Winter with kids

I hated autumn and winter for a long time, but having kids reminds me that I didn't always hate these seasons. I didn't always spend half a year yearning for longer days and shorter nights, when the sun was high and the air was warmer.

These days I spend half an hour (or so) every morning in front of my sad lamp. Perhaps less on the days that I plan to be outside for more than two hours.  I sacrifice much needed sleep for light and I have resented this a long time. If I don't, I become depressed - I need to sleep more, I become irritable and I can't cope with the simplest things.

But I remember I wasn't always like this. Not as a kid when I played outside every day for hours. Not as a teenager when I part walked the 3.5 miles to school and often walked into town. But as an adult, once I started work in an office and rarely saw daylight in the colder months, that's when it hit.

Now, as a stay at home mama, I spend time outdoors every day again, with my beautiful nature babies, a family that is happier outside. We kick leaves. We watch our breath in the cold air and pretend to be dragons. We snuggle up warm in jumpers. We marvel at the tiny drops of water that show us where all the cobwebs are. We watch the sky slowly get brighter in the morning. We watch the sky slowly get darker in the evening. We can watch the changing colours of the sky. We can see the stars together. We put the projector on before bed. We snuggle under our duvets at night, secure in the fact that the dark will keep us asleep as long as we need to sleep. We are cosy, and very very lucky, in our warm, dry home.

I realise that while I will always be a sunshine person preferring warmth, I do love the colder seasons again and I feel a little as if I have been reborn. I feel blessed.