saturday

Saturday morning stretched long and lazy. Mike's parents were visiting, and the children stayed in pajamas til lunchtime, rolling around on the couch and listening to their Grammy read stories. After we said goodbye to grandparents, we four did a bit of gardening. February might as well be March these days, and the peas Gabriel and I planted awhile back settled comfortably into the cool wet ground.

We found crocuses in the yard

while Frances provided us with a musical interlude.

Gabriel searched for dinosaur bones, Mike raked and weeded, and I planted seeds in the ground

until Mike went inside to read Kant, and at Frances's urging, the three of us set off on a walk.

We landed at our neighbor Fawn's house, where Gabriel visited the stone bunny

and vigorously stirred the soup.

Fawn invited us in for steamed milk and cappuccino, and asked Frances to clip some of the lavender that grows in a thicket alongside her house so we could put it on the fire and further perfect the cozy ambiance. After our warm drinks, we sat on the rug and talked. Gabriel and Fawn chatted about the possibility of his becoming a paleoentomologist when he grows up. (Her husband is a paleobotanist at the Smithsonian and the two of them know someone whose specialty is prehistoric gigantic bugs. You can imagine the stars twinkling in Gabriel's eyes...he had heard of firefighters, dentists, teachers and astronauts. But to spend all day contemplating a twelve foot long ancient centipede? For the first time, becoming a grownup seemed pretty appealing to my small boy.)

As the bug conversation rolled on, Frances requested reading material and made herself comfortable.

It was all very lovely. After we had made it home, over dinner, Frances said, "Mama, I love going on walks, because we always see our neighbors." Gabriel piped up, adding, "And it's always a surprise, and we never know who we will see or what we will do with them!"

I couldn't agree more. It's why covering ground on foot is superior to any other form of travel--it brings us these surprise sweet encounters with our neighbors that just can't happen in a car. We like to remind ourselves of how important the village is for growing children, but like so many things we pursue in the name of our kids' well-being--time outside, reading, music, play, art, even time with us--it's pretty important for our well-being, too.