Snowed

We had decided that this would finally be the year that we take the kids to the snow. Poor Bub has only seen snow at his preschool’s snow day, and it was 85 degrees, and what he really had was a rather large ice cube on the playground. We’ve been wanting to go for years, but once we thought Bub was old enough to enjoy it, we had Bubette, who was too little for a few years, and now we thought we might finally be ready.

I prepped the kids and ordered snow clothes. Bubette got the pinkest ones I could find because once she outgrows these she’s going directly into Bub’s hand-me-downs. Bub was super excited to have a snowball fight, and to sled all day long. I was excited because pictures in the snow are so pretty, and this would make for a really fun family outing.

Shall we start with all of the ways in which we/I went wrong? We didn’t put the kids’ snow boots on before we left, and had never even tried Bub’s boots on as they were hand-me-downs in the right size. It took, without hyperbole, 45 minutes to get them on, parked on the side of the road, with Bub half-hanging out the door of the van, and us with freezing fingers.  During that time my husband and I traded off Bubette wrangling and shoe cramming.

I originally ordered gloves for Bubette. GLOVES, for a two year old. Fortunately, we were able to borrow mittens from a friend, and even getting her thumb separated from the rest of her fingers was a challenge. Bub’s gloves were a touch too big, and they slipped off once, prompting him to scream, “I’M FREEZING! MY HANDS ARE FROZEN.” while we shoved them back on. He’s getting mittens next time, too, so help me.

Bubette’s hat was too big and slipped into her eyes every ten seconds. Her hair tie snapped leaving all of her hair to fly in her face where it stuck, due to the rather impressive amount of tears and snot she produced by CRYING THE ENTIRE TIME WE WERE THERE. She did stop crying at one point, but during that time Bub was SO done, and kept up a running monologue about his need for lunch because he’s starving. RIGHT NOW, MAMA. It’s lunch time. (It was not) Sledding made me SO HUNGRY. (Oh REALLY, child? Four runs down a tiny hill really helped you work up an appetite, did it?)

I tried to win him over with a snowball fight, but the snow was too powdery and wouldn’t stick to itself. Ideal for sledding and falling. Not ideal for making good on our promises of snow day fun.

We decided to head up the mountain to look for better sledding, (I’m not sure why we thought that would be fun) but we were thwarted by my car which was stuck in the ice.  Rookies! Park downhill, friends.  An hour later, someone from the forest service pulled us, and eight other cars, out of the ice. (Let’s all be thankful my car has a hook with which to be towed, otherwise we would probably still be on that mountain.  After hearing the forest service guy mention to someone else that he’s really not supposed to be doing this, I tried to tip him and offended him, because of course I did. And THEN, after he pulled us to freedom, he hopped out of his truck and said, “Take the parking brake off next time.” The stench of my (probably ruined) parking brake, followed us down the mountain stinking of burnt rubber and shame.

Me, 24 hours before our outing: If the kids like it, we should try to rent a cabin for a weekend next month. HAAAAA. (We might still do that. We are the people who drove up the mountains with boots that we hadn’t even tried on our son’s feet after all.)