Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow. Wait, I Hate Snow
It snowed in the DMV the other day. Most people would consider the 1″-3″ we got a dusting. But in this region? It’s enough to cause shortages of bread, milk, and toilet paper at all area grocers. I stupidly decided to brave Sam’s Club because we actually needed milk, and it was a cluster. I could’ve sworn an old lady was about ready to beat another old lady down with her baguette over the last few jugs of milk. Traffic was absolutely terrible as there were numerous turds on the road who were driving way too slow and even more turds who were driving 10mph above the speed limit in their SUVs.
Scenes like this are why I grew to hate snow as an adult. I assumed that having kids would redeem snow days for me.
I imagined taking my kids sledding, making snowmen, and hanging them upside down like Bill Cosby did when Rudy said, “Daddy, I need to go pee,” shortly after dressing her in her snow gear.
So in December of 2009, we began to show D1 The Snowman – one of my wife’s favorite movies growing up. She loved it – probably by default since that’s the only thing we let her watch on TV at the time. She would ask me, “Appa! Can we make a snowman?!” I told her we could when it snowed.
So when they were forecasting, Snowpocalypse, I got really excited. I procured several sleds and got my daughter all kinds of winter gear. When the snow started falling, D1 and I probably spent a solid 20 minutes sitting at the window watching the snowfall. She was so excited.
When the snow stopped the next day, we got D1 bundled up – which every parent will tell you, is no small feat. She ran outside shouting, “SNOW!!! SNOW!!!” And then she stepped in it. She hated it. She had a hard time comprehending why she would fall in whenever she stepped in it. And then her glove fell off and she touched some snow with her bare hand. She began to cry and wanted to go back in.
Wanting to make the most of the 20 minutes it took to dress her, I asked her if she wanted to go sledding. Nope. She just wanted to go back in.
Fast forward to this year. D1 was excited when it began snowing the other day. She was excited to make a snowman. Once the snow stopped, we got her dressed and we ran outside.
D1: Appa! I’m going to make a snowman!
Me: Ok, sweetheart!
D1: *touches the snow, remembers that it’s cold and that she hates it* Appa! You’re going to make a snowman!
So I proceed to make a snowman. And then she starts giving me requests. “Can you make Cinderella?” “How about Pororo?” Thankfully, she doesn’t care that Cinderella and Snow White both look the same as the regular snow man.
While snow days aren’t quite what I imagined (yet), we still have memories like this:
So I say, Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow! And that last jug of milk is mine old lady.
What about you? What are your favorite snow day memories with your kids so far? Would you have used a baguette or a pork tenderloin as your weapon of choice?
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A baguette wouldn’t do much damage, but it is a lot prettier. Women think about these things. Which weapon would look prettier when I bash the other women with it? 😉 Hey what does DMV stand for (besides dept of motor vehicles)? Love the picture of you two–her snow gear is so cute! My favorite snow day memories as a kid were when my Dad would pull us down the street in an old fashioned sled and making snow ice cream with him on the second snow of every year (he said the first snow was too polluted b/c pulls out all the junk in the air when it comes down). Snow ice cream was the bombdiggity. But sledding will always be the best. I did it into my adult years but haven’t done it probably in 3-4. Well, there’s snow outside right now. So maybe it’s time to renew my inner child.
That’s true. Better add some glitter to it to seal the deal.
DMV = DC, Maryland, Virginia.
Nothing brings out your inner child like racing down a hill at breakneck speeds. And nothing reminds you that you’re no longer a kid like how winded you are after climbing back up the hill and having to contemplate for a solid 10 minutes whether you want to make the effort to sled back down.
BWAH! Too true, too true. For some reason the exhaustion doesn’t bother me. It maks me glad I’m getting a (rare) workout.
Your snow days are like ours.
In the metro Atlanta area, we’ve had 3 solid days of newscasters warning us to “stay inside! don’t go out there! there is BLACK ICE on the roads!” When hubby went to Walmart on day 2 of Snowpocalypse, there were literally 4 dozen eggs left. We were legitimately out of them, though.
With a 19 mo girl, fun in the snow consists of getting her all dressed up, and while I gear up, I come back to realize she’d been squatting: “oh no, is that poop I smell?” only to undo all the snow pants/jacket/hat/mittens/boots to do them again in a minute.
Then once we’re outside she hates standing in the snow (granted, she refuses to wear anything on her feet other than cowboy boots, so she slips) and insists that I “hold you” the whole time. Yay, loads of fun.
But we got some pictures of wonder, and a few of pre-meltdown drama. Maybe next year.
Don’t lie – I bet you sat there for a minute or two contemplating just taking her out while she had a poopy diaper. Or maybe that’s just me?
Yes, I did think about it. I knew she wouldn’t last long….
Okay. The first paragraph just describes snow in the Pacific NW to a T. Turds on the road are the number one reason I hole myself at home whenever snow is in the forecast. Except if I run out of beer. I’ll battle the turds for that.
But aren’t you glad we don’t have to shovel snow very often?
I’ll straight up beat someone with a baguette in each hand for the last 6 pack of Beer.
I genuinely like that the old ladies stopped for baguettes in the middle of such a crisis. Priorities people.
Indeed. Me? I stopped for cheese. Mmmmm! Cheese!
i more of a cucumber girl. Wait. Did I just admit that in a public forum? Shit Dammit.
What region do you live in? Clearly, we don’t have snow days where i live. We need to travel to get snow filled memories.
Cucumber! I knew it! HAHA!
Northeast – so we’re right in the middle of “Go insane because we never see snow,” and “shrug it off b/c snow is no big deal”
My kids LOVE the snow. Good thing we get a lot of it. Last year we took them sledding and I thought I would die. Buster couldn’t walk up the hill himself and it took all I had to get myself up the hill, let alone him.
This might be all the more reason not to attempt to take D1 to the massive hill near our house and just start with our backyard.
The snow was fun the first day… On day 4, not so much. They don’t know how to handle the snow down here. I wouldn’t waste my baguette for milk. Beer, maybe, but not milk. 😉
They really should sell beer in gallon jugs for situations like this: grab beer with one hand, fend off snow zombies with a baguette in the other.
The closest my daughter has gotten to the snow was Snow Day at her school here in Los Angeles. It wasn’t exactly enough to make a snowman! But we are headed to Minnesota this month and I’m sure she’ll get her fill of the white stuff.
Sam’s Club is scary under normal circumstances….in a storm I can’t imagine how terrifying it must have been!
I don’t know what I was thinking. And I was completely sober.
Too cute! We haven’t gotten to play in the snow much because as soon as it snowed the temperature dropped to 1 degree. It got as high as 6 today. This weekend it’s going to be 30, so at that point, we’ll get out there. Last year we built a fort and a snowman which S promptly decided to knock over. Which was fine, except she immediately wanted me to build her another one. So I made a mini one about 6″ high.
Wow. D1 and D2 are SHELTERED! My wife and I think it’s too cold to take the kids out when the windchill is in the teens, let alone at single digits.
I love the snow! Well, not driving in it, but there’s a certain quiet calm and beauty to it when the city is blanketed in white. Ever since the Sesame St episode where the kid goes sledding and drinks hot chocolate with his mom, my daughter’s been obsessed with going out to sled when it snows even when she’s never done it. Sadly, I still haven’t procured a single sled for the house so I really need to know – where did you get yours? I am in desperate need of one and even Target didn’t have them (at least not one appropriate for a two-year-old). I also didn’t feel like spending $80-$120 for a “sleigh” either…
Yeah, it’s surprisingly difficult to find sleds. One benefit of having packrat parents is that they still have the sleds from our childhoods. So we just went to my parents and the In-laws, and we were able to get some sleds.
Other than that, there are some decent priced ones on Amazon.
Pork Tenderloin would be my weapon of choice. Isn’t that how Rocky trained for his giant comeback by slapping some meat around? If its good enough for Rocky its good enough to snatch the last jug of milk.
That’s a good point, TK. Though I’m sure walking into a Sam’s Club and proclaiming, “DON’T GET IN MY WAY! I’m going to be slapping some meat around!” would be met with some strange looks.
Milk? Screw the milk. I’d be right pissed if someone snatched the last case of beer. In which case I’d have to throw down a grandma or two. Heck, I’d use the grandma as a weapon. I’m sure that her total knee replacement and hip replacement pack a punch when hit in the face with it.
We just got pounded with snow in Canada. I know what you’re thinking “It snows in Canada?” and it does.
The polar bears are happy.
I just LOLed at the image of you flinging around grandma’s with hip replacements.
Awwww!
Where’s the pic of snow white and cinderella?
I was embarrassed at the quality of the snow princesses. Hmmm…in retrospect, I should’ve taken a picture and said that D1 made them.
I’m sure that if it snowed here we would have the same problems.
Old ladies beating each other with baguettes! HA!
Great post!
I can’t stand the snow (that’s why I moved to sunny San Diego!) and my childhood recollections of the white stuff were eating it and barfing it a few minutes later, and getting soaked and frozen while walking to school. I remember reading Little House of the Prairie and the blizzard descriptions and empathized with Laura Ingalls. And there were no blizzards ever where I grew up, just a couple inches at the most!
You know, I grew up in Chicago and I don’t remember any kids hating snow. Everybody loved it.
My daughter had the same reaction yours did when she saw snow last year for the first time. All this buildup and she concluded she was freaking cold and wanted nothing to do it.
They don’t make kids like they used to.
I hate snow, and I hate how DC deals with snow (flurries or blizzards). But, kids in snow = adorable! xoxo
I remember the snow we had during XMas back when I was around 12. My dad and I got on the local NC news as we shoveled are driveway. I thought I was tough.
I admit, I haven’t clicked on the link. But my immediate assumption about The Snowman has it being a gory horror flick. Which is an interesting take on teaching your daughter to love snow.
But I like the unique approach.