Playing In the Snow

We had Tessa baptized yesterday, but the memory card with all the pictures was left in Justin's computer and he brought it to work so those will have to wait until tomorrow or whatever day I am able to spend extra time on the computer. 

Now that the "Polar Vortex" is over it is no longer dangerous to be outside.  We bought Ben his first pair of snow pants last week and last Friday I realized it was 36 degrees outside so I thought I would bring him out.  I bundled Tessa into her car seat and set up the stroller in the garage for her where I could hear her.  I pulled Ben around on this old sled that we have (we really need to get a modern plastic one for a kid this little!  He fell off a few times because this one doesn't have raised sides,) and then we played on the pile of snow cleared from the cul de sac. 

 

On this pile is where Ben experienced the childhood delight of eating snow for the first time.  Aaaah...what is more refreshing than a big mouthful of fresh snow?  I have always been a snow eater.  As a child, I had a few friends who were non snow eaters because there was always a chance that "a dog could have peeeeed on it!" And that was the only reason.  Because a dog could have peed on it.  I acknowledged this concern but always wanted to say, "Does it look melted and yellow in that spot?  Because if not, nothing peed on it! I'm eating it!"  I will make sure to teach my children the signs of safe to eat snow.  And actually, snow that has been plowed into a pile is not ideal snow for eating but we had a fresh inch so the top layer was clean and perfect for licking off a mitten! 

 

Speaking of snow piles, they made up a majority of the outdoor winter fun of my childhood. (Those kids have an outdoor ice rink now!  If we had that back in the 90's maybe I would be able to skate!)  There were the piles my dad made from clearing the yard on the farm, the piles from the school parking lots at recess, and the big one...the big pile known a "The Hill" which held the snow cleared from the city streets.  The Hill was always in the same spot near the middle of the town and still is today.  And kids are still spending unsupervised afternoons and weekends sledding and building forts on it the same way they did twenty years ago and probably since the town first got snow plows.  Even on the flat Eastern N.D. landscape there were good sledding hills to be found but they were all in the country so not accessible to kids on foot.  We even had a mediocre sledding hill right in front of our house on the banks of the North Branch of the Goose River which is really just a little stream except during the spring melt and the occasional summer deluge. 

 

Ben's outing only lasted about twenty minutes.  That is how I often remember playing in the snow to be.  The trouble of getting on snow pants and boots almost took longer than the time spent outside before deciding it was too cold or boring out there.  I cut the fun short this time.  I was cold because I was not wearing snow pants but instead leggings and Tessa was fussing in the garage.  Ben, not surprisingly, did not want to come in from outside and I had to haul him back into the garage kicking and thrashing.  I look forward to the time when he is old enough to play outside on his own.