Sledding Fun

The weather was finally warm enough to take the girls out sledding today, so we Rowes headed over to the town High School to sled down its massively steep, double-bumped front hill.  We discovered late last winter that the kids prefer this hill to the milder one at the town golf course we had been going to.  Even so, for the first few runs down today, both girls wanted a parent with them.  Julia then decided to brave the hill by herself, but her survival instincts were still on overdrive, so every possible imagined danger in her path caused her to bail out of her sled.

Her first few runs went something like this:

ME: Okay, let me know when you're ready and I'll let go of the sled.
JULIA: Okay.  I'm ready.
ME: Okay!  (letting go)
JULIA: (shooting down the hill at rapid speed, then flailing around and flying out of her sled mid-way down the hill.)

Eventually, she was able to trust her ability to steer (somewhat) out of the way of impediments, and had a blast sailing down the hill all on her own.  Even Madeleine wound up going down on the sled alone, starting first at the second bump in the hill, then working her way all the way to the very top.  And both girls were real troopers about trudging the whole up the hill pulling their sleds (sometimes with a little help from Daddy):

At one point, after Julia had reached the top of the hill again, we had this exchange:

ME: Do you want to go down again by yourself?
JULIA: Yes.  Because I really LOVE sledding.  But Mom?  First I need to take a little break, because it's really tiring.  Pulling that sled all the way up the hill is hard, and Mom?  Sometimes it even feels like I'm LUGGING it.  Okay, I'm reeeeady!  (hopping into the sled)

I mean, when she said she needed a little break, she really meant a LITTLE one.  Basically a break long enough to utter a few sentences, then down she went again.

Madeleine took longer to get back up the hill, mostly because she continually got distracted by the snow itself and began playing with it.  At one point, after I rode down the sled with Julia, Madeleine and Ethan both attacked us with snowballs.  I literally was in the midst of trying to take a picture of Madeleine when a snowball struck me in the eye from very close range. 

Don't be fooled by her cute, giggling face.  She is not afraid to nail you in the eye with a cold one.


In fact, our sledding adventure ended in sobs all because of a snowball.  Madeleine decided she needed to take a snowball home with us, and got so utterly emotionally attached to her snowball that it was unthinkable for her to let it go.  I was absolutely not about to let her take it in the car, where it would undoubtedly melt and make a big mess, but she chose to employ her selective listening and hop into her car seat, snowball in hand, anyway.  When I attempted to take the snowball from her, she clamped her little hand so tightly around it that my only recourse was to yank her glove off and shake the snowball out onto the ground. 

And man.  Madeleine was NOT happy.  She sobbed her little heart out about the injustice of the situation.  I had no sympathy.  I had already told her she needed to dispose of the snowball before getting in the car, and she chose to impishly defy me.  Sorry, snowball.  You don't get to be part of the family.

And now that we all got to have a little fun in the snow, I'll have no complaints if Mother Nature decides to warm things up and melt all the snow away!