Sunday, January 11, 2009

Cold Weather

I have always been the sort of person who enjoyed cold weather. Not because I ice skate or ski or anything, but simply because there's a finite number of things you can take off to get comfortable when it's hot, but an infinite number of things you can put on to get warm when it's cold.

Plus, I like sweaters.

So, it is with some amusement that I'm thinking, for the first time in my life, that it would really be nice to live someplace warm while the kids are small. It is such a pain in the butt, with the kids, to get out and do anything. When we leave the house I worry that they're too cold, when we get where we're going I worry that they're too warm. It doesn't help that MG likes to make her teeth chatter, and Claire can say, "Chilly! Brrrr..." so I never know if they're really freezing or if they're just making a big deal of it all.

We have been in the house a LOT lately. They've been watching way too much television. While I feel yucky about this, I don't feel yucky enough to risk taking them out in the cold (besides freezing, there's an increased risk of us being in a car accident, there's less to do - the parks are too cold, and I have major inertia).

I just looked at our schedule for next week, and I think we'll go to the museum on Thursday. I guess the guilt is enough to motivate me to do something, after all.

How do you manage with little kids in very cold weather? Do you just do your regular thing and let them freeze a little bit if they need to, or are you all hibernating too?

PS to everyone in Grammaland: if you get another ice storm and you have to put gas in your car, rather than chipping the ice off of the gas door with your keys and mangling your paint job and possibly your fingers, go inside and get a cup full of hot water from the coffee machine, bring it out and pour it over the gas door. You're welcome.

2 comments:

Have the T-shirt said...

When I did child care, one of the things I did to avoid bundling up four or five preschoolers, was to bring a big pan of snow INSIDE and we'd make little snowmen that I put in my deep freezer for them to show their parent's when they came to pick them up.

Another thing I'd do would be to bundle them up and pull my car out of the garage and let them ride little bikes around in the garage, which was COLD, but not as cold as outside.

Anonymous said...

It's in the 70s here, so I can't help you.