Snowy Day

Today when I arrived at preschool for pick-up, I heard the sound of a child wailing from the other room.

My stomach sank.  I know the sound of a kid crying isn't particularly distinctive, but it sure sounded a heck of a lot like my kid.

I wasn't wrong.  I walked into the classroom to find Madeleine bawling amongst the rest of the kids awaiting pick-up.  And what was she bawling about?  I know, I know, there are so many options.  This time it was about her gloves.  As one of Madeleine's teachers told me in amusement, "You packed her the wrong gloves, ON PURPOSE."

God foribid!  Yes, I had packed her a clean pair of gloves so that I could dry her sopping wet (very special, favorite) gloves that she wore in the sleet yesterday.  What kind of mother AM I??

Anyway, Madeleine had completely missed outside-in-the-snow time at school because she was too distraught over her gloves.  Lucky for her, right after preschool ended, we got to walk, in the snow, to Julia's school to pick up Julia and a friend for a play-date.

On our way to Julia's school, Madeleine romped gleefully in the thin coating of snow that stuck to neighboring lawns.  When it came time to walk down her favorite, very steep downhill, I insisted she hold my hand so that she not slip in the ice and snow.

MADELEINE: (blowing air out of her lips in disdain) Oh, Mom, don't be so AFRAID of going down the hill in the SNOW!
ME: Honey, there's a lot of black ice on the pavement, so you could slip.
MADELEINE: Ooh, Mama, I wanna see the black ice.
ME: You can't see black ice.  That's what's so dangerous about it.  You never know when you're going to slip.
MADELEINE: (blowing air out of her lips again) Well, Mom.  Don't you know that I'm REALLY good at seeing things?  Besides.  I *do* have those BIG OWL eyes!  So...I can really see more BETTER than you...because...you only have LITTLE owl eyes!

I see.  Her big owl eyes are going to save the day so that she doesn't slip.  Because...she NEVER cluelessly wipes out or anything.  She can definitely see sudden balance-changing dangers more better than I can.

So I insisted she hold my hand and we made our way slowly downhill, wipe-out free!

Luckily, we got plenty of time to play in the very paltry amount of snow once we were back at home, so Madeleine and Julia both got a chance to run around like crazy in snow pants and gloves and all!: