Mitten Matters

The weather is turning colder and that means it is time for my kids to have mitten issues, ranging from one extreme to other – from not yet having mittens to losing them.

My son doesn’t yet have any mittens to lose, which surely makes me the most . But I have a good explanation for dropping the ball: You know how it was around 60 degrees seemingly every day for all of fall and the first couple weeks of winter, and then the temperature suddenly dropped into the 30s and 40s? And you know how little babies really don’t need mittens because their coat sleeves are always way too long anyway?

Consider both those factors and it should come as no surprise to hear that I have been caught unaware and still haven’t purchased mittens for my toddler son, who is now into his first winter as a full-fledged mitten-needing child. I hope Target is still selling mittens by the time I get to the store. By mid-January, I’m guessing they might be moving onto bathing suit season before I can buy mittens for Isaac.

Four-year-old Lucy, on the other hand, has several pairs of mittens that we have held onto in actual functional pairs for most of her life – until now. Today we with both of her old purple fleece mittens, purchased in the winter of 2009, believe it or not, and she only could produce one mitten by the end of the day when I picked her up. This doesn’t mean that the other mitten is lost and gone forever; it is very likely that some kind soul at school will put it in her cubby before the next sunset.

Until then, and if that doesn’t happen, she’ll just have to wear her pair of pink and white mittens instead. She also has an orange pair that I purchased on sale online that won’t fit her until sometime in middle school, but we may end up putting them on her baby brother in the meantime.