Catching Snow Flakes In Your Own Back Yard

All we wanted to do was get to the hill for some sliding.  What we really wanted was to skate, but that takes a lot more planning and we were running out of time on one of the few warm days this January.  Dad held us up at the last and we ended up sitting in a toboggan, in the yard, trying to catch the fantastically fluffy snow flakes on our tongues.

Some times you have to toss your expectations for the day, correct, often you have to toss your expectations for the day when you are part of a busy young family.  We didn’t make it to the hill.  We didn’t make it out of the yard.  By the time Dad made it out with us,  we had pushed the walk (we being the bigger kids and I) and didn’t feel up to the trek to the hill.  Somehow a wrestling match broke out instead and the six of us were throwing and pushing one another around in the back yard.  With the amount of screaming emanating from our abode it reminded me of summer days!  We are great at family back yard days and we forget that in the winter… it all came back to us.

We all really enjoy being active in this family… and yet… even our crew can find it a real fight to get out in the coldest of cold snaps.  Winter days are made all the worse if you feel you CAN’T go out.  I find even sneaking out to push the walk cheers me after long bouts of being home bound.  Yes this Mama still gets cabin fever and still gets stuck at home for weeks at a time.  If the perfect ‘sick-y’ storm hits it can mean weeks in the house as each little person takes there turn.  We have been going through one of those bouts.  Perhaps that is why we all totally let loose that afternoon.

My youngest’s favourite part was when Daddy would lift him up and use him as a bowling ball to push over his bigger siblings.  Then leaving him atop them little man would get a few playful punches in of his own.  The older three where completely focused on getting Daddy down, and my putting a quarter as a reward into the mix might have contributed to their frenzy.  Dad had his hands full but still being substantially bigger then them all had its benefit, he was able to be steady as a rock as they all threw themselves at him.  My eldest hung off his back at one point, her brother was locked in Dad’s arms and their littlest sister was hanging off a leg.  Littlest man was screaming at the top of his lungs “I wanna be a bowling ball again,”!  A sight for sore eyes.  I waited, biding my time, and when Dad was very busy concentrating on the kids I stepped in, grabbed him around the middle and pulled him down.  Before I could get off all of the kids jumped on the two of us and I had the wind knocked right out of me.  Dad was pleading for everyone to get off in between giggles and all I could do was let out a wheezy laugh.

Coming in for tea was all the sweeter!

Always Lady Mac an Rothaich

TTFN