So, the announcement hit my email box about the next snowshoeing, uh, adventure. It’s March 2. Not too far away (not enough time to get whipped into shape) and yet here I sit actually trying to decide if I should sign up or not.
I need my head examined.
Bill has completely lost it.
He hasn’t had his hair cut since before we moved. So, the last time scissors touched his locks was September 30 or so. He has completely given up on finding a place to go get his hair cut, because he doesn’t want to have to ask for a haircut in French.
Today, he found his solution. At Carrefour. He bought a razor. For his hair.
Right now, I can hear the bbbzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz coming from our bathroom upstairs. I’m sort of afraid to look.
Sure, there are plenty of people who cut their own hair at home. How else do you explain the phenomenon of the Flowbee? I’m not one of those people. I remember as a kid, sitting on the toilet in my grandmother’s itsy bitsy bathroom with pink hair roller tape on my bangs to mark a straight line. (it didn’t work) I trimmed Kaitlyn’s bangs a couple of months ago. I didn’t have any pink tape, I had to wing it. They are still crooked. I gave up on fixing them for fear she’d end up like Betty in Father Knows Best.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. Bill has a lot of hair to trim up there.
My concerns are not even touching on the fact that there will now be little gray hairs in our bathroom for weeks to come. I hope he’s keeping it away from my toothbrush.
Ok, I just went to check. Man, there is one big pile of hair on the bathroom floor. I was recruited to help trim the back of Bill’s hair. I think I got it even. I don’t think he’ll mind the little M I carved into his neck. (just kidding, Bill!)
Ah, Saturday night in France. C’est la vie!
I knew it was going to happen sooner or later. I’ve been meaning to call and make doctor appointments for Kaitlyn and myself to get check ups, so that we’d have each gone to a doctor one time when well. I pushed that off my to-do list* too many times and today I had to find a doctor to examine a sick little girl.
Yesterday afternoon, Kaitlyn felt warm to me. While she always feels warm to me, this time it seemed more so than usual. So I took her temperature and – voila I was right. She had a fever. I had some children’s Tylenol I brought from the U.S. so I gave it to her and waited to see if that worked. It did but the fever came back. And she woke up this morning burning hot. Bill took her temperature and reported it to be 102. But on his way out the door to work he told me it was up to me if she should go to a doctor.
In the United States, going to the doctor is a hassle. But I know how it works. You call, you beg for an appointment today because your child is sick. No, her regular doctor doesn’t have any openings until April. How about this other doctor? Fine, as long as he or she has a medical degree. Ok. Be at the office at 11am. You show your insurance card that they’ve made 106 copies of so they can make the 107th. You sit and wait. A nurse calls Kaitlyn’s name, you go in and she gets weighed and measured. You go onto the actual exam room where you sit and wait. They know what they are doing when they design doctor’s offices. There is no clock in the exam room. You now have no idea how long you have been sitting there, except that you have read the same insect book a dozen times. Finally, the doctor comes in. There’s some pleasant small talk. You tell him what Kaitlyn’s symptoms are and answer his questions. He looks at her, listens to her with the stethoscope, looks in her ears and at her throat, writes you a prescription and sends you off to the cashier to pay. $25 please. After hours? Make that $45. Another $10 or so per prescription and you’re done.
In France, I’m lost. I don’t know the system. Oh, sure, I found out in Paris that you can call 15 and they’ll assess your problem and decide what you should do. (In my case, they sent a doctor to our hotel. It was the night after I fell on my arm getting off the elevator. He told me to hold my arm like Napoleon then gave me a shot of morphine and left with his 100 euros.)
I knew there’s a doctor in Uriage (at the bottom of the hill) who speaks some English and some of the other ISE’s use him when they’re sick. I called someone for his name, but just got her answering machine. After calmly leaving her a message, I called Bill and freaked out. I broke out in tears. The idea of figuring out the French non-emergency medical system was more than I could face alone at 7:45am without my morning coffee. He promised to ask around the office for help. I’m thinking, that’s nice but dad’s just don’t know this stuff so he’s going to ask two people, get frustrated, and go back to working at his actual job. Luckily, I got a call back with the information I needed. And even luckier, Fridays is one of the days that Dr. Fortier doesn’t accept appointments; it’s all done on a walk-in basis.
Thank goodness I’d been given a good description of just going to the office. You have to walk around back of the building… find the outer door with his name on it.. press the buzzer to open the door (why have a buzzer if pressing it automatically opens the door in the first place?)… then his office is in the back. Go in but be careful which door you chose next. There is one that says interdit that is his actual exam room/office don’t go in there. There’s one that says salon de something-er-other that is the waiting room. Kaitlyn and I got to his office a little after 9. He opened at 8:30 and the waiting room was already full.
No one took a number or sat in the order in which they came in. Everyone just remembered who was next. When the doctor would finish with a patient, he’d walk down the hallway and open the door to the waiting room, whoever’s turn it was would stand up and go with him, shaking his hand and saying bonjour as they went. A basket of legos and plastic horses along with some children’s books kept Kaitlyn fairly entertained for the hour and a half or so that we waited. I flipped through a couple of magazines but, still not having had any coffee, I just wasn’t up to trying to translate enough to really get anything out of it. The second one I picked up which was about skiing in the French Alps had some real potential for handy information, until I realized it was two years old.
Finally, the doctor opened the door and it was our turn. Everyone else was ready to go when they were supposed to. I, of course, had to fish around for our coats and my purse and put junk away that Kaitlyn had been playing with. We followed the doctor into the room behind the door marked interdit. It was an office bookcases, a desk, wood floor. I sat in a leather chair and, after explaining je ne parle pas bien francais, I tried to explain the problem. Kaitlyn est malade. Elle tousse. Elle a une fievre. I dug in my pocket for the piece of paper where I’d written the temperature in Celsius (I’d googled the conversion from Fahrenheit before leaving home), but it was gone. I searched my memory for the answer… trente huit point huit. He had to help me out with that one. Then he asked me something. I just shrugged my shoulders and looked confused. He tried English… he wanted to know if she has the sniffles. Ah. Un peu. He typed in his computer.. asked our name (which, thankfully, I can spell in French) and our phone number (which I struggled with not just because I had to say it in French but because I just have trouble remembering it). I thought that was the weirdest examination ever. Just some questions with answers in bad French and now he wants his money to send us on our way? No, I was wrong. He stood up and told Kaitlyn to follow him into the exam room. I hadn’t even noticed the big opening in the wall next to his desk. So in we went. I took off her shirt and she hopped up on the table. She was just calm as a little cucumber. He looked in her ears, looked in her throat, listened to her chest with his stethoscope, pounded on her little back. He told me it’s la grippe**. I gave my patented shrug/confusion look. He said pas grave. Well, I sorta guessed that all along. He told me she needed cough syrup, two fever medicines and something for her nose. He wrote out the prescriptions along with the form for insurance. All the while I sat trying to remember how to spell 24 for the check. (vingt-quatre. He finally realized I was struggling and he told me. In French. I am now ever so thankful for the lesson spent going over and over and over the alphabet!)
I took our list of medications to the pharmacy. The pharmacist asked me if I speak French… I said un peu so she explained each one to me in French. It was good practice and she was kind enough to speak slowly. In the midst of that, Kaitlyn hopped up and hollered I have to pee pee! There really is a horrible lack of public restrooms in France. I wasn’t sure what I would do with her. The pharmacist said follow me and took us behind the counter (In the US that’s probably some federal offense that would have the D.E.A. combing the place) and downstairs to their bathroom. It’s good to know that at least people understand that when a four year old makes that kind of announcement, time is of the essence. Kaitlyn liked it because we went past a display of children’s sunglasses that had apparently been put away until spring; she thought we were on a special shopping excursion on our way to the toilet. Once that was done, we went back upstairs (on our own, she didn’t wait for us to make sure we didn’t pocket any medicines or sunglasses) and I paid the 12 euros for the four medications.
At home, Kaitlyn took her medicine no problem. She said the cough syrup tastes like waffles. The fever medicine is strawberry flavored. So that was like having dessert, I guess. She didn’t even fuss at the nasal spray. She kinda thought it was fun. She is so bizarre sometimes. I’m guessing it was the cough medicine that had her nodding off in her bowl of noodles. She was so tired she actually told me she wanted to go lie down in her bed. She’s been asleep for three hours now. Normally, I’d be freaking out that bedtime will be a nightmare if I don’t wake her up soon. But I’m figuring the night-time dose of cough syrup will take care of that!
*I found out at the language exchange this week that the French do not have to-do lists. The idea of such a thing struck them as odd. You make grocery lists, but not to-do lists, heavens, no!
** the flu
There’s no school today for Kaitlyn. No, it isn’t some strange mid-week holiday. I didn’t keep her home because she’s sick (although as the day wears on, that seems to be the case). The snow is melting, so that’s not the reason. (Which makes me wonder, do they have snow days?)
There’s no teacher.
Tuesday the school sent home a note with all the students in her class. The regular teacher has been out since November with a broken foot. She will be back on Monday. The substitute (who Kaitlyn knows better than the regular teacher at this point) either could not or would not stay through this week. (I’m not sure how it translated, but I got the idea that it was more would not) So the note begged that if you could watch your own child, please do so. That way the working parents could still take their children in and the assistant would not be too horribly overwhelmed.
There you go. Instant holiday.
My body is taking revenge on me for snowshoeing yesterday and skiing on Saturday.
It’s worse than just not being able to move. Although that’s part of it.
I also have a migraine that won’t go away. I’m sure I got dehydrated yesterday, only adding to that pain.
But today, I just felt sick. Tired and sore and sick. Not sick to my stomach or feverish… just sick. I could just barely move. Kaitlyn and I watched two movies then took a nap for like three hours.
Perhaps I’m not cut out for all this French activity.
The literal translation for raquettes is snowshoeing. What no one tells you it really means is a hike in the snow straight up a mountain with tennis racket looking devices strapped to your feet. In the cold. But you get so hot you sweat. In the cold.
Here’s the description of the day-long trek: (yes, day long should have been my first clue about the whole thing)
Voici une sortie sportive qui completera bien les activites culturelles et manuelles du mois: une promenade en raquettes au Bec de l’Orient (Chartreuse) le mardi 30 janvier de 8h45 a 16h. Elle est facile, tout le monde peut venir.
Here is an outdoor outing that will be a nice complement to the cultural and manual activities of the month: a snowshoe hike to the Bec de l’Orient (Chartreuse) on Tuesday, January 30 from 8h45 to 16h. It’s an easy one, everybody can come.
Then, the day before, one small change:
Nous avons un petit contre-temps: nous avons du changer notre but de balade en raquettes. La zone dans laquelle nous voulions nous garer n’est plus accessible par voiture. Nous vous proposons donc une balade a la Pointe de la Gorgeat, en Chartreuse pres du Mont Granier, balade qui aura le meme niveau de difficulte celle du Bec de l’Orient.
We had a little mishap: we had to change our snowshoeing destination. It is not allowed anymore to drive to the zone in which we wanted to park the cars. So instead, we will take you to the Pointe de la Gorgeat, in the Chartreuse near the Mont Granier. This hike will have the same level of difficulty as the Bec de l’Orient.
I arranged for Bill to take Kaitlyn to school in the morning, so I could get to the meeting point by 8:45am. I arranged for someone else to pick her up from school, in case we didn’t get back to the meeting point by 4pm (and even if we did, it would be a rushed crazy drive back by 4:30). I was set. I rented my snowshoes. I had my hiking boots. I packed my lunch (peanut butter and banana sandwich, two hunks of cheese, one red pepper, one pom pot applesauce in a pouch you suck). I had my lip balm, mittens, hat. I wore long underwear underneath my clothes. Bill packed it all for me in his camera bag and I was off.
From the meeting point (which was 30 minutes from our house), the group was divided in two and piled into minivans for the rest of the trip. I’d mentioned to a woman there that I know that I get car sick, so when she realized I’d been assigned to a car of ALL French speakers, she said something for me. They put me in the front seat and told me to take off my jacket and hat. The front seat was good for my stomach, bad for my head. The whole way there, I watched some sort of orange check engine light on the dash. It was that or try to speak French, really. They tried for a while to talk to me, but once I got past my small vocabulary I was done. Every so often, the driver would look over at me, put her hand on her stomach and say ca va? I also was trying to get the migraine I’d awakened with to fade. I had refused to let that stop me from going on this adventure. Forty-five minutes later, we arrived.
The walk started innocently enough. On a big, flat snowy plain we stopped to strap the snowshoes onto our shoes. Honestly, you’d think that with all the advances possible in the world that the whole snow shoe thing would be more, well, user friendly. But it’s not. There are two plastic pieces where your foot sits… one for the toe and the other for the heel. You slide the heel forward or backward to fit. Then you snap a strap around your ankle and try to figure out what to do with the long end of it so you don’t end up tripping on it later. That’s it. The guide helped me. She looked at the snowshoes and determined the one marked L was for my right foot and the one marked R for my left. Since those markings could actually be for French words (although what French words, I do not know), I trusted her. She’s the expert.
Shoes strapped on, we headed off. It was beautiful. Wide open, blanketed in snow all under a blue sky without a single cloud. We shuffled past a man working outside his house. I’m thinking to myself… how does he pay his bills? Buy food? Do for a living? I’m not very French, am I?
Past that, we went off the big, wide, flat path and up through some trees. Seemed so lovely. Almost quaint. We stopped when the guide saw some rabbit paw prints. She told us how it’s some bunny that changes colors with the seasons: it’s brown in summer and white in winter. When it snows, it hunches down and lets the snow cover it like an igloo. Fascinating. And we pushed on… onward and upward.
After a few minutes, she stopped again. Told us to take off our coats, as we were going to start going up the mountain and we’d heat up. She also suggested we take a drink, because it is easy to get dehydrated on a mountain and you may not even get thirsty to realize you need water.
Then the lovely, picturesque, easy snowshoeing walk became a difficult climb in the snow nearly straight up, winding along a narrow path lined with tree branches. This couldn’t last too long. Oh, yes it could. I didn’t look at my watch but this part of the hike had to have been an hour or more. My heart was pounding so hard I thought it would pop out of my chest or come up through my mouth. I could barely catch my breath (I hadn’t even thought till then about how mountain air is thinner). Luckily there was another snowshoing newbie and she seemed in even worse shape than I was, so when she stopped, I stopped. We stopped for quite a while and more than once. Some others stopped and waited with us. I don’t know if they were being polite or if they, too, thought they’d collapse if they shuffled one more awkward step up in their raquettes.
Finally, after countless promises that the steep climb was almost over, it was. We came to a small little plateau with a few rocks to sit on and with the most spectacular view. When I got there (and caught my breath) I thought the nearly impossible climb was worth it.
We sat on the rocks or on the snow to eat. Each of us had packed our own. I wasn’t the only American who pulled out a peanut butter sandwich. Sandwiches appeared to be the most popular choice, but most were with meat and on baguettes or thick slices of some variety of French bread. (Mine was on the bread we buy for Kaitlyn. American sandwich bread — exactly what you’d expect) One woman had a hunk of wheaty looking bread and cheese I smelled before I saw it. Someone brought a thermos of vin chaud (hot wine). The guide tried to get us all to have some. She said it would make the trip down easier. I thought I’d stick with her earlier advise to try not to dehydrate and I stuck to my water. (although on the way down, I thought maybe I should have listened to her lunch time words of wisdom) After everyone finished, a container of brownies got passed around. Then out came another thermos with coffee. That was met with chocolate. Such a French meal, even sitting on a rock 1400 meters up.
After about an hour, just enough time for the sweat on my back and neck to start to make me chilled, we were strapping our raquettes back on for the descent. The guide stopped to show us how to go down that horrible steep hill. Just pretend you are sitting in a chair. Good for your thighs and butt, she added. Oh my God it was like doing squats the whole way down. Still, going down seemed a lot easier than up. It didn’t seem to take as long and it didn’t seem as steep. Of course, the real challenge was keeping the stupid snowshoes on my feet. I’d walk like two steps, and one would come off. After about three attempts, we got that one on tight enough to stay, then the other one started doing the same thing. All that stopping must have helped make it seem easier.
It was hard to stay awake during the 45 minute car ride back to our cars. Like I told the guide… je dort tres bien ce soir.
Today I gave a French-English exchange group a second try. The first try didn’t really go the way I’d expected. Not because my French was so lacking, but because the group I ended up in was steered by a woman with a big French-English dictionary and a bunch of grammar questions. BOOR-ING. I can do that in my French lesson.
I want to talk.. to converse… to try to carry on something that resembles a conversation in French, even if the sentences are lucky to contain verbs and the subject matter is what foods I like.
I returned today, determined to get into a group that had the same goals as I did. At least, I avoided the grammar woman. I mean, I’m obsessed with grammar but if you don’t know any of the words to say well the grammar doesn’t mean merde.
There were four of us: two Americans and two French. Well, one woman is Swiss but from the French speaking part and she has lived in France for something like 20 years. So for the purpose of dividing up by language, she’s French.
The topic was simple enough: Qu’ais tu fait ce week-end?
The other American tended to a sick child.
The Swiss woman just worked around the house.
I wowed everyone with my tales of skiing. Je suis tombe, je suis tombe, je suis tombe. Then they told me how to say I am sore. I can’t remember. Too bad, it’s a useful thing to know. J’ai un corps something… ah I have to look it up. (endolori, according to google is sore.) I told them that I think there is ice on top of the snow at Chamrousse. (not below the snow. The two words sound similar, so this was a big accomplishment) And I explained how my husband went both days and he said there were plus de personnes dimache que samedi. That one earned me a correction on the pronunciation of plus. Sometimes you say the s, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you feel like you can speak some French, sometimes you don’t.
The French woman had the best story. Remember, she told us all this in French and I understood. She threw a party for 50 guests at her home Saturday because her husband who is in the medical branch/field/area of the military was just promoted to general. Her friends couldn’t believe it because her husband never talks about work. He is a researcher. He is researching bio-terrorism. Preventions and cures. She explained the lengths they go to to keep the germs contained. Still, should I be at all concerned that this research is going on so close to Carrefour?
Je ne sais pas.
Remember that skier who tumbles down in the agony of defeat in the opening of Wide World of Sports? I know how he feels. Ok, maybe not exactly. But I know how it feels the day after a two hour private ski lesson. Sore. Very. Definitely too sore to hit the slopes again today, after hitting them over and over again with my rear-end yesterday.
Now that there is finally some snow and enough cold for the snow makers to blow their stinging little pellets at skiers-by, we headed up the mountain to Chamrousse yesterday. Kaitlyn was sick Friday night so we postponed her ski lesson. Bill skied by himself for a couple of hours in the morning while Kaitlyn continued her recovery. Then he came back and got us and drove me up there for my lesson. I’d postponed it twice due to a lack of snow. I was really looking forward to it. I want to be able to ski well enough for Bill not to get bored on the easy runs with me, where mostly when we did go he spent his time stopping and waiting for me.
I found my instructor among a sea of red snow suits outside the ski school’s cabin/office. Frederique was young and scruffy with his dreadlocks pulled back in a bandana thingie. I figured he looked at me and thought oh, no. I got my lift ticket (honestly, for the price of the lesson you’d think they could give you the lift ticket) and off we went. Since I’ve been skiing before, can snow plow and get on and off the lift, I was spared the experience of beginning in the Piou Piou Club. Frederique was immensely patient and helpful. I admit, there was one exercise he tried drawing in the snow to explain and I just never quite caught on. He’d watch me then say that was a nice turn, but not what you were supposed to do. I also found myself trying to explain to him that I understood what he was telling me to do with my left leg, but that my leg was simply refusing to go along with the program. And I need to work on getting up. Because I had little problem with the falling down part. Once, I swear I fell straight back. That was getting off the lift. My real challenge was getting over any icy spots. One time I fell and twisted my knee or something in the process because it hurt like crazy while I was lying there struggling to get back up, like a dying fly trying to flip itself off its back. Once Frederique hoisted me up, the knee felt fine so we went on. Today, I can barely get up and down stairs with the knee. It stinks. In the middle of the night I got up to get a drink and nearly decided to go back to sleep on the couch rather than climb the stairs back up to bed. So when the alarm went off this morning I told Bill: take Kaitlyn to the Piou Piou Club and ski without me today.
Still, I think I learned a lot. Frederique claimed he could see improvement by our third, and final, run.
I can guarantee if nothing else, my outfit was a big improvement over those Barney pants I wore last time. I got pants (black), a new jacket, new boots, new skis. I look the part. At least when I’m not flailing on the ground like a dying fly….
Ok, ok, so I said in my snow man blog that I wish EVERY Wednesday could be like today. I need to clarify. What I meant is that I wish every Wednesday could be like the HOUR Kaitlyn and I spent outside playing in the snow.
The rest of the day, from basically the time we got up until now the time when I am trying to get Kaitlyn to go to bed, stay in bed, and go to sleep I have been reminded what a skillful backwards counter I am. FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO… as I count down Kaitlyn’s final seconds before heading to time out. She has managed to stay out of time out all day… no, I take that back. She has managed to only end up in time out once today. Somehow. She probably deserved it about a half a dozen times.
Listening is not Kaitlyn’s strong point right now. The result is that driving me crazy is her strong point right now. It took us an hour to get ready to go outside and play because she wouldn’t take her tights off her head and actually get dressed. I kept trying to walk away from her because she was making me so mad, but she kept following me, distressing me with her tights-covered noggin.
At one point this morning, I got so frustrated with her I put her in time out for talking back to me then I sat on the floor and cried. I thought it wasn’t the best move I’ve ever made, but maybe she needs to see that she pushes her Mommy to the point of being that upset. She brought me a mimi. She brought me a book and sat on my lap. And as soon as we agreed we were going to get along and listen… she started back in with the tights on her head and the refusal to behave. I try… oh how I try… to prioritize the things I’m going to get upset about. But not listening to me… blatantly ignoring me… that I cannot CANNOT stand. If you don’t want to play in the snow, fine. But if you do want to play in the snow, then one must get dressed for it. Tights do not go on your head. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
Excuse me, I just had to pause for a countdown to return Kaitlyn to her bed.
Her new thing is to try to distract you by saying oh, I just want to give you a big hug and a kiss. Yes, hugs and kisses are nice. But when used as a ploy to try to make Mom or Dad forget the offense that has initiated the countdown… well that’s just abuse of one’s power. And it’s not ok. Just now, I heard her get out of bed. I heard her walk this way. I said, If I look up and you’re standing there, you’re in trouble. I looked up and she smiled and said oh, I just wanted to give you a big hug and a kiss. argh.
Earlier tonight, I agreed to play her new game with her. I gave her a little kids dominoes game for her birthday. Leap Frog claims that it’s for a child as young as three. Only if that child’s parent likes beating his or her head against a wall. She grasped the whole match the square with a square, a star with a star, concept. But as for listening to and following instructions for actual play… well, forget it. That lasted maybe 10 minutes before I was so frustrated I picked up all the pieces and put the game away. I may be willing to take it out again sometime before she is 12. But, then again, maybe not.
Guess who is standing at the doorway wanting to give you a big hug and a kiss. I’m going to invent bedtime pajamas. They are sewn directly into the sheets. That way, the kid can’t get up.
I do not know how single parents handle it. Tonight is turning into one very long night because Bill is out at a business dinner. On a Wednesday. (remember, there’s no school on Wednesdays. It’s not a holiday. It’s an inexplicable French school calendar) Since she woke up at 8 this morning, it’s been no one but Kaitlyn and Mommy. And Mommy needs a break. Instead… looks like I’m going to go back and try to get Kaitlyn to go to sleep.
A French busy signal is more like an indicator that you may have misdialed or that your phone line isn’t working properly than an actual busy signal. It doesn’t even sound much different than the sound you hear when the other end is ringing. But I got used to the new sound as I repeatedly tried getting through to the ski school at Chamrousse to make sure Kaitlyn has a lesson Saturday morning. Everyone else who woke up to all that snow on the ground had the same thought: hurray!
Kaitlyn and I couldn’t resist all that fresh, white snow in our yard. Plus, I had to try out my new ski jacket and pants. So we bundled all up, filled my pocket with buttons for our snowman’s eyes and mouth and went outside.
I didn’t bother with a ruler. Too fussy and official. I can tell you that the snow easily came up to Kaitlyn’s knees as she tromped through it. Last night, Bill estimated four inches looking at the snow piled up on the swings. I think it may even be a little more.
We plopped down and made snow angels. We tried to make a snowman, but the snow is so soft and dry it won’t stick together enough. Kaitlyn loved just making footmarks (what she calls footprints) around the yard. She brushed the snow off the swings and teeter totter so we could take turns going up and down and up and down. I had to convince her that the pool is not an ice rink and managed to keep her at a decent distance from it. We rolled around in the snow. We laughed and laughed, it was such silly fun. Kaitlyn climbed our little hill and tried to slide down on her rear end. That didn’t work too well. I fetched her little sled it looks like a flat plastic shovel with a stubby little handle. Perfect for a little bottom. It sent her flying down the hill. I even gave it a try. Honestly, we both squealed with delight the whole way down. And climbing the hill was hard… had to have burned off at least a few extra calories that way.
Kaitlyn refused to give up on the idea of a snowman. She started scraping the snow and piling it up the best she could. It took a fair amount of work but we finally ended up with a lump in the snow about a foot tall or so. She stuffed a carrot in the middle for a nose. That took a couple tries, the first time the carrot made the blob disintegrate. Then came the buttons. Two pink ones for eyes and an assortment to make a mouth. She was thrilled with her creation. But to get the buttons out of my pocket and onto his face, we both had to take off our mittens. Then we were both freezing.
Before going in, I couldn’t resist a couple more rides down the little hill on Kaitlyn’s little butt sled. She got her folding beach chair out of her playhouse and set it up at the bottom to watch… like the people at the base of the run at Chamrousse.
We had a great time. Every Wednesday should be this much fun.