Snow Business, Sweet Dreams
I’m so glad we’ve got snow. If it’s going to be cold, you might as well have snow. I’m not even bitter about shoveling our driveway (all one hundred feet of it) 3 1/2 times in a 24 hour period. Would I complain if someone left a snowblower on our front steps? No. Would I be offended if one of the many folks that live on our street and drive atv’s with plow attachments happened to plow our driveway? No. But do I complain? No. In fact I sit back and think of even more reasons to enjoy the snow. Why, just the other day I went snowmobiling for the first time. Now there’s a reason to love the snow! It was pretty rad, Lydia and I put on helmets and she sat in front of me and we took off all around twin lake, following a friend. I got done and told our host that I finally understood why people want to open the national parks up to this stuff. Screw wildlife habitat – snowmobiling rules! I totally cancelled my Sierra Club Membership. Those mamzy pamzies.
Lydia did love snowmobiling, but even more so I believe she was drawn to the helmet. It had a face shield that allowed her to do face plants in the snow and stare at the snow from a mere 3 inches away. It was pretty hilarious to see her trekking around with the helmet on. In fact yesterday when we went out sledding she decided she should have her bike helmet on, just because helmets are cool. Safety first kids.
That kid of ours has been having bad dreams. What’s worse is that those dreams cause her to crawl into our bed in the middle of the night. Now I don’t want to sound like I’m picking on my wife because she’s pregnant so allow me to make a gross generalization about pregnant women. (Gross in the GNP sense of the word, not icky, nor 144) They take up a lot of room in bed. And they lose a bit of their grace when rolling over. And they get up a lot. Couple that with a wiggly 3 year old and you can understand my motivation in getting rid of the bad dreams. So acting in a sane and well thought manner, the platform from which I impose all of my parenting, I assured Lydia on Saturday night that if she stayed in her bed all night she could have chocolate ice cream for breakfast.
The pregnant one who doesn’t sleep as it is, intervened and reminded Lydia that sometimes “daddy speaks crazy talk” and told her that there would not be ice cream for breakfast, but that she should do her best all the same.
I believe that Lydia is a deeply hopeful child and it was this hope in things to come that kept her in bed through the night. The hope that maybe Mom would go to church early and that Daddy would come through. Sadly for her, we all went to church early, Lydia did not get ice cream for breakfast and Mom preached on temptation.
With ice cream off the table, today we made a dream catcher. We’re going for a wholistic approach. Dare I say a generous orthodoxy? Using yogurt lids, yarn, beads, and feathers from a pillow – who knew that they could stuff pillows with eagle feathers? – we crudely fashioned a traditional dream catcher to rival that of… well lets not get into petty rivalries. We hung it up tonight, turned out the lights, I layed down next to her and there was silence. Two minutes later she turned to me and said, “It definately works. I already had a good dream.” And proceeded to tell me her dream about a truck, the pet cat that was locked outside of it, and the quiet beep beep it made. Seeing as it was a dream I’m not sure if ‘it’ was the cat or the truck. I would guess the truck which makes me near postive it was the cat. Not only because dreams work that way, but because Lydia works that way. Thats one creative soul.