At the Downtown Baltimore Child Care Center, the subject of spring is the subject of coats. The Threes, the Fours, the Fives, yes, even the Twos, are united in their desire to banish all forms of outerwear. No hat, no mittens, no coats!

In February, when two spring days flung themselves at Baltimore and the temperatures soared to 70, the children gathered near the speaker phone to hear the recording from the National Weather Service. Highs around 70! The day was theirs!

No coats, no coats, no coats, they chanted and squealed in utter joy as they scattered into the center's sunlit courtyard, climbed onto the tire swings, thrust mitten-less hands deep into the sandbox and breathed the rich possibility outside the old church building that is their daytime home.

The children know when spring begins. Like the pets some have at home, the little ones can feel the light shifting, the days lengthening. They can hear the birds calling, they can feel the change in the air, in the wind.

January and February are cranky, sick, sluggish, grumpy. March is springing to life, the antsy feeling the teachers call spring fever. It's body and soul melting into a singular intention: Can we go out now? ... Without coats? It's not as if these children never get outside. At the DBCC, the teachers are pleased to be called old-fashioned when it comes to the weather: They believe all the children should go out at least once a day, no matter how cold, how hot, how anything.

But some times are friendlier than others. Even with its snowflakes, winter is particularly hostile to those who have no memories of it.

On a frigid day, the playground is an alien environment, like being on the moon, if you are old enough to imagine that. Some of the Twos and Threes stand there on the playground, not sure what to do with themselves. Bundled into gear they can't get in and out of without help, wearing mittens they can't pick up anything with, they are effectively sealed off from the world -- and themselves.

Some children say I'm cold I'm cold I'm cold. If a chill wind blows up, a few may cry from the sting on their face, the sudden shock of the world slapping them for no apparent reason.

Some of the little ones, the ones who hadn't even mastered walking last winter, are particularly baffled. They don't understand teachers telling them that if they run around, if they only move a little, they'll warm up. They simply want to go back inside where the temperature is not another skill they must master.

As spring approaches, life beyond the day-care center continues as usual: schedules to be met, budgets to be reviewed, calls to be returned.

But inside the courtyard, things are changing rapidly.

This year, it was a Four who spotted the first green shoots. And now, as more days reach into the 50s and 60s and hover there, the playground is becoming a friend again, something to trust.

The children have rediscovered the whooshing creature that blows the left-over leaves in interesting ways to who knows where, that whirls and eddies in their courtyard, that tickles and pushes them.

Look, look, look how fast I can run with the wind on my back, a tiny girl pulls at her teacher. Look how fast.

Not only do these children feel the urgency of the developing season, they are part of it. To watch youngsters play outside in the spring is to watch them grow, European studies suggest: Spring light stimulates the hormones that cause growth spurts.

So to see spring arriving, watch the children, those humans who feel the season most instinctively, most directly, most needfully.

At DBCC, this spring is the only one that matters for the preschoolers. They have not yet formed the memories that would make them long for it, dread it, or compare it to others. There is nothing to sustain, or confine, them.

Instead, here in the courtyard, you are watching the world's first children confronting the world's first spring; everything else will become variations. The world's first spring is unfolding to its own ancient rhythms. The world's first children are consumed by the task of their own blossoming.

Such unmindful and relentless forces can overwhelm those with memories, distract and scatter them like so many left-over leaves to who knows where: unzipping your jacket, running down the steps, squinting at the sun, not looking back even though they're calling, spinning round and round, round and round and only hearing your own voice: no coats, no coats, no coats!

Pub Date: 3/20/99