Small One had some ideas about what to do with it, though.
She wanted, more than anything, to build a snowman. "I'm going to make Frosty!" she said, "And he's gonna have a CARROT for a nose!!!" (As those of you who know her are aware, the word spelled "carrot" is actually pronounced "cwawwot".)
Much energy was expended on searching for the perfect carrot, and even more energy was expended finding the perfect place outdoors to keep the carrot safe while we constructed the snowman.
Guess what activity she didn't deem worthy of energy expenditure? Collecting snow!
Yeah, the snow is powdery and dry, doesn't stick together, and there's only an inch of it. I was basically scraping snow off the ground and piling in into a pile on the sidewalk. Small One helped with this process for about twenty seconds before deciding that the initial place she'd put the cwawwot wasn't going to work out, and she needed to move it.
Here's the other fact: It was fricking FREEZING out there, Mr. Bigglesworth! It was fourteen degrees. Are you kidding me with this? Did I mention I'm a Southern girl? We do not hang out outside in any temperature that involves "teen" in the name of it. So after about 15 minutes of scraping and piling snow while cajoling a preschooler to help, I gave up.
Here was my clever move. I told her it'd be really funny if we made Frosty climbing out of the sidewalk. I stuck branches in the sides of the snow mound, sticking up, put a hat and a face on him, and voila!
She was happy, and I was happy, because I got to go inside! A win-win, if you ask me. Before we went in, though, she retrieved the carrot from his face, because she wanted to eat it.
