This time of year, it's an understatement: my little family is sick of winter. February seems the cruelest month, with its extreme weather and little hope of spring. The snow from the last storm isn't even gone before another hits. Nate's new vocabulary changes from "white snow!" to "snow yucky!" as we walk past 6 feet drifts on our way into the grocery store.
I'm relatively new to winter myself, as I'm a transplant from south Texas. It snowed there when I was an infant, and shockingly, this month. Winter is almost seductive to someone who has never experienced it. Fresh snow is transformative, offering a magazine-perfect life of hand knit mittens, hot chocolate, and skiing against an evergreen backdrop. Of course, if you're in school, snow often means a spontaneous vacation. What's not to love?
The shoveling, the mud, the face-numbing winds, that's what. What's pretty in December is miserable in February. If Christmas were three months later, Bing Crosby would have crooned "I'm dreaming of a sunny Christmas."
My husband, originally from near Buffalo, suffers from no such illusions. To him, snow is part of life and all drivers should handle it without any hesitation. I’ve learned a lot from him; since my first winter (in which I wore a raincoat and bad shoes), I've learned to adapt. I have the proper coats, sturdy shoes, and better expectations. But this is the first year that I've had to deal with a trapped toddler. Nate is a doer. His idea of a good day means running outside, screaming with glee. I have to tell him that no, you have to play in your room and for fun, we'll watch a movie. It works, but it gets old quickly. Of course, Christmas is long gone and Valentine's Day doesn't hold any excitement for a two-year-old boy.
A routine helps. He likes to read books in bed with me in the morning. We watch cartoons over lunch and practice coloring after naps. We try to go to the library, to the indoor playgrounds. An early sunset helps, but the day's close still creeps.
The end of winter isn’t much fun, but I know spring is around the corner. We’ll survive the meantime and be that much more grateful for the warm sunshine.