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A Robin is hopping about my front yard, the temperature may reach 60 degrees, and the bare root roses were calling out to me at the home improvement store. Apparently, the Farmer’s Almanac has predicted we will get one more wallop of winter this month, but I cannot believe it.

The birds are building nests and moving back into their houses. Patches spends her time watching the bird house on the back porch as the little birds fly in and out. She looks at me pleadingly. “Let me out to hunt,” she implores with her eyes.” Those ones would be so easy to catch.”

The power company is brush cutting the hill behind my fence, and I begin to dream of what I could do with the cleared land. Thoughts of rototillers, wild flower seed, and the eradication of brambles and bamboo run through my head. I consider how nice it would be to use the back gate without incurring bodily harm after exiting.

It’s been a long, cold, and snowy winter and I am glad to see it go. Spring creates big dreams which are not yet held in check by cost, equipment, and laziness.

Spring is here and, as always, it brings hope with it.

No Manrys made it to the district spelling bee competition this year. Josiah is too old now and Abby and Gabe believe their mother could use a break from attempting to pronounce vertiginous, theorbo, and hepatotoxicity.

Another student from their school who made it to the district bee this year informed Abby that he could beat Josiah in a spell off. Abby and Gabe, although willing to insult their brother at any and all times themselves, were unwilling to tolerate such slander from an outsider.

Gabe and Abby then attempted to defend Josiah’s spelling prowess against these disparaging remarks. The Manry clan rallied  together with a resounding, “There’s no way you could beat Josiah! He went to Nationals in D.C.!”

Later, Abby and Gabe were discussing this dissing with Josiah at the table. “There’s no way he could beat Josiah!” They repeated over and over.

Zeke (who sat through the National Bee last year, who did not comprehend the current Manry clan rally against outsiders, and who never wants an insult left unsaid) declared, “A lot of people beat Josiah!”

With a hurt look on his face and irritation in his voice, Josiah told Zeke, “Thanks a lot!”

To this remark, Zeke replied slowly and with as much fake sincerity as he could muster, “But…he…did…a…great…job.”

When I was growing up on the Iron Range in Minnesota, it was assumed kids would try to get a job in the mines or in support of the mines. Most students who went to college were encouraged to attend Saint Cloud State. For parents, Saint Cloud State wasn’t as fraught with danger as “moving to the Cities,” and for students it was well known as a party school.

If you were pursuing another course of action, you were pretty much on your own. In high school, I knew two things…I wanted to escape the Iron Range to see the world and I had no money to pay for my escape. My mom tells me one of my teachers looked at my test scores and told me to try for one of the service academies. The service academy would pay for my education and in return I would pay them back with years of service to my country.

My mom says once I was told this possibility, I never pursued anything else. I had no fall back plan. I prayed and worked and tested and interviewed and eventually went. Although my time at the academy and in the Army were difficult, I praise the Lord for His direction and provision.

The school my children attend has a very good guidance counselor. She sits down with rising freshman and begins to map out their course load for freshman year and beyond. She tries to gauge in which field their interest lies and the type of college or vocational school they wish to pursue after graduation.

Abby and I sat down with the guidance counselor last month to begin to map the future out. Dale, of course, had already mapped out her course load. With her father, some things (calculus, physics, etc.) are not optional. The counselor asked Abby what job she would like to do. For Abby, this answer changes on a random basis. (I want to be a teacher. I want to be an artist. I want to be an FBI agent. I want to be an actress. I want to be a reporter. I want to be a flutist….) The possibilities are endless, so we pray for direction.

During Josiah’s appointment with the guidance counselor, his English language testing scores and love of books focused him a bit more on pursuing a career in writing. This direction towards language arts does not, however, get him out of calculus and physics. (Dale has mapped out his course load as well.) The counselor asked him where he would like to go to university. (State College, Christian College, Private College… ) The possibilities are endless, so we pray for direction.

Josiah tells me of the students in his school who do not make an effort to turn in homework or study for tests. Who just bide their time until it is over and don’t care about or plan for a future. I talk to him about how God can give someone the ability to see beyond the here and now to the possibilities He has for them. It takes faith to pursue something difficult and beyond your sight, to walk into an opportunity only God can provide.

I walked in these steps of opportunity as a teenager without a fall back plan, but am finding it more difficult as a mother to do the same. I must fight my tendency to figure it all out for them, because some things, I know, are best figured out by yourself.

Last week, Abby had an allergic reaction to something (we think it may have been a lotion she used). Her face turned bright red as if she had a bad sunburn. The next morning, her face was completely swollen. The swelling so altered her appearance, she looked like someone else.

The clinic had no open appointments, so I drove to the military hospital emergency room in dread of what awaited me. My past experiences in the emergency room have not been good.

I expected to enter a crowded room of people and wait and wait and wait. I expected to take a prescription to the pharmacy and wait and wait and wait. Four hours waiting while suffering with a kidney stone; four hours waiting with a child with croup.

I prayed on the way. “Lord, please help this not be 4 hours of waiting.”

When we arrived, there were only three people in the waiting room. The nurse called within minutes. We went back to see the doctor within a half hour. Abby was scared. He was funny and made her laugh.

Her tests for strep came back negative. He gave us a prescription to decrease the swelling and relieve the itching. The pharmacy wait was less than a half hour.

Praise the Lord! We were home again in two hours.

The swelling took 4 days to go down completely. Abby returned to school with her face still slightly swollen and bruised. I told her she would be asked about her face over and over again throughout the day, and she needed to be ready with an answer.

At school, everyone wanted to know what happened to her face. She told them quite sincerely, “I got in a fight.”

Dale had a lovely week last week in sunny Florida. He brought back sand dollars and shells he found on the beach in an attempt to appease me. “See, Honey, I was thinking of you,” he said. I, in cold Virginia, was thinking of him all last week too, but not with the same degree of fondness.

So, as tradition demands while Dale is away, I cooked from the alternative “Dinner without Dad” menu.

Things went fairly well until the last night before Dale’s return home. I was in a foul temper and refused to make dinner. At 4:45pm, I told the kids to scrounge in the refrigerator and find some leftovers to eat.

To these instructions, Gabe replied, “Wait…We’re having a Grandma dinner?”