Amy spent a couple of hours with my Sistah this morning, allowing me time to run a couple errands child-free – which is always a treat. I then came home and put another coat of paint on one wall in Claire’s room. The Great Painting Adventure is an entire blog post – or 2 or 3 – in and of itself. Check back this weekend to learn of my ineptitude in yet another arena.
So when Amy and I were driving back (the whole block!) from my Sistah’s house, she was quite animated. She told me all the things she did – mundane, everyday stuff to a grown-up, but nothing less than extraordinary to a preschooler: eating popcorn in the bedroom, chasing the cats with a flashlight, flopping in the giant beanbag chair, etc. This continued as we pulled in to our driveway, and while I pulled in the garbage cans from the curb, and while I shoveled the few caked-snow spots on the driveway. My three-year-old is becoming quite the delight. OH. I should qualify that: she is charming and delightful when she isn’t yelling, screaming, whining, or tantruming. And she happens to be delightful when she’s sleeping, which she’s currently on-strike from. [There’s yet another post….]
Amy decided she wanted to play outside on the driveway for a few minutes. Great: fresh air = tired kid. There was a result that looked quite appealing, after a night of interrupted sleep.
So, we putzed. We shoveled and jumped and wiggled and danced our “I’m Snow Happy!” dance. And then she got bored.
Soon she realized that she needed different mittens. Next she wanted a different hat. Then she thought making a snow angel sounded like fun, but I effectively rained on her parade when I told her she’d need her snowsuit for that particular activity. Her response? She looked up at me with her sparkly blue eyes and said, “I don’t want to wear a snowsuit this week. And since I think my eyes are cold, I want to go in now.”
Eyes cold? I don’t know about you, but there’s a new one for me. I asked her to elaborate, and she looked at me with a wrinkled forehead and an incredulous frown, like I was completely stupid. “Mommy!” she exclaimed, hardly believing that I could be so dense. “ You know, your EYES! The things that you look with that are white with blue circles. Mine are very cold now!”
Who knew that our eyes not only enabled us to see and provided the window to our soul, but that they also act as a thermometer to tell us when we’ve been outside long enough.
