Snow days

The East Coast finally got snow! Significant snow. Up where we live, we got around 6 inches of powder, which was perfect for sledding!

I shoveled—with the help of N—the first two inches or so before it got dark. His help consisted of shoveling snow from the snowbank onto the driveway I just cleared, but that’s irrelevant. We woke up the next day to a few more inches of snow, which I shoveled by myself while the rest of the family ate breakfast.

In the afternoon, we headed over to UConn’s Horsebarn Hill, where the cow pasture, equestrian-type things, and Dairy Bar are. The Hill is a few hundred feet high and slightly more than a gradual slope, making for perfect sledding conditions.

We have an L.L. Bean wooden sled with a U-shaped back that prevents the boys from falling off and a little blue kid’s toboggan that really needs to be pulled to work.

We started off halfway up and cruised down a few times. We met friends of ours who happen to be L’s coworkers (and their daughter) and are way better prepared than us for most things. In this instance, they all have snow pants while only our boys have snow pants. One thing we both had—after a little while—were crying and cold children.

L got in on the action, too, as both boys wanted to ride with her—as if I was chopped liver. Yeah, she’s 27 weeks along, but she’s a great mom and trudged up the hill several times for the sake of entertaining the boys.

N was having a good time until he decided he wanted to head to the top of the hill. To his credit, he trekked all the way to the top on his own, sans the 40 or so feet I carried him, and we mentally prepared for the 15-second thrill ride down. I had him in front of me and covered most of his face the best I could, so he didn’t get sprayed with snow the entire way. It was going great until the tail end when basically the only thing keeping him on the sled was me scissor-locking him in with my legs so he didn’t fly off. He was laughing—part enjoying it but mostly terrified—until the end when he yelled at me that it was scary. I apologized and bribed him with hot chocolate when we got home. Done and done.

A few more rides and we were outta there but instead of hot chocolate, he asked for ice cream. Ummm, yeah, we went and got ice cream because that’s normal, right?

The day was kind of unfair to G because he really was just cold and irritated after a few minutes. A ride on the sled appeased him, but only for a little while. By time D3 is here, winter will be gone and G should be excited for the next snowfall 11 months from now.