Christmas in February

Last night we survived a sacred right of passage for parents. We assembled a kitchen set for Molly and a Geotrax train set for Aidan. We started around 9:00PM and weren't done until 12:30AM. The assembly directions for the kitchen included 19 steps each involving multiple pieces. An engineering degrees was recommended but not required. Pat and I worked well together and there was minimal squabbling. What was the occasion you may ask? Well, these were to be presents for the kids for Christmas but Christmas Eve festivities and a few glasses of wine after Molly and Aidan went to bed put the kibosh on that. Then Pat decided to clean the rug in the playroom before we put everything together so January turned to February and there you have it. The kids were thrilled with their new play things and spent most of the morning playing with them. Aidan was in choo choo heaven and Molly was cooking up a storm. They each played with the other's new toy and exhibited excellent sharing skills (surprise, not always the case!). It was fun to watch them play.

We had a sorry excuse for a snow storm last night and were left with a measly two inches. This was the first accumulation we've had all winter so we had to make the best of it. After breakfast we told the kids that we were going outside to play in the snow. Aidan said to me "I need my bathing suit." Snow suit, bathing suit whatever. We bundled the kids up and they had a blast. They helped daddy shovel the driveway with the shovels from their sand pails. They enjoyed walking through the snow and seeing their foot prints. Pat made them snowballs and not knowing what they were or what you're supposed to do with them Molly quickly deduced that they were to be eaten. She ate one snowball and unhappily left another outside for later. We were out for about an hour and went inside because mom and dad were cold. A much more successful outing than last year when Molly and Aidan cried to go back inside after only 15 minutes in the bitter cold and whipping winds. They'd never make it in their native Kazakhstan.