Our Snowmaggedon turned into Snowmanothin’.
The kids were full-on, wide open RAMPED up about having snow this weekend. I got pretty excited too after my trip to Fresh Market to lay in a weekend supply of brie, crostini, cornichons, sushi, and bruschetta. We went to sleep Friday night to the sound of rain on our roof and temperatures dropping quickly. Friends to the west were already posting pictures of fat fluffy flakes. Wheeeeee!
I woke in the middle of the night and went right back to sleep with a smile on my face. The sound of rain had been replaced with a serene quiet that whispered, “Snow.”
I woke just after dawn and rolled over to peep out the window at….the browny browness of our deck.
Clusterflake 2017
“Aw, man,” I muttered. “The kids are going to be so disappointed.” I went back to sleep with a little gray cloud of gloom over my head. There goes our special excitement for the weekend.
I finally dragged myself out of bed late in the morning, sure that the children would be piled in a warm and dry heap of despair by the back door, their sleds quietly dry rotting in the tool shed.
Instead, Carlos met me in the hallway, dancing with glee (and nekkid, because that’s his weekend ethos).
“MAMA!!! IT SNOWED! IT SNOWED OUTSIDE! IT SNOWED!” He pulled me to the deck to show me the SNOW.
And that’s when it hit me–he doesn’t know any better.
Carlos is my snow baby, born during the big Christmas snow storm of 2010. That was a snow that I’ll never forget, but it’s not exactly a part of his memory. He also got a fat lip and a black eye during the ice storm of 2014, but I don’t think he remembers much of it.
He’s never been to Utah for snowboarding in a foot of fresh powder. He’s never made a snowman. He doesn’t know what the world looks like from atop a glacier in Austria. He’s never watched the giant pandas at the National Zoo play in the drifts of snow. He’s never been in a snowball fight. He’s never stood outside in the dark and marveled at the quiet of fat fluffy flakes falling all around.
To this cheerful lark of a child, IT SNOWED. He saw this snow for what it was, not for what it wasn’t. Sometimes it’s good not to know better, because it keeps us from comparison. It’s hard to allow happiness to float if we’re always comparing each experience to all of our other experiences to see how it measures up.
Oh, to not know any better so that I can enjoy what is before me.
Pants added in post-production.
G captured this photo of our boy “playing in the snow.” Boots are for snow. Jackets are for snow. Pants are for SUCKERS.
Love the illusion of “pants”. Totally made me giggle.
Behold my fearsome photo editing skills!
I love this one. Not sure who said comparisons are odious, but whoever it was was right!
I think it was Jonathan Swift…but I am too lazy to Google it right now!
I’m going to keep that concept for myself.
However, I question your shopping list for a snow weekend: brie, crostini, cornichonsw?? I don’t even know what the last two are. We had spaghetti (Boyardee, the first and only commercial sauce) or chili on snow days, but then I’m older than Boyardee, so what do I know about this younger generation.
Happy New Year, Ashley
My weirdos won’t eat spaghetti with sauce, mac and cheese, or chili!
Love it! The foibles of comparison mess us up — but Carlos is so much smarter than that!