Winter Wonderland

It has been insanely cold here. The schools are closed. Pipes are freezing. I had to walk two minutes from my car to a building on campus Monday night and I was so unbelievably cold I wanted to cry. Again, thank goodness I have no plans for moving to Alaska, or even Minnesota.



Today was one of the days when I am totally and completely grateful for the fact that I am a stay at home mom. Because that's exactly what we did, we stayed at home. The only real plans we had for the day were to go to ABC class at the rec center and then hit the grocery on the way home. The local school district closed, which meant the rec center was also closed, and Matt stopped at the grocery on the way home. Plans effectively canceled.


Harper and I stayed in our pajamas. We watched Elmo. We ate graham crackers. We climbed in and out of her tent so many times I was starting to worry I would light a fire with the static electricity I'd built up. We snuggled on the couch to play Brain Quest and read books. Every once in a while we'd head back over to a window and Harper would squeal, "It's sowing!!!" And snow it did, for about eight hours, leaving us with a little over four inches. Hopefully it will remain cool enough to keep the snow in the yard, but warm up just a little so we can get outside and actually build that snowman.


One of the wonderful side-effects of teaching first grade for four years was continuous access to Scholastic Book Orders. I think I loved the book orders more as an adult than I did as a child. As a result of these book orders I have approximately 1,000 picture books in the basement. 1,000 pictures books. That number does not include the chapter books. I'm not including Harper's books either. I know that Matt thinks I'm a little insane to have that many books. But I knew they would come in handy, eventually.

Harper is getting old enough that we can move beyond concept books and board books with short stories. She can't sit still for very long picture books, but her appreciation for a longer narrative is definitely growing. As she was eating lunch, and we were watching the snow come down, I remembered that I had all kinds of snow related picture books in the basement. We went on an expedition (with no falling down the basement stairs) and returned with an armload of books.


Visiting that bookshelf feels like finding buried treasure to me. We had All You Need for a Snowman; The Biggest, Best Snowman; The Missing Mitten Mystery; Grandmother Winter; The Snowchild; The Mitten Tree; The Wild Toboggan Ride; The Hat; A Silly Snowy Day; The Mitten; and Snowballs. I did not bring up any of the books starring penguins or polar bears, as that is snow related mostly to location, as opposed to winter snow. I also left a few that were just too complicated for Harper.


Want to come over and read with us?


We'll save you a spot on the couch.