We are, well, what are we exactly? I think that’s the first problem.

Mid to late winter, with Valentine’s Day over (somehow a bright spot) and sort of, almost spring. I hesitate to even talk about spring, in large part because Gabe is winter’s biggest fan. He gets angry - actually angry - about the sudden warm days that surprise us at this time of year, delighting most. Not Gabe. He is devastated by snowless stretches. I don’t obsess, but when I do think hard about climate change, I’m terrified by its potential impact. What makes me saddest of all, though - saddest on a personal level - is the threat to my cold-loving son. J and I hope we can channel his passion into activism. For now, he lives every moment of winter weather to its fullest, and, thankfully, we’ve had some notable snow and ice this season.

So what I’m saying is: go ahead and all that to the mix. Mid to late winter, but don’t talk about how winter is nearing its end, at least not in our house, because our middle child will rail against your reasoning. And welcoming the warmer days, but, wait a second, are they here too early?? It is complicated to think anything about weather ever anymore. It is complicated to talk about the weather, the age-old go-to when it comes to idle chit chat.

I was recently coming in from my car after work, wearing cute boots with a small heel. But it was icy from a recent snow, and we hadn’t had the chance to fully clear the walkway. Now the ice was melting, making it more slippery still. Considering all this, my footwear was impractical. And yet it was too warm for my fuzzy winter boots with the good tread. I was carrying two paper bags of groceries because I’d forgotten canvas bags on an impromptu trip to the store, and they began to tear as I nearly wiped out in the driveway. Then I tripped on a pile of children’s shoes piled inside the house by the garage entrance, while the bags continued to rip. I dumped the contents on the kitchen counter just in time.

This scene represents what this season feels like to me. Icy but warm with all the wrong clothes on.

And yet.

The other day I picked Aidy up from school. There are antics going on in the fourth grade this year. Happy pranks being played among the classrooms, and a keychain-trading economy that sounds like mini Wall Street for the 9-to-10-year-old set. Every day she tells me, “Mom. You will not believe what happened at school today.” And this week it was that an unknown someone had been leaving tiny axolotl figurines in all the lockers. I kind of couldn't believe it, to be honest. The most adorable mystery. As we walked home that afternoon, she shared every single detail, and I am talking every single one. She’s been favoring these black flare leggings and, with her long blond waves, she’s got a real 70s look. Not to get overly sentimental, but I really do mean this: I wish those walks home from school would last forever.

It was either unseasonably or seasonably warm, I feel like I’ll never know again, and when we got to the house, Aidy went out back, no coat, consumed by that spring madness that affects all northerners this time of year. It’s 50 degrees, for instance, but we act like it’s 80. When she came back in she was clutching a smashed bouquet of the wild white crocus-type flowers that show up in patches during the first stretch of milder days. She laid them on my bed. “For you,” she told me. “The first flowers of spring.”

Not yet, not exactly, and the way she laid them on my bed like that made me think of a funeral, so I laughed. March, so promising, so rough. We’ll emerge giddy or exhausted, but, most important of all, we will emerge.