wintry things

Today is a day for all things wintry.

It's snowing steadily, and after finally getting everyone dressed and out the door, I reflected upon the word trudge. I expect it was invented specifically to describe the way in which a four-year-old makes her way through deep snow. 

I also reflected on the full sensory experience of playing in the snow. Burying each other, scooping it out of the back of your collar, eating it, making angels in it, feeling it melt on your face, listening to the quiet sprinkle as it falls all around, and that wintry smell of almost nothing but cold and white, which aren't really smells at all, but there you go. Wintry.

We've slapped some gluten-free graham crackers together into small gingerbread houses, which was really just an excuse to eat a whole lot of candy before lunch. Jude, clever soul, filled his house with candy before he put the roof on. 

There are requests to string popcorn for the Christmas tree, and hopes that I will actually sit and watch a movie with them (instead of running around trying to tidy up and make dinner). Maybe we'll just have popcorn for dinner. Or maybe I'll order pizza.

After five weeks of the dizzy dance of full-time work and a week-long illness that sent us to the hospital with Norah twice, kept Violet out of school for four days, and put Daddy out of commission for awhile, the holidays have begun.