Baby, It's Cold Outside

Big crisis at Stately Wasser Manor yesterday. As my faithful readers know, Jack absolutely adores Roary, his stuffed tiger/security object/BFF. I secretly have four Roaries, so when one needs to be washed, one of his bretheren is ready to fill in. Jack doesn't know that there are more tigers... or at least he didn't. Imagine my surprise when I went downstairs and found this:



Me: Uh-oh.
Steve: I know.
Me: What happened?
Steve: He followed me into the laundry room and spotted the second one. I had to give it to him; I had no choice.
Me: I understand. What did he do?
Steve: He was delighted, and the two tigers immediately started talking to each other. I don't know about what, but one of them seems to be Daddy.

Jack proceeded to carry the two tigers around, happy as could be. I tried to sneak one out of the crib during his nap, but Jack woke up and caught me as I was coming in the room. I was able to remove a tiger when he was distracted. Of course, he later noticed its absence. Jack asked, "Where Ro Daddy?" I deliberately misunderstood and told him where both Roary and Daddy were. He seems to have accepted that Roary's daddy was just visiting.


In other news, it finally snowed! One benefit of the weather being so warm for so long was that I was able to get tremendous bargains on snow gear. I got Jack a pair of boots and a pair of snow bibs for a mere $13 at Target. Jack was so excited about the prospect of playing outside that he was actually willing to put on all this stuff without wailing and fighting me. That's always a plus. I spent a lot of time talking about his new boots as he got ready, so as we were about to step outside, Jack smiled at me and said, "Mommy Dora." I immediately got what he was talking about and asked, "Mommy is Dora and you're Boots?" Jack was so pleased that I understood him. He gave me a cheerful "Yep" and danced like a monkey all the way outside. He spent a lot of time running around saying, "Snow!" Then he joined Ryan, our three-year-old neighbor, in a toddler snowball fight. That is, they'd each scoop up a handfull of snow (which was totally powdery and would't pack if they knew how) and yell, "Snowball" and fling it in each other's general direction. This was good fun for quite a while. Then Jack made the mistake of removing his mittens and picking up a handful of snow. The cold upset him, and we'd been out for a while, so it was time to go inside.

Once inside, Jack learned something that every kid should know. That is, after you play outside in the snow, your mommy will make you hot chocolate. He loved it.