Thoughts on a rainy, cool spring day in the Shenandoah Valley

Lunch time ... a break from working as I enjoy the cool breeze coming through the open windows on this rainy Shenandoah Valley day. The rain started during the night and has continued all day, a steady rhythm that makes for good sleeping and a reluctance to crawl out from beneath the covers in the morning.

I enjoyed a nice family Mother's Day on Sunday as we cooked on the gas grill and ate outdoors on the deck. The weather was perfect.

SWAC Son smiled when I started talking about my first Mother's Day when he was less than three months old and we were living in Iredell County, North Carolina. On that Sunday morning those years ago, SWAC Husband and I pointed our Volvo station wagon toward the western mountains and North Carolina's highest point, Mt. Mitchell, to spend the day in the high country with our first child. We packed a picnic and took the hour drive to the Blue Ridge Parkway and then up on the mountain, enjoying the high altitude, the trails, the cool weather, and a picnic under the shelter.

Driving home that afternoon, our normally placid, easy-going baby was crying his head off as he sat in his car seat behind us. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. The mystery was cleared up next trip to the pediatrician's office when I relayed how that little baby had cried and cried. It was the pressure on his ears dropping down from the high altitude back to the lowlands. "Next time," the kindly pediatrician told this new mom, "give him a bottle and it will help relieve the pressure." Ahh.

We never had that problem again and, three years later when SWAC Daughter was born, she was spared the painful ear episode on her first trip to Boone at the ripe old age of one week.

I've often joked that our kids were born with wheels on their behinds because we never slowed down once they came along.  Camping, hiking, beach trips ... we threw them in the car seat or the baby backpack and kept on going.

Today's cool rain reminds me of some rainy camping trips when the kids were young. Before we had them, SWAC Husband and I would enjoy reading or playing Scrabble on a day like this. However, little ones aren't so willing to do something that mundane so it became an adventure to keep them entertained -- and dry! -- when the rain set in. They had a knack for wading through the tallest wet grass or finding every puddle between the tent and the restrooms ... and shaking a tree limb to have the raindrops fall on them was a favorite activity. Needless to say, we seemed to constantly be drying their clothes near the fire.

I guess that's part of Mother's Day after your children are grown ... looking back and remembering those years that passed too quickly. But it also means enjoying their lives now and continuing with them on their journey. On this rainy day, those thoughts and more go through my mind ... and now it's time to go back to work. Hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day. Stay dry!