Happy Groundhog Day!

One of the best things about raising children is that you can learn from them. I don't elaborate here about how I've been learning so much from Sienna from day one. Just one thing though. Last night, she brought home a piece of craft she finished at school: a white Styrofoam cup decorated with green paper cut grass. Inside a brownish creature attached to a stick. The stick comes through a hole at the bottom of the cup. So when you pull the stick from underneath the cup, the little animal started to play peek boo. Sienna demonstrated this puppet show. "Mommy, it's going to be the Groundhog Day tomorrow," she declared.

This was the first time that I got to know, or was prompted to know the word "groundhog," the animal and the event associated with it. The word sounds like a pig. The shape and color make it look like a mouse. "So is this a pig or a mouse?" I asked. "It's a groundhog, Mommy."

This morning, I found out how the groundhog, the world’s most famous furry forecaster, has predicted that we have another six weeks of wintry weather to go. How fabulous! I don't mean the weather in the winter. I mean the whole Groundhog Day idea. It reminds us of how nature can actually give us clues about nature itself. A little dose of superstition is healthy. Without my daughter, I would have again let the little furry friends passing by unnoticed.