My favorite things about April:

My birthday.

I think I’m getting myself a puppy. Or a foosball table. I can’t decide.

Lilacs.

I really miss them. When I was growing up, we had giant lilac bushes in the back yard. My brothers and I spent hours in the spring and summer building forts underneath and hiding out. The scent of the lilacs was transcendent. It made anything seem possible, in an Alice Hoffman Practical Magic kind of way. A wonderful book to read, while sitting in a lawn chair next to the lilac bushes drinking really cold iced tea.

Sandhill cranes.

I grew up in Grand Island, Nebraska and spent a lot of time canoeing on the Platte River as a kid. It is a mile wide, an inch deep and not really that scenic if you come from anywhere other than Nebraska. But, during early April the sandhill cranes migrate through. These huge birds flock through in the thousands. The sound is deafening. Floating through their midst makes you feel like a visitor to a distant avian planet.

The end of science fair season.

I have to be honest - I really hate science fair projects. And I had to do three this year; I did manage to get As on all of them. I am a truly bad mother during science fair season.

Finally, the best part of April – it is poem-a-day month, brought to you by Knopf poetry. Subscribe by sending a blank email to: sub_knopfpoetry@info.randomhouse.com It restores a thoughtful person’s faith in a world filled with evil spam.