A flutter of wings in the dark glided through the sky, just barely within my sight.

“I think that was a bat!” I exclaimed to my four-year-old son as we walked from the car to the house.

Another dark shadow flitted by. Then another.

“The bats are waking up!” he yelled.

Although it was bedtime, I lingered outside with him. As he danced around like a springtime sprite, I sat down on the grass. I stared up at the moon, glowing behind the fog of a cloud. The shadows of deer moved among the gravestones in the cemetery behind our house. My son regaled me with tales of the bats coming out of hibernation and the geese flying back to their homes. The signs of spring. All may not have been right with the world, but there was a little peace in that space, at that time.

That peace was a welcome respite from the chaos that rocked our house the week before. Everyone had the flu. That plus a mystery allergy sent our kids to the ER three separate times. Even when we weren’t at the hospital, high temperatures and coughing kept everyone awake and grumpy. Freezing rain and sleet kept us housebound anyway.

But last week brought spring to our cold, wet winter. Earlier that day, it was warm enough for me to bring my work-from-home set-up our to the back deck. Behind me, my husband and son dug a huge hole to plant our new pear tree, a twig with the tiniest of buds. Later, the kids played in our “dirt box,” dumping the brown fluffy soil over their pants and shoes. For dinner, we ate at a restaurant with its doors flung open, nothing separating our table from the open air. Instead of measuring our time outside in minutes, it was in hours.

On Saturday, we celebrated spring in the most Washington D.C. of ways – the Cherry Blossom Kite Festival. We blew bubbles, picnicked under a blue sky, and gazed at the hundreds of kites dotting the air above us. After nearly two hours of trying to get our kite up and failing, I had resigned myself to enjoying the day despite the sting of disappointment. But then like so many moments in the past, the kindness of strangers saved us. A family offered to adjust the strings on the kite for my husband, and it was off! We watched it soar up and up, mouths and eyes open in joy.

Unlike now, spring was never my favorite season growing up in upstate New York. Spring just meant cold, snowless muck that transitioned right into summer. I always preferred fall, with its bursts of colorful leaves and new-school-year chance to start over.

But Washington D.C. and my children have taught me to love spring. Now, it’s time to play outside for ages, take slow walks to watch trains, and spend endless hours on the playground. It’s eating dinner outside at sidewalk tables and flying kites in the endless wind. It’s sitting under a tree or on the porch in the sunshine to write. It’s freedom and beauty before the heavy summer heat sets in.

This week it’s supposed to rain again. After all, it is April in the mid-Atlantic.

But in that rain, we have those days of sunshine to hold onto. In the hard times, through the sadness and pain, we have our past smiles to reflect on. When our children are coughing and crying in the night, we can recall laughter.

But more importantly, we still have our eyes that the sunshine has opened to beauty. Eyes that can see beauty shining through in the tap-tap of raindrops or a reflection in a puddle. Eyes that can see the beauty in a snuggle with a feverish toddler or a kid in the ER who thinks staying up way past his bedtime is delightful. Eyes that know and see the love and the light even when it seems the darkest.

Spring is coming. Spring is here.