Now that everyone has had a taste of the inevitable spring and warmer weather–getting outside for soccer games and bike rides and wandering around the Farmer’s Market–the April rains come and drive us all back indoors again. It’s one thing if it happens during the week when we’ve got work and school (rainy weather can actually make doing work and school more tolerable during this time of year), it’s quite another when it douses our anticipated weekend!
The days are longer, the grass is green, and all the trees and bushes are getting full and fluffy with their new, fresh leaves. The birds still chirp us awake in the early mornings and all the happy frogs are serenading us in the evenings. But the inches and inches of rain, as well as the blustering winds, are letting us know that summer is still a month or two away. I think the “rebound” cabin fever can be worse than what we feel in the winter. At least during the dead of winter we are trained to expect to stay indoors. By late April, we are all more than ready to be out and about from dawn until dark.
It’s taking some focus and creativity. Fortunately, living in the wet Pacific Northwest, we tend to just go outside and do what we need to do anyway. Two of my high-schoolers are pretty used to playing those spring soccer games on slippery turf and with dripping wet t-shirts. After fifteen years, I am even used to cheering with torrents of rain in my eyes. We watch some movies, try to muster the attention-span to work on those end-of-the-year projects that are worth 60% of a final grade, and generally just fantasize about the stretch of warm weather that is surely to come…eventually. Maybe this will actually be the last rainy weekend?
See Also: What Says Comfort for Your Family? and Home and Family: Winter Storms