The last few days I’ve felt it. The energy that comes from the arrival of spring, the sudden sun in your cheeks and lots of fresh air in your lungs. The urge to go from hibernation to constantly being outdoors. Luckily my daughters feel the same way. So we pack our bags with snacks and water and take out the scooters and the stroller and spend as much time as possible roaming around our neighborhood. This weekend we payed the first visit of the year to one of our local favorites, Janes Carousel in Dumbo. The rides are cheap and a few rounds on a wooden horse never fails to amuse. Even my little 1-year-old Evy joined her sisters for the first time.

With the rise in temperature we can finally pack away our big winter coats and instead we dress in layers. Dresses, tights, or a pair of pants, a long-sleeved T-shirt, a jumper or a cardigan and a jacket gives us the chance to adjust our clothing to the changing temperatures during the day. Right now all four of us are wearing jumpers and cardigans from one of my favorite danish brands. Knitted in thin cotton and with beautiful details. While my daughters all have been wearing knits from their children’s collection since birth, it’s the first time I’ve had anything from their women’s collection, and I’m safe to say that my two new jumpers will be some of my favorite items for a long time to come. 

While my 5 year-old is getting better and better at reading, my 1-year old is slowly starting to show interest in books. This means that we’ve returned to some of our favorite baby books, and I have to admit it feels pretty cozy once again to be reading titles like We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, Brown Bear Brown Bear, Guess How Much I Love You and Goodnight Moon.

With 3 daughters around a lot of the time, and one who’s still home with me every day, I don’t get to spend much time reading myself, but because books are such a great inspiration to me, I’ve become a huge fan of audio books and podcasts. This means I can listen to a book or a program while I go shopping, go for a walk or even while I’m cooking dinner. The last few days I’ve been listening to one of my favorite books, On Beauty by Zadie Smith, which I first read when it was just published in 2005. It’s still amazing.

I’m not the kind of mother who enjoys to sit down and play with her children for hours. 10 minutes of playtime and I find myself getting restless and impatient. Instead I encourage my daughters to play together and are happy to lend them things that can get a game going or to pack a picnic basket with snacks for a indoor picnic with their dolls. When they just can’t be bothered to play together anymore, we all enjoy doing creative projects together. I have a whole cupboard full of things like beads, googly eyes, cardboard, fabric scraps, old socks, feathers and empty toilet rolls and nothing can keep them more occupied than making bracelets, sock animals or fingerprint art. And yes, it always results in a mess, but I would so much rather clean up after that than playing with Barbie for 30 minutes.