We have this lovely magnolia in the front yard. It blooms in riotous pink in early spring. The flowers last about a week, two if we are lucky. The house seems to have been designed to take in this cotton candy scene from various windows, so you really want to pay attention.
Of course, spring is often a busy time of travel, including spring break. So it is always the question: will the blooms happen while we are gone? Will we see the peak or merely chase it?
It is hard to pin down. Often the peak comes in mid-late April. But other years it is early. Thanks to some bursts of warm weather during the winter this year, the buds were up and ready to pop by mid-March.
And so the pink is cresting now — right before spring break and just in time to not see it. I have been trying to enjoy the waxing of the color this weekend at least. I stop and stare at this tree as often as I can. I take lots of pictures. Spring does roll around again and again, accelerating it sometimes seems. Yet blink and you can miss it. And that would be a shame.
In other news: I am on spring break this week and will likely be posting less (if at all…) I will be back soon! In the meantime, please peruse the archives or the Best Of section.
Some other recent links I enjoyed: The Awesomest 7-Year Post-Doc — in which a tenured faculty member at Harvard describes how she embraced pre-tenure life and chose to enjoy the now rather than driver herself crazy. (Hat-tip to ARC for sending!)
Some Babies Are Just Easier Than Others — an essay from the NY Times on how kids who are within the normal range can still be very different. If you landed an easy one, do not pat yourself on the back too much that it is something you did. If you get a tough one, know that it is also likely nothing you did, even if the world would like to shame you under the assumption that individual parenting choices have much to do with outcomes.
See you back here before too long!
Beautiful flowers! I am excited for all the floral beauty to come out as well.
And enjoy your break!
My first kiddo was a very hard baby, and I always feel like that was something of a mercy because if he’d been easy, I would have been so positive that it was all my doing. I’m pretty sure I’d have had an obnoxiously self-assured attitude about it, and he saved me from that.
My next three babies were all easier (despite me doing nothing differently), though 0/4 of them were fabulous sleepers.
LOVE the 7-year postdoc article so much!! thank you!! & have a great spring break.
Have a wonderful spring break!
Our first (and maybe only) was a rough ride in the first year but is such a delight now that my husband’s managed to forget that ze was nothing like an easy baby at first. We were at least a little prepared for this – a good friend counseled us that every baby is so individual, and also her first didn’t sleep for 2 years! We braced ourselves for the worst and it wasn’t so very bad 🙂