The Nootch Says Goodbye to 2020

                                                                             

 A few weeks ago the Nootch wanted to share the moon with me. She tried to drag the laptop over to her California window so I could see the unusually bright and cheery orb at it its fullest. It didn’t quite work, but I told her not to fret because I actually could see that very same gorgeous sphere of dazzling bluish white lighting up the darkness of the same sky we share from my big ol’ living room window right here in New York. For some reason this made us both very happy.             

                                                                                                                                     

 Then she announced which fairy tales were her favorite (yup, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella still continue to top the charts- amazing! Maybe now they’re just read as wistful, fantastical blasts from the past of a time when women did not “work” outside the home for fear of fainting bouts or fits of hysteria and mild insanity).

 In any event, this month, after driving three thousand miles or so eastward with her parents, and bunking in low risk and sometimes chilly campsites along the way, the Nootch got to enjoy the first winter storm of New England, where they are hanging for a spell before landing in the cool and chilly, mid December Big & Frosty Apple. And guess what? Her favorite weather now is rain, not only because she hardly ever sees this phenomenon in her desert clime, but also because she found the perfect puddle in which to jump. Fancy that!

 And her favorite season she says now is snow, especially after navigating her first, honest-to-goodness northeast sled ride, piercing shrieks & all as shown in a brief video, as she somewhat terrifyingly though bravely swerves and careens her little saucer down a genuine sledding hill on the chilliest of snow blanketed, early winter days.

 She is honing her knowledge of the four, distinct seasons, and particularly winter, firsthand. You know- the kind of season where at least she will not have to dig her car out anytime soon. And so this part of the year still promises her loads and loads (and oodles and oodles) of all kinds of fun. When you’re almost six by just a couple of months, a pandemic may not figure quite as large, especially when doing your first real winter sled ride.

 Oh, to be almost six.