Once There Was a Snowman

OK. So all winter we have had this Snowman Kit that the kids got for Christmas sitting here by the front door waiting for snow. Snow was promised, snow didn't come. Snow was promised, ice fell instead. Good for sledding, but not for snowmen. Snow was promised, big snow was promised, and a little snow came. But, it came, that's the important part. From the squealing and screaming in our house this morning you would have thought that it snowed two feet, instead of two inches.

Amy came running to my bed and jumped on me, her eyes sparkling with excitement. "Mom. It snowed UP TO THE DOOR. You know the step up to our door?"

Yes.

"WHITE." This last word was spoken with a definitive, sweeping movement of Amy's hand, which let me know that she was serious. In my blissfully sleepy mind, I was picturing a great drift of glistening snow, sloping gracefully over our front step and up to the door. We were snowed in! I imagined something akin to a passage from a Laura Ingalls Wilder book, when Pa had to cut his way through a snowdrift that had covered the wooden front door to their little house in the big woods. This enchanting thought lured me out of my warm bed and down the stairs to behold the wondrous sight.

Truly, the front step was white--with a 1/16" fluffy dusting of fine snowflakes, blown in by the wind and causing the welcome mat to resemble a piece of french toast lightly sprinkled with powdered sugar. It wasn't quite as poetic as the snowdrift I had envisioned, but I shared Amy's enthusiasm nonetheless. An amazing phenomenon had undeniably occurred on the Thelin front porch: it had, indeed, SNOWED UP TO THE DOOR! Just like Amy said! Hooray!

Next, began the great search for the buckets of snowpants, gloves, scarves, hats and boots. This is a big event and always involves a trip to the bathroom AFTER all of the snowclothes are buttoned, zipped, and tucked into place. Happily, the three girls ran outside to begin building the much anticipated snowman. Sadly, they returned moments later to inform me that the snow would not "pack up," which translated, I found to mean that the snow was too powdery to pack into snowballs. It was also not very good for sledding. It was, however, perfect for making snow angels. Phew. Good suggestion, Mom.

During this activity, Holly discovered a few small chunks of snow, and got the marvelous idea of constructing a miniature snowman. This occupied her for quite a while as she was determined to make it work. She traipsed in and out of the house on multiple occasions with snowy boots to retrieve the tiniest carrot we had, raisins for eyes, and a little, bitty black plastic witch hat that she remembered I had in my craft stuff, leftover from making decorations at Halloween. It would be so perfect for a miniature snowman. Yes, certainly it would. I know exactly where that is. I put it in the plastic container labelled "Leftover Halloween Foam Craft Items" down on the 3rd shelf in the cupboard on the left. (Haha. You know I am kidding. I had no idea where the little hat was, but I did remember it.)

So, while I am looking for the hat, (which I did find, miraculously--it was on the 2nd shelf to the right, in a box labelled "Fabric Markers" containing supplies for making snowman ornaments (of course!) and floral wire). So, while I am looking for the hat, I hear Holly crying. I run back upstairs to discover her in tears on the front porch and with her fingers stuck together, reportedly from Super Glue. I tried hard to follow the tale of how Fred's head (Fred is the snowman) kept caving in when she tried to put the raisins and carrot on, so she thought she would glue them on, with Super Glue, because it was snow and she thought the other glue wouldn't stick.

In assessing the whole situation, it seemed that the most immediate cause of Holly's tears was actually Fred's face being crushed and so I thought to fix that first before bringing Holly in to unstick her fingers. I felt sort of like a triage nurse, trying to determine the most urgent need--crushed snowman face vs. cemented human fingers--the choice seemed obvious. So I went to work on Fred, using toothpicks to secure the raisin eyes and carrot nose, and trying to gently point out the chemical qualities of snow (namely, water) that might prevent even Super Glue from actually being able to bond things to it. As I am doing this, I realized a little too late that the carrot and raisins I was working with were actually bonding pretty well to my fingers. You see, they had received a fairly hefty coating of Super Glue, and my fingers possessed the chemical qualities that Super Glue works on best (namely, flesh).

"FRED"

Now it is fairly well known in the Thelin household, that Super Glue and I have a long and sticky history. A few years ago, I managed to glue all ten of my fingers to a Winnie the Pooh Christmas ornament that I was trying to repair. (That incident involved an entire bottle of finger nail polish remover and Gordon's pocket knife to shave off some of my skin before I finally was free--nasty business.) The family banned me from using Super Glue ever again after that, once they stopped laughing, but you know how it goes. At any rate, by the time Fred had a face again, Holly and I both had a similar problem. Thank goodness for acetone.

Heidi was not satisfied with a miniature snowman. She wanted to build a "real snowman," something more traditional. After many failed attempts on both of our parts, however, she relented to building a snow blob. We had a lovely time constructing him, and we all got terribly silly. In the end, we had a stout snowblob named Billy, a Frenchman , sporting a green Mr. Potato Head hat, moustache, and armpit hair. I cannot explain it, nor do I want to try. I like to think that such things are born from gifted imaginations, but that also makes me afraid somehow. For better or worse, though, here he is:

"Billy--Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme de Neige"

Amy chose not to build a snowman, but instead spent about 45 solid minutes, happy as could be, rubbing sticks together to make a fire in her invisible igloo. After a while, everyone's toes started getting a little cold, and hot chocolate and homemade cinnamon rolls from Frank and Bob's started sounding pretty good, so we called it a day.