Snow Day!

I don't have much personal experience to draw on, but it seems that Chicago is getting dumped on this winter. One weekend afternoon not too long ago, we decided to take Nate out in the snow. It was really deep and we thought it would be fun for him to have his first experience in deep snow. We bundled him up really well and he was so excited to get outside and play in the snow. He'd stand by the window and point outside and say over and over again, "SNOW!"

We thought that it was our duty as parents to teach Nate all the joys of snow. Snowballs are definitely one of the joys of snow. Robert was so funny trying to teach Nate how to pack the snow into a ball and then throw it. Nate usually just skipped the packing part and would just spray us with a mist of snowflakes. Nate had a bit of a hard time picking up the snow because he hasn't figured out that his thumbs go in their own seperate place in the mitten. Opposable thumbs do occasionally come in handy.

After Nate had figured out the basics, Robert thought it might be fun to have a snowball fight with Nate. I thought that the match-up wasn't quite equal but Nate didn't seem to mind. He took every shot with a smile and giggled as he tried to run away from his dad's assault.

In some spots at the park where we went to play, the snow had gotten pretty deep. Nate got stuck a couple of times and we had to come and save him.

Nate had about had all the fun he could take so we thought we'd slow down and teach him how to eat snow. I remember loving to eat it as a kid. Once he'd tried it, he would keep throwing handfuls on his face with his mouth wide open. It wasn't long until his little face turned bright red from the cold. Next time it snows some really nice packing snow I'm going to take out some cups and we'll pack them with snow and flavor them with juice to make our own snowcones. I loved doing that as a kid and as far as I'm concerned it's a rite of passage.

We had too much fun playing with Nate in the snow. The best part of it was that he was tired when we got back up to the apartment. Fun is the best way to wear out a kid and ensure a great nap.