Lemon Drop Pie

Goody bags! All I wanted was goody bags!

Last Halloween, I bought Halloween pencils for Lily to give to all her classmates. I figured they would get plenty of candy from other sources. I thought the other kids might pass out a candy bar. Instead, many of the kids passed out elaborate treat bags with candy, stickers, little crayons or notepads. I felt guilty that all my kid passed out was a lousy pencil. You know, like those T-shirts that say “My Grandma went to Fort Lauderdale and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.” (What else is there to buy in Fort Lauderdale?)

So I resolved to do better for the Valentine’s Day party. Lily and I picked out Valentines in January, and on Monday we bought candy for the goody bags I planned to put together. Walmart didn’t have any goody bags, so we couldn’t cross that item off our list.

I don’t like dragging my kids to more than one or two places a day. Whenever I’ve tried to go to three stores, all in one outing, the girls have huge meltdowns, and so do I. I think we successfully went to three stores once. We bought Lily a winter coat at one store, looked for snow boots at one store and failed, and found boots at the third store. Whew! AND it was snowing. Nothing like waiting ’til the last minute!

So, goody bags. We went to Michael’s on Wednesday, and there were no goody bags to be found. They had only one tiny section of Valentine’s Day items for 50% off, and all the Easter stuff was out instead. Oh, well, those crafty types must buy things way in advance. It was only February 11, for crying in the beer!

The grocery store was the next stop. The goody bags were on the very top shelf, and a man on a cell phone was taking some down. (Please, please leave some for us!) As he let me look at the bags, Lily told me they weren’t pretty enough. The man was very nice, and told us that those were the only bags they had; he had already looked all over the store. I showed Lily how cute they were. “Look, they have a little teddy bear on them!”

“But they don’t have a handle! They have to have a handle!” And she started to cry.

I was not very compassionate, sad to say. I was tired,(I’m always tired) wet (it was raining; did I mention that?) and Emmy needed her nap. I simply said, “These are what we’re buying; let’s go.” (We had reached our two store limit.)

When we got home and opened the bags, Lily decided she liked them. During Emmy’s nap we assembled them, and the next day Lily had a nice treat for her classmates.

Aren’t they cute?

As I was rocking Emmy before bedtime, I heard the unmistakable whoosh of cars driving in the rain. And as I sat down at my computer, the gurgle of rain tumbling down the gutters filled my ears. We begged spring to come; and with spring comes the rain.

Last Saturday was very warm and all our snow started to melt. Ed decided to take the girls outside to splash in the puddles while I finished getting ready for the company we were having. Emmy loves water: “wah-ee”, and Lily loves her rain boots! (I love stating the obvious, much to Ed’s chagrin, as you’ll see in my video clip. There’s also a glare from the snow; the only thing I remember from my college meteorology class is the term “albedo.“) Even though it wasn’t raining, I caught the girls playing in the water just as the little girl in the book Rain Talk plays in the warm summer rain.

Splashing in Puddles from Ginny Marie on Vimeo.

Rain Talk by Mary Serfozo
rating: 5 of 5 stars
Rain Talk is a beautiful book, in both words and pictures. When I was a first year teacher, I was surprised at how few picture books were in my first classroom. Throughout the years, I bought many books to add to my collection. A few of those books were read by my students, but remained unread by me. My book collection came home with me as I paused my teaching career to raise my daughters. I recently read Rain Talk to my youngest. As I was reading, I was delighted at the simple story about a girl out in the rain, listening to all the sounds rain has. The sound of rain beginning is quite different from the sound of rain hitting a pond, or the “Bup Bup” of rain on an umbrella. The watercolors by Keiko Narahashi enchanted me. They fit the words perfectly. See the drops of rain hitting the dirt, and the small worm poking his head out?