Terrarium

I really can't complain about the intensity of this winter, when last year was the Chiberia polar vortex deep freeze of total doom, right? Even though it's February and I've been bundling these two kids tip to toe since November, so I want to complain. It's tiring! It doesn't matter how all in you are for magical snowy childhood memories, and I am very in - four season parenting is hard. It's all dripping mittens and falling over in slush and mud until suddenly there's a freak late March heat wave and you've sunburned your toddler because you forgot UV rays were a thing. I wouldn't trade flurries on Christmas and Matilda's annual birthday snowstorms for anything, but even the most winter-positive of us have to admit that facing down the latter half of this season in Chicago is a bitter pill. Cabin Fever 2015 and all that.

Freezing drizzle plus fatty flakes. I know, THE BEST.

I needed to get the girls out of the house a few weeks ago, and after scrapping plans for the library when I realized I had no cash or checks and owed them $37.40 in fines (always. I am completely incapable of returning books on time), we wandered instead to the Lincoln Park Conservatory. We've stopped in a few times during zoo trips over the past few years, but since we usually hang at the zoo  in nicer weather, the appeal of the greenhouse was somewhat lost on me. However! In the middle of winter, it felt like retreating to a tiny humid jungle. Which is exactly what I want to do every day until spring. Matilda threw her coat into the stroller and ran around whooping, "It's so WARM!" , and then we stayed for hours while she explored basically every single plant and tree and koi fish in the joint.

We do not usually leave the house in fleecy reindeer prints, but it was Pajama Day at preschool and once I decided we were spending the afternoon out of the house it was a done deal, no going back for appropriate-in-public options.

Matilda has been badly wanting to Joshua to see the "Terrarrium", which has been her name for the conservatory since the day after our first trip, despite the fact that we never once called it that. I'm not even sure how she linked those terms together in her mind, but anyways, we headed back this week. After all the snow over the past weekend, there was dense condensation on the glass ceiling and water was falling in huge, slow, random drops. Naturally, we needed huge banana leaf umbrellas.

Little lady was beyond thrilled to have Daddy hanging out in the ferns and cycads with her! Cycads, of course, are a fancy kind of jungle tree I now know a lot about thanks to the time I had to read the signage in the Conservatory while Matilda "looked for dinosaurs". I wish I was better at taking photos (life goal), or was one of those moms who casually slings the DSLR around and ends up with an archival quality family outing picture, but so far despite actually having a nice camera I have not yet achieved anything close to that level of awesome. What I have is this:

Thankfully we randomly color coordinated to distract from the fact that there's a terrible filter on that picture making everyone look jaundiced. But we were so warm! And it smells like jasmine and orchids and so many other delicious things in the Conservatory, which almost makes up for the fact that when we left, it had snowed quite a bit. Our drive home was very slow and blustery and then of course we got stuck in the unplowed, snow-packed alley, and Matilda refused to put her mittens on and then cried because she was freezing. Despite that rough departure, I cannot recommend the "Terrarium" enough. All the green and growing things make me remember the way summer feels. Plus, cycads!

http://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/parks/lincoln-park-conservatory/

Four

I saved this screenshot from the day I went into labor with Matilda. Snowmaggedon, snowpocalypse, whatever you call February 1st, 2011 - she was born at the very height of the blizzard.

It has a hushed magic about it, to birth a baby in the midst of a historic storm. Matilda's birth was not any more special than Louisa's entry into the world (birth story coming soon-ish), it just had the heightened drama of doctors snowshoeing to the hospital and my midwives discussing, while I pushed, where in the building they could sleep for a few hours after she was born. 

This morning, four years later, she woke up to another winter storm and another blizzard warning. It rattles my brain to think four years have passed, that I could be sitting here, writing this, and listening to both my daughters laughing and playing with their dad together. I remember that first day in the hospital, the hours we spent staring at Matilda's long feet and wrinkled forehead, felt endless in the best possible way. But somehow here we are with a preschooler who is wearing hot pink nail polish and who originally requested a private jet for her birthday, ("I want a plane? That I can fly on just with my friends and it's a real one that goes in the sky") but instead settled for a homemade Frozen cake and a yoga mat.

Kids age you, you know? The responsibility, the sleepless nights, the constant static stress of always, always worrying about them in one way or another. But they also let you relive everything about your childhood and that is what I'm most excited for about four. Matilda's imagination is boundless, she's living in a world where she has pretend dragons and monsters and her very special five piggies who are always being a little naughty and who have terrible immune systems. "PIGGIES ARE SICK AGAIN", she will announce mournfully from bed when it's 1.5 hours past her bedtime and we think she's sound asleep. She loves family snuggles in our bed in the afternoon and she tells us that her and Louby are the bread, and Joshua and I are the pickles and tomatoes. A seriously questionable sandwich, but she is firm on the ingredients.

Dear little blizzard baby who is growing up before I can even catch my breath, you have my whole heart. I love you in all the mother ways - a love that is both the most furious and delicate thing I've ever known. 

 Happy, Happy Birthday.