Hope

So this morning, my younger son, the Tiger, peers out his window at the back yard and announces in his most charming voice: "I love to run through the sprinkler! Can we we put on the sprinkler and run through it, Mama?"

Outside it's 8 degree Fahrenheit, the coldest morning of the winter so far. (And please oh please, let it be the coldest of this winter, period.) The window is frosted with a delicate tracery of ice that echoes the form of the trees' black and barren branches.

But yes, my Tiger, one day soon we will put on the sprinkler, and you will run through it.