Our X Games.

I am a fan of athletics.  I appreciate the strength and coordination and effort that go into a well-played game or match, a successful meet, or a dripping-with-sweat-worth-it workout session.  I love coaching and playing field hockey, and I look forward to early morning boot camp in the summer.  I feel better after I go for a jog, and I wish I hiked more often.  I am also a lazy creep who spends the winter Extreme Baking and becoming heavier, creakier, and stiffer by the day.  I really hate being cold, and December through February, my bundled walks to Marley's bus stop for drop-off and pick-up constitute my daily aerobic exercise.  I am not proud of this, and I reassure myself that I'll do better eventually.  One winter before Marley was born, I made it a point to walk the two and a-half mile trail around a local pond every single day.  I actually loved it.  I loved it especially when it was quiet and the snow was falling, but it's been so long since I've done that, partly because I don't make the time, and partly because now I am irrationally afraid of how quiet and isolated that pond and its trail are.

Anyhow, this winter, Todd and I still managed to get our children outside into the snow and onto the ice.  It wasn't everyday, but I like to think that that when they look at photographs like this when they're older, they'll remember a non-stop winter romp.

 

At least one afternoon, Todd brought Marley and Rudy to his parents' house to careen down the hill he remembered from his youth.  Marley refused to wear snow pants.  She practically collapses into an adolescent heap whenever we force her to wear a parka instead of her pea coat.  "I hate how big it is! It's too puffy!" she wails.  And then I get all indignant about how lucky she is to have a coat to keep her warm in the winter, and how children elsewhere don't have nice coats like that and she should be more thankful, and then who wants to go make a snowman with Mommy?  Not Marley!

We live around the corner from a small pond, and we met Will and his brothers there in February for some sliding and skating.  I didn't even bother bringing snow pants, and Marley was defiantly wearing her pea coat.  Eventually, when we realized that we were going to be there for a while, I ran back home for snow pants and extra hats and mittens, and Marley borrowed an leftover pair of skates to join her friends on the ice.  When she tried balancing with a stick, I sent this picture, right away, to my favorite State Champion high school hockey coach.

Over February vacation, we stayed with friends in New Hampshire and spent one late afternoon tubing at Cranmore.  Those tubes go ridiculously fast, especially for a woman who doesn't like to go see movies that might be too exciting, and I was happy to have Rudy and Marley to clutch in my lap while shrieking and nervously laughing down the ice-slicked lanes.

On that same trip, we drove to a nearby slope for a few sledding runs.  It was so cold that we only stayed out for about twenty minutes.  Here, Marley's red, wind-burned face and stoic but miserable expression conveys the way were all feeling while out-of-doors.

Even so, before we left that sledding spot, I asked Todd to capture Smiling Mommy with Happy Winter Rudy, and this is the kind of thing that might help my daughters believe we always had so much fun out in the snow.

After tumbling onto ice and careening down snowy hills in chilling winds, after finishing up snowmen and walking through the bracing air back from the bus stop, the very best thing to do is drink hot chocolate or hot tea, or if we're fancy and I'm lucky, a hot latte.  And eat something like the toasted pecan blondies or olive oil and ricotta cake I made earlier in the week.

And another fantastic thing to do in the winter is burrow into the pillows and throw blankets on the couch, deal another hand of Uno, set up another game of Sorry!, and stay warm by the fire while admiring the snowflakes floating down just outside the window.  It would be okay with me if my girls remember winters like that, too.