This is for Elizabeth. Let’s talk about chickadees! My heart leapt yesterday at the neighbourhood bus stop. We parents gather there every morning with a gaggle of bundled-up elementary school kids, waiting for the big orange tube to come ’round the corner. The past two months have been cold waiting —  red noses and frozen toes all around as Ottawa is held tight in the grip of the longest cold snap in living memory. But yesterday, suddenly, the birds were back. A bright cardinal high on a wire over the cedar hedge, and a party of cheery chickadees hopping and diving amid the branches of a crab apple tree. I…