a snowy day.

I usually love winter. The coldest season causes pause, forces one to stay indoors, to snuggle with your sweetheart. I find I never fully appreciate April blooms unless I've had to survive a good winter freeze. 

Not so, this year. 

This year, more than any other year, I have wished, wanted, yearned for warmer weather--a chance to get outside, to walk with the stroller, to bring Cecile into the fresh air. She was, after all, born in October, just before temperatures dropped and flu season flourished. So much of January and February I looked forward to Washington's signature mid-winter warm spell--something I usually sneer  at, saying: "Take off your flip flops, people. It's winter. This will only catch you a cold and mess up the cherry blossoms." But this year the warm spell never came ... not even after the groundhog told us spring would come early.

Then this morning we woke up with an inch of snow on the grass. Lots more snow was promised to be on the way, so I convinced Jon to stay and work from home. If spring wasn't going to come, gosh darn it, then we might as well embrace winter. Build a fire! Take Cecile to the sledding hill! Hot cocoa! Jon wouldn't want to miss Cecile's first sled ride--right??--and this snow storm had a name, so the weathermen must mean serious business. He stayed. 

I held Cecile to the window and we waited for the worst of the storm to arrive while Jon worked. Clumps and clumps of wet white snow fell from the skies. Cecile was fascinated by the snowy scene.

But the whiteout proved to be nothing more than theatrics. Temperatures never got cold enough to produce the snowfall predicted, leaving our neighborhood with little more than white grass and wet roads. 

Well, so much for the snow. At least the weather gave me an excuse to put Cecile in a sweater dress my great-grandmother had given me as an infant. (My mother saved too many clothes of mine. Yes, she did.) And without the botched forecast, Jon wouldn't have been home. Once he closed his laptop we scored ourselves something of a mid-week Sunday. Not too shabby.

We spent the afternoon playing indoors. It was much too sloppy to venture to the sledding hill, we decided. Besides, there were books to read, fires to build, and Sophies to eat.

 nom nom nom ...

Ever read The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats? It was a childhood favorite of mine and was perfect for our [faux] snow day.

As I write, fire is dying. But with this post I hope to pick up where I left off with the blog. Apologies for the long pause. Perhaps it was the winter. Lots has changed since my last post (I've quit my desk job, for one), and Cecile is 19 weeks old now and, hopefully, more predictable than in past weeks ... or the weather, for that matter ;)

Thanks for sticking around to learn of our adventures. See you soon.

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