Lil’ Duck, unlike his parents, is not used to cold weather. He has never seen snow, never known snowballs and snowmen and skiing and sleet and all that is the joy of wintertime. Last week, we took him to a community festival, where there was some ice snow on a hill for sledding. However, there were so many people there and such a lack of being able to actually touch the snow that he really didn’t get the concept. I got a bit of icy snow for him, which he declared to be “yucky” and “coooold”. He much preferred looking at the lights, the fountain, and running around the shuffleboard court.

However, this week there was a church festival with more snow. This time, not only was there a little sledding hill (with a much shorter line, we actually have a cute video of him sledding down the hill with me) but there was also snow spitting out from the “heavens” and a snow play area. We had to drag him kicking and screaming into this play area, despite his protests about “snow, no snow, snow icky, snow cold, no like it”. At first, he continued to scream at the snow, but then…

I made a snowball and gave it to another little toddler, who was a little more enthused about this stuff. Lil’ Duck saw this toddler enjoying the snowball and decided that it was worth a try. I made him a snowball and showed him how to throw it at Daddy…. and the fun began. I couldn’t make snowballs fast enough for him (I guess it would have helped to have brought my mittens, bare hands and snowballs aren’t too much fun after about five minutes) and he even felt the packed snow on the ground with delight.

When it was time to let the next batch of children into the play area, we had to drag him OUT kicking and screaming. Our attempts to take him over to the live nativity (with ducks and goats and lambs, oh my) were met with more screeching for “more snow, play snow, snowballs with Daddy dis time”.

So…. back to the snow area we went, waiting in a much longer line this time but finding even more joy in the snowballs this time around. Now we need to take him to see a place with real snow everywhere…. baby heaven!