Monday, December 1, 2008

Spoons are for Snow

I was roused yesterday, as I am many mornings, by a kick in the lower back. This came courtesy of Thing 2 who had climbed into bed between me and My Love at some proper bar-closing hour for want of a snuggle and, as I truly believe, to disrupt my ongoing attempts at having dreamily soft-focused relations with that woman, Ms. Jennifer Love Hewitt.

(This was my subconscious's third attempt on her in 10 days. She's subliminally teasing me for fast-forwarding past her Proactive acne commercial so many times. Frustrating, yes, but it serves as fair warning for the future. I wouldn't want visions of her sugarplums dancing in my head to be overtaken by Billy Mays and his Awesome Auger.)

Shortly thereafter, Thing 1 burst through the bedroom doorway.

"It snowed last night! And IT'S STILL SNOWING!!"

Outside of our second-floor window, a thin layer of frosting has covered our world and, sure enough, an icy haze continued to shower down, clicking on the pane and the gutter just above.

Thing 1 been casting the snow spell for three weeks now. She does this by sleeping with her pajamas inside out while a plastic spoon rests under her pillow, just as one of her pre-school teachers told her and brother to do years ago whenever a chance of falling flakes filled the airwaves. Her invocations have been mostly ineffective possibly because, having run out of plastic spoons, she resorted to sticking a plastic fork under her resting head. (We did get flurries on our walk to school a week or so ago. When I stripped the sheets for washing later that morning, I recovered from her bed a school-cafeteria spork.)

In a few minutes, I was in the kitchen, zipping, buckling and barking requests for hats and gloves. Thing 2's eyes quickly welled with cries that his new snowsuit was too tight. I instructed him to take it off and try it again, this time with the zipper undone and in the front.

Some children burst into the season's first snowfall and quickly ball a handful to toss at the nearest object. Others start rolling the stuff up into a new frosty friend or piling it into an impenetrable fortress. A few go right on their backs and flap their limbs into heavenly impressions.

Mine -- armed with mixing bowls, rinsed out potato salad containers and the good soupspoons -- gather then shovel the virgin coldness straight into their mouths.

Their routine is to scoop all they can off the patio furniture. If parental supervision is lax, they move from the deck to any spot of lawn that looks unvisited by our dog. They proceed to gorge until their tongues and bellies are numb. Leftovers go into the freezer for hourly snacking until they are gone or transformed into an unbreakable solid chunk.

Sunday's feeding frenzy lasted about 30 minutes. By lunchtime, the precipitation turned to rain. The last jagged patches of the morning manna disappeared by 2 p.m.

Come bedtime, Thing 1 appeared in the living room wearing her typical winter nightwear: a Dallas Stars jersey and a purplish pair of PJ bottoms with monkeys chatting on the phone while lounging on crescent moons. Both are inside out.

"Girl, it's supposed to be in the 50s tomorrow. No chance of snow whatsoever," I said to her.

"That's OK," she said. "It won't hurt to try again."

24 comments:

  1. I like her spirit! It really doesn't hurt to try again. That goes for you, too, JLH fan!

    ReplyDelete
  2. How sweet! It never hurts to try again.

    I love that they eat the snow. That cracks me up. Having grown up snowless, and never even seeing snow until I was 22, it NEVER occurred to me to eat snow.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love snow.. I had to lock my kids in today, and they are all sitting staring out the window and making 'plans... big plans' for all that white stuff out there. as soon as the windchill lets up, they will be bundled and hurling themselves out the door into the drifts along the side of the driveway!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hmm, if I put a knife under my pillow or something will that stop the snow?
    Probably not...it will most likely just create a whole slew of other problems...snow being the least of them...

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'll wear my jammies inside out this evening just to Further the Cause.

    I could use a Month of Snowdays.

    Now where did I put that Spoon?

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think that my husband is like Thing 2. He jumped on me early in the morning yesterday to tell me it was snowing in a gleeful voice. Yeah, did I mention he is 32?......

    ReplyDelete
  7. What sweet children -- they have to be so much fun.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Today at work, a lady asked me for a story book about a little girl who dreams big things, and I said, "You've got to be kidding me. There's no such story."

    Then I got home and I read this post, and it is, most definitely, beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  9. What??? I thought we were the only second grade class who knew the inside out pj/ spoon thing!

    It was pretty while it lasted though. All two hours of it.

    ReplyDelete
  10. We would always just run out and stick out our tongue to catch a few flakes then run back inside to see if school was cancelled.
    I will not be sharing the inside-outjammy jinx with my Great White Lizard Hunter, because, alas, as much as he wants to see snow - it is 80 degrees outside. Poor little Florida dude.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Marinka - I will wear my PJs inside out and place a tube of Clearasil under my pillow and hope the "Ghost Whisperer" comes. Or at least shows.

    ChurchPunk - Set them free! Set them free!

    CIII - Thank you, brutha. As for the spoon, look next to the Saran Wrap.

    Payton - They are when they are not bugging the heck out of each other ... or me.

    Anon - Must be a hometown thang.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I miss the snow. I miss EATING snow. So Cal gets nothin... Being from Northeast.. I used to love getting snowed into the house and having to jump out second story to shovel to the door. :)

    ReplyDelete
  13. i know that first snow. sadly, we were in the car for all of it. but what I really mean to say: there is too much awesome in this thing you just did. too much.

    ReplyDelete
  14. The yellow snow tastes like lemons.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I started my life in NJ and we shared our house with two Dalmatians. My earliest snow memories include mom and dad screaming at us "DON'T EAT THE YELLOW SNOW!" And of course, the counterpart "DON'T EAT THE BROWN SNOW!"

    Now I live where there is very little, if any, snow. I would love to come eat some handfuls of snow with your kids and of course, snow makes the best cooler for our adult beverages!!! (a trick I learned my first year of law school when we had a snow day and were too cheap to buy a bucket and some ice for the keg)

    ReplyDelete
  16. Well apparently, Thing 1 knows a good team when she sees it!!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Kalia - I'll trade you a week of snow shoveling for a week of Florida sun.

    Ms. P - Crap. Had I known I would have put some in the freezer for you.

    Daisee - That's why I love holiday parties. The world becomes your beer cooler.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Just remind them not to eat the yellow snow.

    ReplyDelete
  19. My daughter just discovered eating snow, but only after she refused to get off the sled for 90 minutes, as I pulled her round and round the park across our street. Strangely, it has snowed twice since we moved to Sweden.

    ReplyDelete
  20. cuteness. we had a dusting that froze and after school my 6 year old had her face on the ground trying to lick it up. Bad. I let her.

    ReplyDelete
  21. New to your site...great post.

    It saddens me that because I'm raising my kids in Southern California, they will never know the joys of a snow day.

    I'm jealous of yours. Maybe I'll try the spoon thing and see if it works here.

    ReplyDelete
  22. can u leave ur phone number to me???

    ReplyDelete
  23. Coming to your BLOG, I feel a good start!

    ReplyDelete

REMEMBER: You're at your sexiest when you comment.

AddThis

My Uncool Past