March Wrap-Up

The third month of the year down. Bad jokes incoming in two days… I remember the year when my husband woke us all up on April 1 yelling, “Look outside! There’s snow!” and my daughter mumbled a sleepy, “Yeah, right. It’s 1st of April, nice try,” only to find out a second later that it hadn’t been a joke. We’ve been betting on snow on that particular day of the year ever since.

March started out weird, with me stumbling through the park on my usual morning walk with the dog, in my usual semi-somnolent state, and – not usual at all – tripping over a huge dead frog. It had disappeared by the next day. I don’t know what became of it, but either it ended up as some wild animal’s breakfast, or someone took pity on the poor thing and buried it. Or flung it into the nearest bush.

What to do with a month that starts like that? Good thing I’m not prone to believing in omens or portents or stuff like that. I continued on as normal…

I published another book. The sixth in my Resident Witch series. To think that something which began as a short story is now a six-book series… And I already have a vague idea for book #7.

I finished this year’s spring cleaning… Okay, that’s a bit of a lie. I finished all I’m willing to do on my lonesome. I’m not cleaning up the kids’ rooms without their assistance. Which means, those rooms aren’t quite finished yet, but it’s only a matter of time. I guess. Or hope. We’ve already managed to get rid of a few things no one wants anymore. In my daughter’s case, that included, to my shock and horror, a bag full of stuffed toys. Teddy bears and other fluffy creatures. One-time favorites. Are you sure, I asked her. You used to love these. Mom, she replied. I’ve grown out of them, now stop crying.

She’s 12. Her brother is 14, and he keeps favorite picture books. Of course he doesn’t read them anymore, but they carry huge sentimental value. He’ll probably keep them until he finds someone to pass them on to, he’s kept a lot more old toys, too, and he cares a lot less whether that’s “cool” or not. Which confirms my theory that girls are much more drastic than boys when it comes to saying goodbye to their childhood and embracing their teenage self, much more inclined to not just draw a line but burn that freaking bridge and dance on its ashes. I remember moving, at a point somewhere between 13 and 14, from Enid Blyton to Fjodor Dostojewski within a day and never looking back. There’s regret down that type of path.

Are you really sure, I asked again, with Tori Amos playing at the back of my mind…

You don’t have to throw it away
Throw being a kid away
Just because you’re growing up
Faster everyday
You don’t have to throw it all away…

The toys are in the basement now. She can visit them anytime she wants, or fetch them back up.

I’m not crying, you’re crying.

I took her to the city administration office a few days later, to get her passport renewed. I’ll leave you with the sign we stumbled upon there, which serves as not-quite-living proof that there’s nothing wrong with being a big child, or acting on impulses someone else might perceive as silly.

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