FUN

1 : what provides amusement or enjoyment; specifically : playful often boisterous action or speech (full of fun)

Laying in bed awake late last night (thank you, daylight savings time), I told J that our first day of Spring Break was a failure. He asked what constituted "success" for Spring Break. "Well, I want them to have fun. Even if we don't travel, I want them to have fun while they're out on break." If you had asked our girls at the end of yesterday whether they had fun, the answer would almost certainly have been no. A slightly hesitant no from A, a completely certain one from B and K... well, K might have said she had fun - it would just depend on what was top of mind for her.

Yesterday certainly wasn't a fun day, in my opinion. The weather didn't help anything - gray day, everything is gray, I watch, but nothing moves today - but I did the best I could. Our favorite library (the downtown one) is closed on Mondays, so we drove out to a branch library near J's workplace and took our time picking out fiction books, books on Greek heroes to get us excited about today's trip to the Frist, books to read aloud, books to read alone and picture books to enjoy. When we got home, I made the lunch K had requested the night before (mac & cheese) and let the girls watch a Red Box movie to pass some of the afternoon.

This day left us, without exception, dissatisfied. Perhaps our dissatisfaction came from the familiarity of this day. With 7 snow days this year, we've done the lounge around in our PJs day, the read books until your eyes cross day, the watch movies and eat popcorn afternoons. What we want is not a snow day, but a spring day. Warmer weather, yes, but more than warmth, we want to see the SUN. This winter has been one of the longest I can ever remember experiencing (with the exception of our winter in Ohio that lasted until May!) and it is wearing on each and every one of us.

Spring has always been my favorite time of year in Nashville - when it's warm, but not yet hot, when it's fun to be outside and I can wear cute clothes and not immediately sweat through them thanks to summer's oppressive humidity. But spring is slow in coming this year. The daffodils are peeking up, the hyacinths pushing their way out, the forsythia beginning to herald the arrival of a parade of blooms. But if all of this arrives without sun to warm my face and entice my children outside to worlds real (our street) and imagined (Narnia-esque places), will we have fun?

Today will be another day spent inside, but at least we'll be surrounded by art - art that is centuries old, art that tells stories we know and stories we don't know, art that was made by hand, without the aid of technology, art that was made in the sun-soaked land of Greece. Maybe by looking at it, we'll be momentarily transported to a sunnier place and maybe that will shine some fun on our day.