Sean and I have spent many hours skating on frozen Vermont fields-turned-ice rinks, heading to our local Kilgore's general store for hot chocolate and chili, wiping noses on sleeves, sticking our gloveless hands by the defroster in the car as we wait for the fog left behind by our breath to clear from the windshield.
We are not strangers to winter.
We love ice skating so much--even though I am absolutely ridiculous at it--that in years past we've taken shifts to water down our backyard until it freezes, spending hours after dark holding hands and skating around our own private rink. For our first anniversary we threw on our wedding clothes and took my favorite photos of us on that backyard ice rink.
Now that Dylan is two he understands the concept of snow. I've been waiting for this since the first time we dressed him up in his snowsuit and dragged our tiny not-impressed baby around in the yard.
I want him to love our New England winters as much as we do.
These days I don't have time to grab the camera to take nature shots, we haven't gone up to the cabin in Vermont since we adopted these three loveable-yet-special needs dogs, and I'm too pregnant to safely ice skate this year.
I'm also not feeling great this week. I don't need to complain here, but simply my levels are off. My body can't warm up and my hands and feet have been tingling during the night which is a sure sign that something inside of me isn't functioning correctly. I'm confident that this is a simple fix--since my blood work came back looking a bit concerning, the doctor has started me on a 50,000iu vitamin D pill to see if that helps regulate my levels--but it sure is hard for me to get the energy to play out in the cold when I'm feeling rundown and frozen.
For this boy, though, I will move mountains to make sure he gets all of the opportunities to enjoy life as much as possible. So we play in the snow.
Winter has changed now, but maybe for the better.
When that sweet groggy two year old looks out the window the morning after a freshly fallen snow and yells, "MAMA!!!! SNNNNOOOOOOOWWWWW! I SEE IT!!! LET'S GO? SNOW! I SEE IT!!", my heart swells. Dylan doesn't care about being cold or wet, he just knows he wants to be out in the snow. And I wrap him up tight in his warm clothes and he wobbles around in the snow as if his boots are glued to the ground.
I leave my fancy camera in the house and we manage our way outside with our heavy feet, warmed now by our extra socks and fuzzy boots. We go, and we go often, because life is too short to let pass us by, and because we are no strangers to winter.