Snow Day Parenting 101

We woke up this morning to about 2 inches of snow.  Not enough to really enjoy or even to cancel/delay school.  But enough to mean wet, dirty laundry and three littles chanting, "Mommy, can we go in the snow?"  And since they're too young to just send out in the snow alone, that means Momma must also go in the snow.  Yuck.  

So when they began playing in the snow after bus stop, despite being ill prepared in the clothing department, I thought, "Whatevs.  I don't care.  I'll be doing laundry and mopping soppy floors all day anyhow."

So here's my parenting lesson:

APPEAR TO BE THE BEST/MOST FUN MOM IN THE WORLD FOR TEN MINUTES AND YOU MAY JUST GET A MOVIE DAY WITH COCOA AFTER ALL.

I know you're telling us to get our gloves and hats and boots, but the snow is here now!

What, Mommy?  You mean leggings aren't waterproof?

 "It's not cold!" said the little Congolese boy.

Guys! Guys! Dere's snow everywhere! Follow me to da snow!

"Hey Mollie and Charlie! I have the best idea ever!!!!!!"

No, Charlie.  We should definitely take our shoes off to jump in the snow.  This is the MOST FUN!

Come on, everybody!!!

Wahoo!  YIPEE!  Dis is da best!  We not do this in da Congo!!!  

Mollie: Wee!  I love da snow!!

Grace:  I think there's snow in my panties.  

Charlie: Mom, my feets is wet.  

Charlie:  Oooh, Momma,  I is cold.  I'm freezing.  I hate da snow! I AM FREEZING CARRY ME INSIDE!!!

Mollie:  wee!  wee!

Insert massive meltdown of all 3 and me carrying all three back inside.  

Mommy, dis da best way to play in da snow.  With the hot chocolate and da snuggles on da couch.  

Yes, Charlie.  I agree.  Snuggles on the couch rock my world too.

Obligatory Snow Picture

On Sunday, it started snowing.  It was pretty lame.  My friend Ali described it as "high school production snow".  But, around 7 o'clock, it started kicking in for reals.  Sticking to everything and accumulating nicely.  Which was shocking, because literally just the day before my daughter was running around and playing outside in her bare feet.  (Clearly, I need a third child because I have SUCH control over the two I have.  Ahem.)

As it began to fall in thick flakes,  I felt a little like the bad Mommy as facebook became littered with pics of kids in the snow in the dark.  But the kids go to bed at 7 and well, well, Sloan was out of town and I may or may not have had some Downton Abbey to watch. 

The next morning, Henry was so excited it had snowed.  He began panting, "Ok.  We are first going to have some hugs.  Then we are going to go outside and play in the snow.  Then we will come back in and have chocolate milk and cookies and hug some more.  Then we will go in the snow and go sledding and make snowballs and a snow fort and a snow man.  Then we'll come back inside for more chocolate and hugs.  Then sledding again!  Then we will watch a movie in our pajamas and I will wear my robe."   I was suddenly preparing breakfast for Buddy the Elf.

I replied, "Umm...I'm cool with most of that plan.  I like the way you think.  But that's an awful lot of coming in and out and snow makes your clothes wet and a big mess and we already have a lot of dirty laundry.  So here is what we are going to do.  Hugs.  Then chocolate milk.  Then we will go outside and play.  There's not enough snow for a fort or a snowman, (ok, there was...but Henry helps for maybe three minutes and then I'm left there peeved because my snowman is ugly) but we can sled some in the backyard. And we can play on the slide and make snow angels and ride the shuttle boards and be silly.  We will stay outside for as long as you want.  But when we come in, we are in for the morning.  Because the clothes will be wet and muddy (oh, did I fail to mention that by 8am, it already sounded as though it was raining because of how quickly it was melting?).  And when we come inside, we can have more chocolate and more hugs and yes, you can wear your pajamas ALL DAY LONG and even your red robe and we can watch a movie.  It is Gracie's turn to pick the movie."

So that, my friends, is how we found ourselves in our pajamas watching Wall-E and drinking chocolate milk for the better part of yesterday. 

It's Beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Not the greatest snow.  But as we all know, there is something magical about the first snow of the season.  Especially when it is a Christmas snow...

Mommy, there are leaves in my snow angels!

Yes, baby, there are.  We've finished raking, tarping, and blowing all the leaves from the backyard to the front yard (a feat that took a mere 18 total hours and ending up sending our blower to the grave), but the man who was supposed to come and suck them all up last week has yet to come. 

Henry's favorite snow game?  Snowball Fights! 

For Henry, this means wadding up snow and then shoving it in your face, crotch, knee, etc... 

all while he screams, "SNOWBALL!  SNOWBALL!"

Here's hoping the second snow of the season is a little more magical...and by that I mean not half rain...

Snowed In

I grew up going to camp kamp every summer.  (Yes, I intentially spelled it with a k.  I went to Kanakuk, where all things begin with K.)  And each year we'd go spelunking.  At some point in the expedition, we'd all be instructed to turn out our lights.  It is very dark in caves.  We'd all sit silently in the dark trying to see if we could see our hands if we put them on our faces.  We could not.  Eventually, someone would start laughing or yelling, because in that darkness you think for a brief second, Hey, maybe I'm alone in here.  Happened every time.  With all this snow, I feel a bit like I did then--hollering to see if there is any life out there.  This cabin fever is exacerbated by Sloan being out of town for work and so I'm snowed in with the kiddos.  Yes, my driveway has been cleared as have all streets in my neighborhood.  But it is super cold and I just can't justify taking Gracie out in the cold just to get the one thing we don't have--bananas.  (No matter how much it makes my son cry at breakfast.  I had to substitute with a Chocolate Chip Zbar this morning to make it alright that Yes, we have no bananas.  We have no bananas today.)  I found myself staring at the Live feed on Facebook, willing someone to update their status.  I have won over 2 million studs on Wii Lego Star Wars.  I've done about four loads of laundry while Wii-ing, so in my mind, that makes it less dorky.  We don't need to talk about how I looked up walkthroughs on the internet. 

I don't have any cute pics of Henry in the snow.  Because it is up to his knees and it took all of 15 minutes for him to be over it.  We wore pajamas all weekend.  As in, we woke up and changed into new pajamas for the day.  We've watched Nemo and Ratatouille.  I've read every Thomas book known to man.  Twice.  We've eaten grilled cheeses for no less than three meals.  We've taken baths simply because there is nothing else to do.  Yes, I could be cleaning out my closets, cleaning the fridge, or potty training Henry.  Don't wanna.  We did, however, do some pretty good crafting tonight.

Friends, meet Henry in his "Bo-bot Box."

My mother in law sent some clothes to Sloan today in this box.  Henry was so excited because he thought it had Legos in it.  Boo hiss to the clothes.  So he stuck it on his head.  Which lit a lightbulb over mine.

And then we painted it!

I'll post pics of the final product later.

But the cutest part of the Bobot Box was the following conversation Henry had with himself while wearing it.  He was looking at his reflection in the windows along the back of our kitchen.

Who is it?  Is it Mommy?  No!  Is it Santa?  No.  Is it Jesus?  No.  It's Henwy bobot box!

(Don't you just love how he asked if it was Jesus?  I will have to remind him in a decade that he knew he wasn't God at age two...)

Merry Christmas (and the Ugliest Snowman ever)

I figured out that a snowman is easier to make if you use shoveled snow.  I learned this from watching our neighbor build a snowman.  A perfectly round and beautiful snowman that Henry calls "Fosty".  He calls our snowman "stowman".  Oh well.  It only gets better when you know that our neighbor built the perfect snowman while hobbling around on crutches.

Thanks a lot, Danny Kaye

Don't get me wrong.  I love snow.  I particularly love it at Christmas.  Who doesn't love a White Christmas?  I'd even go so far as to say the movie White Christmas makes my top ten list of all time favorite movies.  But a foot of the stuff?  The weekend before Christmas?  I'm feeling more than a little Bah Humbug about it.  Mainly because the image in my mind of what a White Christmas means--cups of cocoa with mini marshmallows, a snow man, sledding down hills with your scarf blowing in the breeze, plates of  Christmas cookies fresh from the oven--is vastly different than reality--twisting my knee in the snow, a toddler so excited he simply runs in circles and screams the word snow,  a pile of dirty snow at the end of your driveway from the snowplows, and the copious amounts of laundry that snow playing creates.

I'm not a total scrooge.  It is just that it is so much work for so little reward.  It takes us roughly 30 minutes to get suited up.  And this is not an easy endeavor.  Henry does not want to wait to put on extra clothes and his coat.  He wants to go in the snow.  Now!!!

 And once we're outside, let's talk about the  frustration of being 2 and wearing so many clothes you can barely move.   It doesn't help to start chanting, "Mommy, I stuck" or "Daddy, I fall.  Fall down.  Help!" if your parents are laughing at you.  Seriously.  We laughed at him, because he couldn't bend at the waist to prop himself up.   No matter, he still wanted to simply roll around in the snow.  I thought about teaching him how to make snow angels, but not owning snow bibs myself, I simply was too lazy to get down in the snow and do it.  Yeah, I know.  I'm a sucky mom.  But that there snow is cold.  And wet.  I'm also completely helpless as to how I'm supposed to build a snowman.  I think maybe the snow isn't wet enough.  Is this a possibility?  And I've got an unattended baby inside in her swing... 

Yeah!  This year we've got an actaul sled, so Dad's not just pulling me around in a bucket.

Of course, the bucket is a little more secure.

Um, Dad, a little help here.  I've fallen and I can't get up.

Eventually, we did head inside for cookie making.  I was imagining Henry really being into this.  He loves to play with playdough.  We would sing Christmas Carols, decorate cookies, and sneak bites of raw cookie dough.  Nope. When I attempted singing, he told me to be quiet.  When I tried to get him to eat a piece of cookie dough, he promptly spit it out and said, "Out of mouth."  (Which tells me that he has been listening.  Sometimes...)  I did get him to punch out a couple of cookies.  But mostly, he just looked out the back of the house, screaming that he wanted to go outside again.

We did eventually head outside again, this time with Gracie in tow. (Much to Sloan's protesting.)  I'm not sure there is anything cuter than this picture.  I love the expression on her face and the dab of formula at the corner of her mouth.  In truth, I kind of think she looks like a tanner version of her cousin Natalie in this photo.

  Henry wanted in on the action.

But only for about three seconds.

Dang it, Mom.  I keep falling.  Gracie, a little help.  Grace?  Grace?  Mommy, why are you holding your crotch while you laugh?

It's Safe to Drive in this stuff... Right?

The only trouble is these mittens don't make the best of driving gloves. And my feet are so big that I get stuck. Or maybe I'll just commandeer a ship. Move over Kenneth Branagh--I make a better a Sir Shackelton any day. No icebergs in sight.

Maybe I'll just have one of my minions (ie Mommy) pull me around all afternoon.

Or maybe not. She seems unaware that I've fallen off the back of this thing.

Perhaps I'll just chill in my fort. It's just so cold when I try to climb up to get to the slide.

Nah. Rocking on the porch swing with Daddy is my favorite.

And since we've no place to go...

Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!

Holy freakin' snowblowers, Batman! We woke up to about 10 inches of snow. I'm super excited and even made pancakes from scratch (seeing as we have no bisquick) to celebrate the occasion. Sloan, being from southeastern PA, does not see the beauty of it. He only sees a driveway that needs to be shoveled.

Yummo. Henry says he loves snow days because Mommy lets him stay in his pjs, makes pancakes, and even gives him chocolate milk. Too bad Daddy says snowdays are for sleeping in, especially when you work from home and there are no snow related traffic problems on the stairs to the third floor. I guess Henry won't be playing in his outdoor (ie so crusted with mud they aren't allowed indoors) tennis shoes. It's a good thing Gigi bought him some giant Napolean Dynamite snow boots!Please note that my son is holding a tube of Vaseline. This explains the sheen on his face. The layers--onesie, one pair of long john pajamas, socks, fleece footy pajamas, and then the uber-warm bunting from cousin William. Thank God Henry's Aunt is Canadian and they gear up for cold weather! Of course, it wasn't until Henry was all bundled up that he decided to take his morning constitutional. I figured it could just keep him warm when he played because I wasn't going to redress him.

Daddy and Henry walk in the snow.

Henry walks back to Daddy to try to figure out what Sloan is rigging up with his toy bucket and the old dog leash. This is what happens when you live where it rarely snows. You have to fashion a sled out of what you have. Gigi and Papa are coming this weekend to see Anderson and Rachel in their play, Narnia. How much you want to bet they bring Henry a sled? Thereby guaranteeing it will never snow in Richmond again.
But Henry likes it nonetheless. We have since borrowed an old school wooden sled from the neighbors whose 15 yr old son I just saw whizzing by on a boogie board.

I like this stuff Mommy. But you might want to consider getting me some gloves. And what was this rumor I heard about hot chocolate? And the movie Cars? And we might get to make more play dough? AWESOME!!!