Wednesday, February 12, 2014

The Long Winter

Snug and I are reading "On the Banks of Plum Creek" right now, and I keep thinking we should have read "The Long Winter".  (Both titles are part of the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder.)

I love winter.  I love seasons in general.  Spring is a bit...rainy...but it promises new things to come!  In the winter I want snow.  I hate those winters where it is in the high 30's, low 40's and rainy.  Brown, bleak, blech.  That certainly hasn't been this winter!!!!  We've had tons of snow, and I am not complaining.  The temperatures, well, they're a bit drastic.  We've been in the negative temperatures so much.  The kids want to be out in the snow, but often the temperature doesn't allow that.  Or maybe I'm just too careful.  I'm all for them being out when it is 25-30 degrees without windchill, but negative fifteen?  No.  Negative 30? NONE of us are going outside.

This morning as we all piled into our 15 passenger van (our regular mini-van needs to see a doctor but for lack of time and fear of cost we haven't bit the bullet yet) I had 4 kids BAWLING.  Sweet Pea cries pretty much all the time, so that's nothing new, and after being up all night with her throwing up I knew she was tired as was her roommate Rosebud.  But the boys were crying.  LOUDLY.  I finally got out of them that they were cold.  Their hands were cold trying to get on seat belts and the van, which cannot fit into the garage, takes longer to warm up.  I heard anguishing cries of "I HATE THIS.  I HATE WINTER.  WINTER GO AWAY!!!" coming from the backseat.  I tried not to laugh.  It sounded like all of the posts from friends on Facebook.

This afternoon Rosebud accompanied LMM as he went to feed the dogs.  They'd been out about three minutes when I heard an anguishing cry "It's no use Rosebud (which of course he doesn't call her)!  I just can't.  It's too cold!  I hate the snow!!!"  I guess things weren't going well and he was just giving up.  I brought him in, warmed his hands, gave him a different game plan, and he succeeded.  Oh the drama of it all.


Five more weeks of winter?  I think that's right.  Personally I'm tired of the extreme cold, not the snow, but for my children's sake...COME ON SPRING!