Anyway, my point is: Syracuse is cold and miserable and clearly inside the Arctic Circle, and I spent four winters there, and for a while I was very smug about the whole thing. Like, look at these tiny fools, pretending to suffer in the cold. (Granted, that post-collegiate-early-twenty-something-punk-ass-itude could have had more than a little to do with it.) I didn't wear a proper coat for quite a long time; I made it work with layers and turtlenecks and flannel and scarves and warm gloves and the occasional Nana Beanie. Gradually, I worked my way back into down vests and polarfleece and preheating my car for at least 10 minutes before I get in it.
I don't like the cold any more, is what I am saying. Right now I would be perfectly happy if I could chunk myself up on potatoes and pasta and cheese, crawl into a cave somewhere under an electric blanket turned to "Furnace," and hibernate until at least the middle of April, when most of the danger of snow has passed (unless you are in Syracuse, where it snowed six inches on Mother's Day in 1996, the weekend I graduated from college).
Not my kid, though. She wants to be outside, all the time, no matter the weather. Yesterday we had to clean the sidewalks and dig out my car so I could go into work for some year-end overtime, and she not only volunteered to help -- she insisted.
One second we were snuggled in bed together, she and my husband and I, and she heard me mention that someone (read: HIM) needed to go outside to take care of the snow removal, and she jumped up, ran into her room, and was completely naked and ready to get dressed before I had a chance to figure out what happened.
If only I could figure out a way to get her that excited about cleaning up her room, or her toys, or the sofa after she's been lounging all afternoon. Perhaps I ought to put everything out on the porch.
joey likes to do anything that involved HELPING mommy or daddy. so if i want him to clean his room, i ask him to help mommy clean his room. works every time.
ReplyDeletei'll think of the challenge because she does like to be outside and she needs to think shes helping she spent a good half hour fixing some new metal i got with a hammer !!!!!
ReplyDeleteKids are impervious to temperature extremes, I think. I'm sure we were, too, once upon a time!
ReplyDeleteAlso: any Monty Python(er) reference = awesome.
And my dad and grandfather both went to Cornell. I very briefly considered going there, and then I visited with my dad one time and saw the enormous hill that went from the freshman dorms to the rest of campus, and learned about the sheer quantity of cold and snow they get. Not. For. Me. So I stayed South.
:) Sorry to tell you this but Syracuse isn't the coldest place on earth! LOL! :) I lived 2 1/2 hours north of Syracuse in a tiny town named Clayton that was on the Canadian border. It was beyond freezing cold! Plus inconvenient. We lived 35 minutes from the closest real grocery store and the closest mall or real clothes shopping was Syracuse! LOL! :) I have always hated the cold though, NY, NC, or GA! I hate cold but I do enjoy snow to a certain extent. :) To bad you can't have one without the other!
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