It's May Day. When we were kids, we really did make little paper baskets and fill them with the only blooming flowers available in our montane community, pasque flowers. We couldn't hang them on very many doors; we lived in an area where the homes were on larger plots of land. We had to drive in order to deliver them, so usually just a couple of friends and our grandmother. After all, May Day is usually a school day!
Then in college, we ushered in May with Kentucky Derby Day. We invited our friends to dress up, wear hats and drink mint juleps. I remember the parties as being kind of chilly, and the juleps being worthy only symbolically. Not very tasty.
Rose is reporting on her upcoming birthday with increasing urgency. Of course there is a new present request at every turn, but more than that is the idea that she will be 9, that she will be heading to 4th grade soon, and that she is a bigger girl.
Yesterday, in an undiscussed, needed, but scary advancement, Daddy allowed her to walk the dog around the block by herself. He hovered at the corner and watched until she disappeared around the corner, then scampered to the alley and watched her pass by the far end of it, then scampered to the other corner to watch her come back towards him. It was a huge day.
By the time I got home, she was having her milk IN AN OPEN GLASS. This is definitely a big girl thing; it is hard for her to hold a cup steady, and controlling her lips and swallowing without a straw lets in a lot of air.
But she was almost shrieking in triumph when I got through the door, showing me her glass, and reporting about walking Rex.
That is what May should be bringing. And as it is no longer April, and the last week of April has been simply stunning in its challenges, I will not look ahead to the rapids in front of me as the last few days of school pass. I will try to embrace May 1 and May 2.
Happy May Day.
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