Beautiful Spring Day

Today has been one of the most beautiful days we have seen this spring. Cincinnati weather is pretty fickle this time of year (well...most of the year) so we have had wide variations in the temperature and precipitation. But, today has been beautiful. Temp in the 70's, sunny, and just a tad breezy.

I took my camera out to get some shots of Katherine and the flowers and leaves on the plants/trees in our yard. I can't tell you how much I love the way that the sunlight filters through the big tree in our front yard. Seeing the occasional ray of sunshine that has fallen on a colorful flower and catching it on film is a happy occurrence.

My one complaint about this time of year (although I'm sure I could think of more, but it is too pretty today) is the impending onslaught of caterpillars. The first few have shown themselves over the last week. Give it a couple of days/weeks and we will have hundreds of them in various stages of development (including the dead ones) clinging to every surface (eating my small tree by the front porch, plastered to the sides of the house, etc). The only invasion worse is that of the 17 year cicadas which I got my first exposure to four years ago - yuck.

Katherine is hysterical when she comes across one of the caterpillars (or any bug for that matter). She squeals with absolute delight, calling anyone within earshot over to look at whatever creature she has found. She will even let some things crawl on her hands - although if they get too close to her arms/sleeves she gets a little panicked. Maybe she has some of her mama's curiosity in her (which led me to major in biology in college). I hope she doesn't develop an irrational fear of things like bugs, lizards, frogs, etc. I would hate for those squeals of delight to turn into shrieks of revulsion (although she doesn't have to love EVERY bug, I certainly don't). Oh well, we'll see.

So far other than a passing interest in princesses, crowns, and dress-up she isn't an extreme girly-girl. I rather like the rough-and-tumble version of my daughter. I am sure my mother finds this dynamic rather comical since she had to force me to wear skirts or dresses when I was in junior high and high school. I swore I would wear pants in my wedding (luckily I relented on that by the time I actually had a wedding) and I have never been much for jewelry, makeup or high-maintenance hair.

I am still not a fan of skirts or dresses other than for special occasions (and if there is a suitable pants outfit for those I would still prefer that) and it takes something pretty formal for me to do more than blow-dry my hair or put on more than chapstick or lip gloss. It will be interesting to see how Katherine's tastes develop. I will try to be reasonably supportive in whatever direction she goes!