Light bounces from an endless layer of impeccable snow.  Fresh shoots of spring are hidden beneath it.  Our new trees line the fence, scrawny and barren.  I miss the green patches, the newborn blades of crocuses, daffodils, and tulips.  The first snow of winter brings a calm after a hot and chirpy summer, but this snow is different, lonely.

Hana screams from the living room, the scream that says, “I’m hurt.”  It’s loud, but not a desperate cry, just one that begs for attention.  It nears, her feet tapping down the hallway with a bowlegged, penguin gait.  I wait for her to come to me.  Her eyelids are narrowed in rounded hills of baby agony, her nose flattening into her anguished wrinkles, and her mouth pulling into a wide gaping frown.  I launch her into my arms.   Her cries taper into sniffs, her pain forgotten in Mommy’s arms.

A telltale aroma reaches my less than sensitive nose.  I lay her onto the changing table, taking care of business as usual.   Cadence yells from the electric piano, a clatter of plastic accentuating her distaste.

“I hate when headphones don’t work!”  The clatter of plastic is presumably the headphones slamming into the music holder.

I wiggle Hana’s chubby legs back into her jeans and send her back on her way.  Snowflakes fall in persistent patterns.  I debate postponing my already postponed grocery trip, but I just used Hana’s last diaper.  I guess when it rains, it pours.  Or in this case, it snows.