Spring has
arrived early in Southern California 2/20/2017
“Rain, rain
go away.
Come again
another day.
Rain, rain
go away,
All my
friends want to play.”
Forest, has been humming the song all week when he stayed
home with coughing sickness. We did a
lot of indoor games together to kill the boredom and time just flew by fast. He really held dear those Origami boxes or
boats and used them to store different sizes of this toy car and truck
collections in his special make-up caves.
We went out last weekend, The President’s Day, 2/20/2017, for
a walk during a misty morning. He tucked
his stuffed animal, Lamby, cozy warm
in his raincoat. I say the season was a
mixed up to me here. Look, the hills at the end of their street,
Brookview Ave, quite hilly to me, all covered with the wild yellow and purple poppy
flowers. It’s been the first time I took the walk to see if I could
manage the hilly sidewalks with my old bones since we moved in this new house. It’s also a practice for me to see if I will
have a firm foothold when I must push the baby stroller in a couple of weeks
when both Mom and Pa go back to work from maternity and paternity leaves. The rains pouring on in southern California
these months really make an early spring appearance here. You folks back in east coast probably need to
wait until April to feel the spring.
The sidewalk was steep not flattened and still wet. Forest held my hand and told me, “A Ma, when you tripped or fell, only A Gong and I can help you get up!” Wow, I could not believe what I heard. What an angel grandson and where did he get
this idea? A maturity sign or from his Superman, Batman costumes played often with
his father before dinner time? Suddenly,
I don’t see a devil grandson anymore when he had his behavioral meltdown and
drove his parents up to the wall. When
it happened, I always kept my silent coolness staying away from the scenes
until the parents patiently disciplined him the self-control.
Grandma was quite touching to hear this when we almost reached
at the foothills. See, quite an
impressive landscape with floral displays even though the flowers were close
due to the foggy cloudy weather. Forest,
immediately claimed, “A Ma, this is My Garden!”
when I lifted him up carefully crossing a small patch of beautiful flowers on
the trail to avoid the trampling, I told
him, “Yes, it’s your Garden, but we want to have all the neighbors, friends and
everyone see your Garden, so we do not want to damage the flowers on the hills
or the trails, and you can only pick some already fallen off.” He found some yellow petals dropped on the trail
for his baby brother and Mom and Dad.
On the way home, the mist changed to steady drizzles, he did
slip from the wet sidewalk, jumping and thumping in the puddles with his
rainboots. He had too many
responsibilities of his own – protecting his own Lambie from getting wet and holding on his beautiful petals from
his Garden for his family. I had to
carry him, crying, half-way home. Boy,
he was heavy!
Who is helping who when someone falls?
We shared the outings with his A-Gung, the one who can help me get up from a fall via Line. We treasure Forest’s heartwarming words that “only
A Gong and I can help you get up when
you slip.”
A life lesson we all learn from a three-year-old who will probably
grow up one day with his precise vision of what he wants to be.
