And summer's not far behind.

Things are growing like crazy all of a sudden, leading me to the conclusion that it must finally be spring.

Aren't I clever? *bats eyelashes*

Thursday afternoon, when we got home from bringing my eldest daughter home from preschool, the neighbor was outside mowing his lawn with his little son (pretending to be like daddy with his toy lawnmower.) Naturally, the preschooler wanted to go over and play, so we went through several minutes of sobbing and pleading until the mower was shut off and I could safely let her run to where her friend had abandoned his toy and was doing his best to lure her over. (He is very shy and won't come over to our yard.)

I kept an eye on them as the neighbor was putting everything away. While I watched them I looked over our lawn. Did it need to be mowed too? No, it didn't, I concluded. There were a couple of green patches, but the majority of the yard was still the straw brown of winter hibernation. It was going to be at least a week before we needed to get our mower out.

Friday morning I woke up, looked outside and realized we probably needed to mow the lawn right away. The lawn was not only green, it was starting to look shaggy. Overnight!

I looked over at our other neighbor's yard. His lawn hadn't started growing yet, but the tree over there was starting to come into bloom.

The ultimate surprise came when I went to dress the toddler. I decided to put her in her pink jeans, which are not only cute, but sturdy, perfect for a hard day of playing outside. They were too short. I'd had them on her only two days earlier. They'd fit fine. Friday morning they were more than half an inch too short. The hem was just above the top of her socks and the waist wasn't quite meeting the bottom of her watermelon shirt. The watermelon shirt is not short, either.

Springtime has gotten entirely out of hand. It's enough to make a mother swear off it forever.