On the same day in March...

Years ago my mom sent us a copy of On the Same Day in March by Marilyn Singer. It's a story that has stuck with me over the years because weather is such an important part of the setting of one's life and my own life is divided in my mind into chunks defined by various moves—and the associated weather (not to mention culture) of those different places. 

When I lived in Alberta, for example, winters meant months of snowmen and sledding and ice skating (and other less appealing things like shoveling snow and scraping car windows and slipping and falling). Here in Georgia we didn't get any snow this past winter and now it's already 80°F outside while in Utah it snowed several inches today and in Alberta it's still very much winter as well.

I took the kids to the park today and sent a picture of Phoebe in the baby swing to my family's group chat—because I was amazed that she agreed to get in the swing! She's been boycotting baby swings and I spent afternoon refusing to put her on the big kid swings so she finally relented (just as all the other kids were announcing they were ready to go home) and asked to be put in the baby swing. So I let her swing for a while (while her siblings moaned about wanting to go home to cool off). She enjoyed holding them up, I think.

Anyway, Uncle David immediately responded with a picture of Millie, who was also having a some swing time at the park. Their little corners of the world look rather different, but it was fun to think that they were swinging underneath the same bright sun!

Our family hasn't managed to all live in the same country for decades—in fact, it's rare to find us all on the same continent—so we've always been obsessed with checking each other's weather. And it's so easy to do now that we each have our little weather apps (with all the places our dear ones live bookmarked for easy access)! It's not unusual to get a message from my mom saying things like, "Oooh! Nancy has the nicest weather today!" or "It's colder in Utah than Alberta today!" or "Looks like Patrick has the wettest weather today!"

Anyway, fun that each of these girlies got to have a swing at the park today!