Sledding

Up the hill!
Get ready, Andrew!
Whoa!
Now with Daddy.
Crash!

Yea! Snow! Okay, so our grass isn't even covered, but yesterday there was no school and enough snow to go sledding. Where does the neighborhood go to sled? Our backyard. Well, technically it is part our yard, mostly the community lot just next to our property.

It is the perfect sledding hill. Perfect. Not too high so you get tired out climbing up it over and over, not so low that it is lame. Fast. Not too scary. Unless you're scared of the cars that may hit you if you go fast enough into the street at the bottom. Or scared of crashing into one of our pear trees at the bottom of the hill. Apparently, children are not scared of cars or trees, however. I have had several small heart attacks watching these little kids barrel down the hill and miss cars driving down the street by mere feet. Yikes. Oh, their parents aren't with them. To be fair, our street is not very busy. Probably only 1 or 2 cars every 20 minutes or so. Good odds. If you're a kid. I came in from shoveling our driveway and expressed my worries to Jeff. His response? "Survival of the fittest". Lovely.

Anyhoo, while I'm not worrying about dead kids in my front lawn, I've been having a blast with Andrew out in the snow. He LOVES it. This kid may have been born in California, but he was made to live in the cold. This kid hated sand and salt water at the beach this summer. He could CARE LESS when snow gets up his sleeves and down his neck. Weirdo. Some really nice boys helped Andrew take his very first sled ride yesterday. I was so touched. And they played snow fight with him, pretending to run away and never firing back at him. I hope Andrew is that nice when he is 10 (my FIL pointed out that they HAVE to be nice...this is the kid whose parents own the sledding hill...better suck up. Good point).

Today Jeff got out one of the many sleds the previous owner of our house left behind for us in our attic. It is a SWEET sled. Much nicer than anything I would shell out money for. He and Andrew went sled riding this afternoon. So daggone cute. Some highlights:

1) I desperately wanted to get some pictures of Andrew sledding. So I left Lily screaming in the house and run out with my camera. I'm standing at the bottom of the hill and Jeff sends Andrew alone on the sled towards me. I snap a photo and get the heck out of the way. Andrew zooms past me and crashes into our house. Jeff is standing at the top of the hill with a shocked look on his face. Apparently I was supposed to stop our 3 year old's momentum. Oops. Instinct has taught me to move out of the way. Mother's intuition is supposed to take over at that point. But I never claimed to be a good mother...

2) Shadow is seriously distressed by all the foot traffic in our yard the last 2 days. Not to mention the scary sleds and yucky snow. She is definitely a California native. My favorite Shadow moment yesterday...she purposefully walked to the middle of the sledding hill and dropped a deuce. Looking at the sledders very meaningfully. As if to say, "Ride through my shit, you trespassers". Today, she was so upset about Andrew going down the hill. I took her inside after she almost got plowed over by Andrew's sled...she refused to get out of the way...I think she was trying to get to him. Inside she just ran frantically between the windows whenever she saw Andrew, whining pitifully. Poor thing.

3) Jeff told me that Andrew walked up to the little boys today, gave them a thumbs up and said, "I have really fast running shoes". We are really worried he's not going to have any friends.

So it's been a fun few days. I realized that I don't own any boots. None. Never occurred to me to buy any. Too bad there are only swimsuits in the stores right now. Damn merchandising...always a season ahead...not good for non-shoppers like myself. Also, found out that Andrew's winter coat is too small. Never noticed the gaps at his wrists until I saw snow sticking to his chunky little wrists. Poor guy. Again, he doesn't care.

Hope you all are enjoying winter! I'll bet most of you can't see your grass when you sled!