winter bugs and nostalgia

Poor loves.  Jon was driving them to daycare this morning, and Finn started vomiting uncontrollably in the back seat.  Conor, in solidarity, joined in.  He's either the most empathetic child in the world, or I suppose it's possible that he inherited a few of his parents competitive genes.  Ahem. 

Oh, and we have an epic blizzard arriving tomorrow!  So Jon is out stocking up on Pedialyte, bananas and firewood before we get snowed in and it becomes a true quarantine.  I hope they feel better by Saturday so we can get in a little of this:

I am so happy to be experiencing a New England winter again, after more than ten years of living away.  I so badly want my children to have a sense of place, of being from here (even though they were born as Brooklyn babies!)  For a New Englander, seasons are so much a part of that, of forming those place-specific memories, and when we have a ridiculously mild winter like the last one I start to panic that it's all going away.  Because I am secretly a hundred years old and worried about how times are changing.  But it's true!  I remember so clearly the joy of snow days off from school, and carefully crawling along rocky jetties at the beach to collect mussels and periwinkles for a summer family cook-out, and the smell of my cousin's cider mill in the fall . . . I want them to have a little bit of that. I want it to get into their blood, the way it is in mine.  So even if they choose to live far away from here someday (nooooooo!) it will still always be home.

But, despite the pre-storm winter love, I have to admit that I'm already thinking ahead to summer and sandals and fresh fruit that wasn't imported from Mexico and playing outside and our garden and it taking less than 20 minutes to get out the door - and non-maternity clothes!  Oh yes, and a new little baby to snuggle.  Can't wait.