing to do with the holiday. We might take a trip on Friday. Saturday night we're going to a Rockies' baseball game, and Sunday the bunny comes.

Last week Kid A asked me if we could buy some jelly beans. I said no, the Easter Bunny would bring us some. Kid A: "But I really like jelly beans! I want some now! We could just get some from the store!" Me: "There's no point in buying them if the bunny is going to bring them to us for free." Oh, if only it were so.

We probably won't go to church on Easter, but I'll leave the question open for now. Our next-door neighbor has been pestering me again about letting her take the kids to her yucky evangelical church, so, defensively, I took us all to First Cong for Palm Sunday. There was supposed to be a procession down Pine Street before the service, complete with a live donkey, but the snow nixed that. Too cold for donkeys, I guess. Although it was billed as a "family service," we left the kids off in the kindergarten room. Kid B can sit through church if it's just him, but add his brother into the mix... The church handed out large palm fronds to everyone in the sanctuary, and Rocket Boy and I enjoyed waving ours during the service.

I felt unexpectedly moved by the (indoor) procession that opened the service, thinking of the real procession to Jerusalem made by the real, historical Jesus, 2000 years ago. Ever since I read Zealot last summer I've been thinking, off and on, about Jesus and who he really was and what he really did. Poor man, I think he had no intention of founding a gigantic new religion, complete with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. He just wanted to get Judaism back on track, eliminate the corruption. I felt sad thinking of him heading into town on that donkey, only one week left to live.

Then the minister gave a not very inspiring sermon about how we should all tell everyone we know that we are Christian and how wonderful that is, so that they'll come to church too. Proselytizing! We might just as well have gone to our next-door neighbor's church! I like First Cong in theory, but in practice I don't think it's where I -- or my family -- belong. Need to do some more research on churches in Boulder. Maybe we should just give in and be Unitarians. Or not go to church at all. I think RB would prefer that.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying the palm fronds, which we brought home and put in a vase. Happy spring.