Snow has been on my mind lately, probably because a lot of it has been on the ground here. School was canceled three times last week. I got to spend a lot of time with Sonora and Elizabeth, which was great. On Thursday, Sonora and I went sledding for an hour, then we built a large snowman (which later fell over because we built it on a hill), and then I piled up snow and dug out a snow cave, or "the little snow house" as Sonora calls it.

We got another six inches last night, but the temperature warmed up to the mid thirties by the time I left for work, so the snow had compacted down to three inches by that time. It is supposed to get into the forties each day for the foreseeable future, so the snow is going to turn to slush and mud and then go away altogether. It will be nice to have dry roads to walk/ride/drive on again, but I'll miss the snow a little bit. There is something romantic, innocent, secretive about the snow. Of course, apple blossoms, warm earth, and late sunsets also have their charm and I'm mostly ready for their approach.

Speaking of renewal and life and stuff like that, it looks as if Elizabeth might get her home delivery after all. The midwife she found a few months ago moved and was no longer available, but my resourceful wife found a highly-regarded midwife in Spokane who is willing to travel down to us (1.5 hours) to do the delivery. Elizabeth was almost giddy when she found this woman. I really hope it works out well with her. Elizabeth is looking forward to the delivery; she wants everything to go the way she has it planned. When discussing the apparent distaste many American women express toward birth, she said she didn't really understand it. She is pumped; she compared birth to preparing for and then running a marathon: it is long and painful and hard, but rewarding and kind of exhilarating. I'm glad I'm not doing it. I don't think I'd be so chipper about it. I think I'd probably describe it as sweating and straining to build a big house (the belly, the back pains, the indigestion), then having the house collapse on top of me (the birth), finding relief only when someone had dragged me out from under the wreckage (a few weeks later when the body is sort of recovered). Of course, the actual baby is pretty cool.