If anyone has been missing any pine cones, I can bet you money they snuck over to our front yard in the middle of the night. This was the winter the pine cone took control and made a valiant attempt to overthrow our house. Angela said she didn't think she had ever seen so many pine cones in one place before. My mother was scheming up ways for us to sell them for money (hmmm...) or have a competition for kids that involved a prize for the child laborer who gathered the most.
Turns out the old fashioned rake did the trick and they are mostly gone now. It was a wistful moment to see the grass again.
We've been outside every available minute lately, working in the yard, playing with sidewalk chalk and bubbles and Ella actually riding her bike around the block. My heart beat still. We have to do some serious conniving to get her out a skirt and into some jeans and mud boots but, wow, when she does it, she gets filthy. She came home from school with actual grass stains on her pants the other day. Angela said, "Wow, Mommy would be proud."
Emerson celebrated his 3rd birthday today in style this morning. Ella began getting ready, picking out her pink, fluffy, tulle fairy dress last night. It took more convincing that she might need something more, well practical, for playing outside. She decided on a denim skirt - "a rugged skirt" as she said - an oxymoron I would have thought until watching her in motion.
When she was getting said outfit on this morning, Maya was trying to rip the crown (yes, a crown) off her head and pulling on her tights when Ella got up in a huff, exclaiming, as though she was fourteen instead of four, "I'm going to get ready in MY room!" And she did.
It defies all logic, but I ran 8.5 miles this morning. I truly can't tell you how that is possible. I came home to a somewhat mediocre celebration of my accomplishment. Ella told me, with a wrinkled nose, "Momma, you're sweat smells stinky."
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The pine cone thing is called masting, and other trees do it too. Prolific production of the fruit ensures reproductive success -- each cone scale bears two seeds, one for the creature that opens the scale looking for food while the other falls to the ground. Even the most hungry of insects and animals can't eat all the seeds. It happens every few years.
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