Baby Makes Eight

The winter has been lousy here in Boston this year. Most people love the lack of snow, but if I wanted an endless fall/perpetual spring I would have stayed in California. I guess the whole not slipping on ice and falling on your ass thing is kind of nice, especially when I usually have a baby in a sling, but I want me some SNOW! And besides the freak storm on Halloween and one little three incher in January that melted by the next day, we’ve had nothing.

So we went to the Middlesex Fells to see if we could find any winter there. It’s one of my favorite places in Boston. A place of trees and lakes and mountain bikers and happy dogs off leashes. A place you could almost get lost in.

It wasn’t much, but there were a few hints that it was February: frosty lakes and bits of ice clinging to half sunk branches. It was Margo’s first walk in the woods and she slept through most of it. She did wake up in time to be carried in arms past Panther rock and to marvel at the barren trees. I think she liked it.

At least the snowdrought this year probably means next year we’ll get lots of it, just in time for a newly walking babe (“she’ll be a walkie-talkie!” Ivan tells me gleefully) to try out her first snow boots.

And, look at that, just as I sat down to write this, I glanced out the window and spotted a flurry of white. I guess there’s a bit of winter here after all.