Let it snow

Its 7:30 in the morning and I chase Chip downstairs for breakfast. He looks out the window and says in his best Leo-from-the-little-einstein-voice “Oh my god. I cannot believe it!” I follow his little index finger pointed at the window thinking something utterly disastrous has happened. It is a Wednesday and I am late. Would have been perfect timing, actually. But no. Not today. I look out the window and see something that is best said by pictures. The First Snow Of The Season. We’ll it’s only a dusting but it covers the road and the cars and the roof and trees. All very pretty, yes, but the damn plough hasn’t cleaned the road.

I give Chip his milk and grind some coffee, make some toast and sit down at the table.
“So, now we can go and make a snowman?” Chip asks.
“There isn’t enough snow.”

Well, we could have made miniature snowmen, but hey, I am not 3 and I have a job to get to, not to mention the ghastly traffic because well, in the spring and summer and fall months, people simply forget how to drive even in a quarter inch of snow. Snowmen are hardly the agenda on a Wednesday morning. (How do you blow a raspberry on the blog without having to spit all over the monitor?)

“Of course there is” Chip says.
Chip, I am convinced will be a good negotiator. He never lets go. Never.
“We can collect all the snow from the backyard and from the front and make a BIG snowman.”

Ok. Plan B, then.
“It’s going to get warmer later today, your snowman will melt.”
That buys me enough time to finish my toast.
“How warm?”
“Warm enough to melt the snow. There won’t be any snow when we get back in the evening.”
“Let’s go ice skating then.”

I can’t ice-skate. Or ski. I have the limb co-ordination and balance of a three-toed sloth. I waddle and fall down. Mostly. Actually, that’s not completely accurate. I can’t ski. I have never ice-skated. This past weekend, a friend coerced me gently to go ice-skating. I was so scared that when we had to go run some errands before the rendezvous, I wore a skirt and boots. BigGeek looked quizzically at me – and I couldn’t tell if it was because my selection of attire was completely inappropriate for an afternoon on ice or if it was because my sides bulged out like cheese popovers.

“You are going to ice-skate in THAT?”
A-ha. No cheese popovers. That means- I have either slimmed down or the man has wisened up. Prolly the second.
“No. I am not ice-skating in that.”
“We won’t have time to change.”
“No. I am not ice-skating. It’s my insurance. So I don’t have to ice-skate.”

We never did end up going. We came home, tried and decided to call the friends over to drink beer instead. At least there is no danger of slipping and falling. Not right away in any case.

So. End of long, un-necessary deviation from that Wednesday morning. Chip had been a bit put-off that we cancelled ice-skating the past weekend.

“You want to ice-skate now? I asked him.
“Yes. Let go get me some skates and we can ice-skate on the road.”
“You have to go to a rink to ice-skate. You can’t ice skate on roads.”
His lips pouted and steam came out his ears. A nuclear-grade tantrum was brewing.
“I want to ice skate now.”

Plan C.
“Look outside. Is that snow or ice?”
“Snow.”
“And do we say ice-skating or snow-skating?”
“Ice-skating.”
“Then how can you skate when it snows?”
Chip thought for a second.
“We need ice to skate.”
“Eggggzactly” I said being quite proud of myself for having defeated a three year old through logic.