See the beacons of hope and dare to dream

I can't remember the last time I saw the sun.

I mean, it probably wasn't really that long ago (I think we had a sunny day a week or two ago) but in the scheme of things, it feels like years since it's been here.

It was sunny here today. The air was still cold but the light had warmth to it and our snow is almost gone. I noticed that even a few of my foolish flowers have had the audacity to poke their heads above ground, as if they are as desperate as I am to break free from the crushing prison of winter.

Everybody loves spring. Everybody gets depressed in March at the sight of all the dirty snow, chill winds and endlessly dark days. Everybody gets a tiny thrill at the first warm breeze, the first scent of hidden earth, the first memory of skipping rope days.

But for "stay-at-home-moms" (hate that label, by the way - makes it sound lazy and comfy instead of chosen and grueling), spring means so much more.

It means you have survived.

When you have little kids (especially two of them who can't play together but are too young to play alone), winter can be so hard.

I mean, ideally, you get out. You go places. You do outdoor activities and you actually enjoy this season of dead plants, empty playgrounds and life-threatening temperatures. But back-to-back-back nap times + kids who can't handle sleeping on the go = the life of a shut-in.

When you only have about 20 free minutes a day to leave the house, your world becomes very small. Walking to the local Shopper's is about as much as you can handle; if you're lucky there's a a library on the same block. In TO we were clearly blessed and had a Shopper's, library, toy store AND Starbucks all within the reachable radius.

When you look out the window and see nothing but snow, bitter wind (I swear, this ocean air has bite!) and impossibly steep hills, you lose hope. When it takes 20 minutes just to get on coats (I swear, the other day it actually took almost an hour to go from pajamas to car!), the library just doesn't seem worth it. In the other city, I had friends who lived in the neighbourhood that could at least drop by. Here, I have one close friend but I can't be at her house every day.

That would be crazy. Right?!!

So you stay in the house and you yell at your kids and they have tantrums over the smallest thing and you don't notice how bad it's all become until someone visits and suggests that maybe you're all just really bored.

And then a breeze catches you one day, as you're hurrying along and you stop, shocked, because it murmured something you hadn't let yourself think about for a long time.

Then you start fantasizing about spring. You find yourself staring out the window at the slowly shrinking islands of snow and allow yourself the luxury of imagining another life. You remember what it was like before the prison doors closed and you can almost see the bare arms and bootless feet running through the backyard, faces laughing, a giant playroom of sticks and moss and garbage trucks and open sky that put plastic Fisher Price toys to shame.

You count the months, you count the days. You moved into a house during the first snowfall and you still don't really know it yet, you're waiting for the full reveal, for the true bounty to come to life.

And this year will be the best, this summer will unmatched because you have an almost three year old now who believes in fairies and mud pies and the magic of growing a tomato. And an 18 month old who is only taking one nap and actually likes to learn things, like if you dig a hole in the layers of dead leaves, you eventually uncover real "dirt"! And you finally don't have a baby, after three straight years of late nights and nursing and and sleep training and just trying to keep your head above the water and not mess the whole thing up.

My running joke at the mom group is that fantasizing about warm weather is like porn for stay-at-home moms. You mention spring and their eyes kind of glaze over and they get this excited, dreamy look. My friend and I plan recklessly for our upcoming "summer of love": how can the troubles of life take root when you're frolicking from playground to lakeside beach to backyard BBQ?

But I try to temper hope. Everyone knows that March is tricky and mean, that she lures you in with evening light and flirty winds and then crushes you with a snowstorm that buries everything so deep, it feels like December all over again.

But who can resist the dream on a sunny day when little purple flowers throw caution to the wind and dare to dream? They're doomed, of course; there's no way they can survive until the real spring comes. But how bold of them to hope, to send a message that something better is on its way.

What does a sunny day mean to you?