Snow Angels and Snow Forts
Greetings to everyone.
We had some snow yesterday and today the weather warmed nicely. When Xavier got up and looked out the window, his eyes widened and he pointed, saying "Snooooow!"
After breakfast, I asked Xavier if he wanted to go outside and make a snow angel. Xavier has not played in the snow much. He has shoveled snow like Daddy and he has trudged through some snow, but never truly played in it.
Mom bundled Xavier warmly and we headed outside. It was warm enough that, after a while of moving snow around, I took my coat off because it was too hot with it on. Xavier was concerned that I took it off and asked me a few times to put it on.
The first order of business was a snow angel. I showed Xavier what to do, then (after adjusting the hood of his coat to keep snow out of his neck) helped him lay down in the snow. A few seconds later, Xavier completed his first snow angel. He was not impressed; he went stomping off to look at the snow covering the lower branches of the Blue Spruce.
He moved to the sidewalk to play because that is where Daddy was. Instead of playing, he obsessed over the fact the Jetta parked there was still covered in snow. I began rolling a large snowball. I tried to get Xavier to engage, but that darn Jetta still had snow covering it. It was after I rolled the second snow ball for the snowman's chest that Xavier grew interested.
Xavier let me roll a third ball and make a head, then he came over and wanted to add snow to the snowman. Mom during this time was in and out taking pictures (she was using the time with Xavier outside to clean and vacuum). Mom reappeared with a carrot.
The snow was not quite soft enough to make things easy; it took us a while to get the carrot to stay in place. After that, Xavier started making his own snowballs and applying them to the snowman.
After giving the man two "top knots" on his head (which we would later call a beehive hairdo), Xavier could reach no higher. He looked to lower areas to put his snowballs. That meant the chest. He turned the snowman into a snowwoman. Eventually, into a mutant snowwoman.
After the snowman/mutant snowwoman was finished, we had enough snow in the yard to make a small fort. I disappeared into the garage, then returned with shovels and buckets. Using our patented strip snow mining technique, Xavier helped fill buckets and Dad carried them off to make the wall.
I tried to get Xavier to help with the wall, but he really liked shoveling snow into the buckets. I let him do most of the strip snow mining. Once the fort wall was up, Xavier found interest in it (maybe because there was very little snow left in the yard).
We stockpiled the fort with many snowballs. We also made a chair for Xavier to sit in and to stand on should he need to make use of his snow arsenal. We played for more than two hours. When we came in, Xavier had soaked mittens, wet pants and a ravenous hunger. All in all, a good morning's play.
