First Snow of the Season

No, not her first snow ever, but the first snow this year and the first time she could get down and play in it.

Last time, was when Aunt Anne and Asha came out for her birthday, and Elaina was in her bear suit. She looked so little back then. Now, she's very grown up—decked out in a snow suit instead of the bear suit.

Any good arctic explorer will tell you that it's important to inspect your gear before going out. (Bad arctic explorers won't tell you anything at all.)

Elaina's taking this trip seriously. She's been at the window all morning waiting for this, but she's going to make sure the job is done right.

Suited up and ready to go. Impatient to go, actually. Once you're suited up, waiting for Daddy is such a drag.

Trudging through the arctic landscape.

I thought (I don't know why) that she'd somehow go directly from the house into the toboggan. I even remember thinking that the boots were "a good idea in case she gets out of the toboggan". It's astonishing how I manage to forget the nature of my little girl. Of course she didn't go into the toboggan! There's all this snow everywhere! Why, why would anyone suppose that the toboggan was the primary draw?

The wonderful thing is that now she can tell me "no" rather than just cry or fuss. And immediately, upon hearing "no!" I saw my mistake. While I was thinking about pulling her around in a little red toboggan, she was seeing a vast white landscape unlike any she can remember experiencing.

And it was cool and wonderful—much more so than I'd realized when looking through my own eyes, which were clearly not up to the task of taking in the season's first snowfall. And the toboggan, though it would be interesting later, really wasn't such a big deal compared to a yard full of snow.

After the exploring, the toboggan was interesting. Elaina apparently knew what it was all about, because she walked over and started climbing in. I quickly came to realize how lucky I was that the toboggan wasn't the main event!

First, the rope was too short for me to pull while walking upright. Second, pulling a toboggan around in the snow was a lot easier in my head than it was in reality.

In my head, we were going to be smiling and laughing, you could kind of hear sleigh bells, and I was high-stepping through the snow like a tireless draft horse, unburdened by the sleigh I pulled. That was the vision last night when I spotted the shiny red toboggan.

In reality, this afternoon: I'm hunched over, lurching around the yard, puffing and gasping, looking like the mistreated minion of some evil genius.... But Elaina's laughing and saying "wheee!", so what's a poor, hunchbacked minion to do?

The smiling and laughing was in both versions, and I suppose that's the part that counts. I was pretty out of breath by the time we'd made a several circuits around the yard, and luckily, Elaina was ready to get back out in the snow.

She's still kind of a little snow bear....