Our little polar bear

The first two times we took Sonia out in the snow (chronicled here and here) were disastrous.... The outdoor forays were very brief and Sosini seemed positively miserable. I swear I heard "let's move to Florida" in the midst of some of her toddler gibberish. So, imagine my surprise last week when Sonia pointed out the window and said, "Go..... Snow.... Go!" I asked her if she wanted to go play outside in the snow, and she nodded solemnly. Huh. Certain she would forget all about it by the time I retrieved our snow gear, I was shocked when she sat down and started trying to pull on her snow pants. We got all bundled up and headed out into the garage.

Sonia instantly clambered clumsily into her red wagon and said, "Ride!" "You want to go for a ride in the red wagon?" I asked. Nod nod nod. Huh.


We headed down the street to check the mail. It was 32 degrees, so it actually wasn't too bad. I kept asking Sonia if she wanted to go back home, and she kept saying her new favorite word: "Nope!" So I ended up taking her for a 15 minute spin around the neighborhood. Sosini just kind of lounged in her seat and calmly watched the snowy & icy scenery go by.


When I got tired of schlepping the maharajah around (it was slippery out there!), I ignored her pleas ("Ride! Ride!") and took us back home. At first, Sonia was just as skeptical of the snow as she had been before:


But, then I pointed out the fun crunching noise that the snow made under our feet, and Sosini really started enjoying herself.


We braved the icy sidewalks again (they weren't too bad when I wasn't attempting to pull a wagon behind me), and Sonia got used to walking very carefully to avoid falling on her well-padded bum.


Before I insisted we go inside (after an hour, I was getting cold-- I don't have snuggly snow pants like Sonia does!), Sosini and I climbed the stairs up to the deck to look in the window. Margie Cat was very concerned-- what in the world were we doing out there in the freezing winter air? More importantly, could she come out and join us?


Later in the week, Sonia wanted to go outside and play again.... We walked around for a while, and I made us go back inside when I couldn't stand the cold anymore. Sonia was very, very sad that I cut our playtime short (only 30 minutes), but my legs were seriously frozen. While we were thawing out, I checked the temperature, and it was only 17 degrees. I think we have a crazy little polar bear on our hands!