Minnesotans love yard sales. Perhaps it’s the local thrifty, practical Scandinavian heritage, but every weekend from now until fall neighborhoods here are bustling with yard sales. I expect it’s the same where you live now that spring is here.

As a new Minnesotan, I love yard sales just as much as the long term residents. Yard sales are my favorite place to shop for my son. Clothes, toys, and gear for children are among the best buys at yard sales.

You can get some wonderful bargains, but shop carefully. Yard sales are one place where the old adage Caveat Emptor – buyer beware – truly applies.

Inspect everything carefully, especially things for babies, and anything that a child could get hurt in if it’s defective or broken, like a swing, or a baby carrier.

Things to avoid are older toys which would have been made before modern safety standards. Same goes for cribs, clothing, and other gear.

Battery operated things should only be bought if your child will still love if it doesn’t operate. The batteries might be dead, or the thing might be broken.

My favorite bargains? An exersaucer for $5, which he lived in for about four months, and a Baby Bjorn carrier for 50 cents. And the very best buy? The free toys and extra things that a seller threw in when we bought an armful of other things. We got a little red wagon free with a bunch of books and my son still loves towing things around in it over a year later.

We are in the middle of the spring thaw, and snow, and thaw again. Then soon we’ll have spring rain, and storms, and all of that weather means one thing that toddlers love. Puddles.

I’m encouraging my daycare baby, who is a wobbly try away from her first steps, to get walking so she can splash in puddles. My toddler loves the rain, and he loves his rainboots, and he loves that he can put on his own rain boots (rainboot shopping tip – get the ones with the little handles on the sides for ease of toddler use) and he loves, loves, loves splashing in puddles.

Another puddle tip. On puddle outings, bring a spare pair of pants, and a spare pair of socks. Despite the rainboots, any enthusiastic toddler can splash enough water to get inside the boots.

And enthusiastic toddlers in a slippy puddle are at risk of falling over… so the spare pants are likely to come in handy.

Muddy puddles add another dimension of toddler joy to puddles. Once my son walked into a muddle puddle and squelched and splashed about happily. Then his boots got stuck, and he pulled his feet out walked out without them, squish squish squish. He thought it was hilarious. And since we weren’t on the way to anywhere that we needed to be presentable, so did I.

Splashing in puddles with your kids is fun, it’s great to be outside after the winter. I love that kids love puddles. Puddles are free. Puddles are one of the ultimate simple pleasures.

I never thought I really missed springtime that much. Until it was there.

For me, springtime has a lot of meanings. It means lots of house work – spring cleaning, gardening, washing the curtains, to name a few. It means spending lots of time outdoors – more frequent jogging runs, walking, hiking and cycling.

Bur most of all, it’s the time of the year when I realized how much my children have grown.

• When I put away the winter clothes and take out the summer clothes, I could see how much I have to throw or give away and how I have to buy.
• As I checked my boys’ summer shoes the other day, I realized that their feet have gone two sizes up; that I have to check ebay and second hand shops for bargains to avoid going bankrupt.
• As we took out the bicycles for maintenance last weekend, we had to put up the saddles to accommodate the new centimeters gained during winter months. This is also another indication that we might have to invest in bigger bicycles in a year’s time. The helmets are definitely too small for this year.

I see my children everyday and this frequency keeps me from noticing the small gradual changes of the previous months. But looking how much shorter those trousers have become or how that favorite shirt only reaches down to the navel, then I realize how much has changed. It’s not only in the centimeters or kilos gained. It’s how they talk and walk; how they beg on trying out those roller blades with the protective gear (no way, Jose, says mommy). It’s how they can outrun and outswim me now. It’s how they insist “I can do that myself!”

For me, springtime is the time to reflect on the changes that have occurred and the changes that are to come. It is the time to realize that time, indeed, has wings, and how short childhood can be.

So what is springtime for you?

Spring is arriving in the northern USA, at long last. After all that winter, I am so excited to do all those summer activities – eating ice cream, playing at the park, going to the beach and swimming.

Something all parents and children need to be aware of that the water in lakes, pools, swimming holes, streams and rivers is still very, dangerously, cold, even though the ice has melted and the air is warm. It will take months for the frozen water to warm up enough to be safe for swimming.

In my home state of Minnesota, a nine-year-old boy drowned on a warm April day after jumping from a boat into a lake near his home. The shock of the cold water paralyzed him and he never made it back to shore.

After this tragedy, his family and friends formed ColdWaterWarning, an action group to educate parents and children about the dangers of swimming in cold water.

Jumping or falling into very cold water causes shock, paralysis, and a gasp reflex that makes the swimmer inhale the icy-cold water. If they are not rescued immediately then it will almost certainly be fatal.

Children are most vulnerable to the dangers of cold water. Please tell your children about the dangers of swimming in cold water, and stay out of lakes, rivers and pools until summer.