See that kid on the right?
That's Joy.
Second time on ice skates. Ever.
Showing posts with label winter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label winter. Show all posts
Monday, January 14, 2013
Monday, December 10, 2012
Let It Snow!
It's been a mild, mild kick-off to the winter season in Wisconsin so far. We didn't harvest our last Swiss chard until Thanksgiving, and we're still getting bits of thyme and sage. JoyMama has enjoyed bike-commuting to work into December, and JoyDad has appreciated the reprieve from snow-removal.
Rose, however, was pining for snow, making wistful observations about the chances of a white Christmas.
Sometimes, though, when you have no snow, you make your own!
Rose, however, was pining for snow, making wistful observations about the chances of a white Christmas.
Sometimes, though, when you have no snow, you make your own!
This photo is from Saturday, a clear, relatively-mild day for December. That white stuff that Joy is gleefully kicking looks for all the world like snow, but look a little closer...
That's not snow, it's cattail fluff! Turns out that the brown part of the cattail is actually made up of densely-packed seeds, each attached to a bit of fluff to carry it away on the wind. When you unpack a dried cattail, it explodes into more "snow" than you ever thought possible! (Even up close, it looks a little like frost-tracings, doesn't it?)
Fortunately, at least to the girls' minds, we had no need to turn to the cattails on Sunday:
Above is the scene in our garden, glorious sticky mantle-of-white all over the fence and the stacked tomato-cages.
And there goes Joy, ready to revel!
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...
Monday, December 6, 2010
First Snow
We got about four inches of lovely fluffy snow on Friday night into Saturday, the first snow of the season! What a perfect first snow -- waking up to it on a weekend rather than having to go to school, enough for sledding but not so much that sleds would get stuck, warm enough to play but not enough to melt the stuff before you get your fun in.
Rose and Joy both adore the snow, but in very different ways.
Rose looks at the snow and makes a plan -- and she's old enough that she can carry out those plans herself when they're on our property! She gets herself all dressed and then goes forth and shovels, makes snow angels, and sleds or snowboards down the gentle incline in our backyard. Alas, we had mistreated the snowboard over the summer, such that it had warped in our garage under the weight of hoses and a bicycle(!) She still managed to make it work for now, though, even when we took a family jaunt to the fairly-steep hill at their elementary school.
Joy, on the other hand, inhabits the snow.
It takes quite a bit of adult interference to get Joy bundled up appropriately -- but once you let her out the door, she's off with a bound. Snow is an amazing stimmy! It's everywhere, and (unlike dirt or woodchips), it can actually be OK to throw it in the air! She blazes trails through it (the above pic is at the school grounds), she rolls in it, she trickles it from her mittened hands, she makes her best attempts to consume it -- if she can get her face into it before a JoyParent can get to her....
At the schoolyard, she was thrilled to go speeding down the long hill on a sled with mama, but then not much interested at all in working on getting back up the hill. I eventually towed her back up in the sled, a long slow process because she kept dragging her mittens in the snow and I kept stopping to request that she get her hands back into the sled. At least she stays in the sled, which wasn't the case as recently as two years ago! And she was happy to announce "Go!" to get me to start pulling again -- over and over and over.
Alas, this week the temperature is going into the deepfreeze. The snow play bouts will be shorter and chillier, I'm thinking. But we'll do our best to enjoy it while it's still got the novelty factor!
Rose and Joy both adore the snow, but in very different ways.
Rose looks at the snow and makes a plan -- and she's old enough that she can carry out those plans herself when they're on our property! She gets herself all dressed and then goes forth and shovels, makes snow angels, and sleds or snowboards down the gentle incline in our backyard. Alas, we had mistreated the snowboard over the summer, such that it had warped in our garage under the weight of hoses and a bicycle(!) She still managed to make it work for now, though, even when we took a family jaunt to the fairly-steep hill at their elementary school.
Joy, on the other hand, inhabits the snow.
It takes quite a bit of adult interference to get Joy bundled up appropriately -- but once you let her out the door, she's off with a bound. Snow is an amazing stimmy! It's everywhere, and (unlike dirt or woodchips), it can actually be OK to throw it in the air! She blazes trails through it (the above pic is at the school grounds), she rolls in it, she trickles it from her mittened hands, she makes her best attempts to consume it -- if she can get her face into it before a JoyParent can get to her....
At the schoolyard, she was thrilled to go speeding down the long hill on a sled with mama, but then not much interested at all in working on getting back up the hill. I eventually towed her back up in the sled, a long slow process because she kept dragging her mittens in the snow and I kept stopping to request that she get her hands back into the sled. At least she stays in the sled, which wasn't the case as recently as two years ago! And she was happy to announce "Go!" to get me to start pulling again -- over and over and over.
Alas, this week the temperature is going into the deepfreeze. The snow play bouts will be shorter and chillier, I'm thinking. But we'll do our best to enjoy it while it's still got the novelty factor!
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Rose Rides a Bike
Living through winter in Wisconsin is kinda like deliberately banging your head against the wall because it feels so good when it stops. [Update: Check out this cartoon from the Sunday paper: I'm not the only one who feels this way!]
It's spring. And it feels GOOD.
I had a cranky whiny post all lined up to run this morning, but I can't do it. I'll post it Monday, which is supposed to be a rainy day anyway...
Today, I've got to write about Rose.
Unlike Joy, who is utterly fearless when it comes to flinging her body around, Rose has all too good an imagination about where excessive body-flinging might lead. This was exacerbated last spring when she fell and broke her arm on her very first trip to the roller rink.
She's been mighty cautious about bicycles.
We bought her a little bike with training wheels at a garage sale two springs ago. She was very hesitant at first. It took a lot of coaxing and support and a whole bunch of tumbles, but by fall 2007 she was riding quite well. I was hoping that 2008 would be the year to take the training wheels off.
No dice.
I actually did try taking the training wheels off at one point last year. Rose rode that way once, with me holding her up the whole time, and was terrified. Refused to touch the bike again until I put those wheels back on. Over the course of last year, as she grew and grew, she was outgrowing the bike to the point that even with the training wheels off, it wouldn't have been a good bet for learning to balance on her own.
Well, I posted at the end of October about just-in-time blessings, how a new right-size bike that wouldn't even take training wheels providentially came our way. That was the same post where I first announced, I think, that I was going to be doing the Couch-to-5K thing.
Of course we couldn't make any progress over the winter with the bike, but I managed to get to the point where a 5K run is now my regular workout. Yesterday was a gorgeous day, and my 5K in the morning was down to a 10:33/mile pace (with hills, and some wind!) After a day with lots of outside time, much lovely yardwork and such, Rose requested a bike-riding lesson for the evening.
There's a park near us that has an oval sidewalk of asphalt that runs around the lawn and playground area, nice and flat and perfect for toppling into the grass on either side when necessary. A red-helmeted Rose got onto the new big-girl bike with fear and trembling, insisting that mama hold her both by handlebars and waist. Around and around we went, lots of of stop-and-topples but no injuries. She got more confident, I let go the handlebar, was starting to have to trot to keep hold of her waist.
And then I let go for just a few seconds. And she balanced. And squealed with delight!
That was the turning point. Pretty soon I was just having to get her started, then letting go and jogging alongside (which I never could have done last fall before all that training...) Then she was making it all the way around the loop without stopping. Then she got up to a speed I couldn't match for very long.
By the end of the session she had succeeded in going THREE times around the loop in succession, without me at her side, only needing a bit of support at the start to get going.
[Update: We went out Sunday morning for another session. Rose went around the loop 26 times without stopping, and succeeded in starting herself without help a couple of times as well. I think she's ready to practice on our street next. Photo below!]
Kristina at Autism.change.org recently mentioned the concept of kairos, the "just moment," the "right time" when things come together in due measure. (The "just-in-time blessing" moment, perhaps?)
I think we've been there twice now this week, between trike and bike. And yes, Joy did do a little smidge of pedaling herself again yesterday.
Did I mention that I love springtime?
It's spring. And it feels GOOD.
I had a cranky whiny post all lined up to run this morning, but I can't do it. I'll post it Monday, which is supposed to be a rainy day anyway...
Today, I've got to write about Rose.
Unlike Joy, who is utterly fearless when it comes to flinging her body around, Rose has all too good an imagination about where excessive body-flinging might lead. This was exacerbated last spring when she fell and broke her arm on her very first trip to the roller rink.
She's been mighty cautious about bicycles.
We bought her a little bike with training wheels at a garage sale two springs ago. She was very hesitant at first. It took a lot of coaxing and support and a whole bunch of tumbles, but by fall 2007 she was riding quite well. I was hoping that 2008 would be the year to take the training wheels off.
No dice.
I actually did try taking the training wheels off at one point last year. Rose rode that way once, with me holding her up the whole time, and was terrified. Refused to touch the bike again until I put those wheels back on. Over the course of last year, as she grew and grew, she was outgrowing the bike to the point that even with the training wheels off, it wouldn't have been a good bet for learning to balance on her own.
Well, I posted at the end of October about just-in-time blessings, how a new right-size bike that wouldn't even take training wheels providentially came our way. That was the same post where I first announced, I think, that I was going to be doing the Couch-to-5K thing.
Of course we couldn't make any progress over the winter with the bike, but I managed to get to the point where a 5K run is now my regular workout. Yesterday was a gorgeous day, and my 5K in the morning was down to a 10:33/mile pace (with hills, and some wind!) After a day with lots of outside time, much lovely yardwork and such, Rose requested a bike-riding lesson for the evening.
There's a park near us that has an oval sidewalk of asphalt that runs around the lawn and playground area, nice and flat and perfect for toppling into the grass on either side when necessary. A red-helmeted Rose got onto the new big-girl bike with fear and trembling, insisting that mama hold her both by handlebars and waist. Around and around we went, lots of of stop-and-topples but no injuries. She got more confident, I let go the handlebar, was starting to have to trot to keep hold of her waist.
And then I let go for just a few seconds. And she balanced. And squealed with delight!
That was the turning point. Pretty soon I was just having to get her started, then letting go and jogging alongside (which I never could have done last fall before all that training...) Then she was making it all the way around the loop without stopping. Then she got up to a speed I couldn't match for very long.
By the end of the session she had succeeded in going THREE times around the loop in succession, without me at her side, only needing a bit of support at the start to get going.
[Update: We went out Sunday morning for another session. Rose went around the loop 26 times without stopping, and succeeded in starting herself without help a couple of times as well. I think she's ready to practice on our street next. Photo below!]
Kristina at Autism.change.org recently mentioned the concept of kairos, the "just moment," the "right time" when things come together in due measure. (The "just-in-time blessing" moment, perhaps?)
I think we've been there twice now this week, between trike and bike. And yes, Joy did do a little smidge of pedaling herself again yesterday.
Did I mention that I love springtime?
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Bunnies in Winter
What do Wisconsin bunnies eat during a cold snowy winter?
We rarely catch them in the act, but we know they've been there!
They nibble birdseed at the base of the feeder:
They munch the raspberry canes:
They chomp the lower branches on the lilac bush:
They chow on compost:
And then there are the spoiled indoor bunnies. Look what they get every night:
Just to make this a little bit Joy-applicable -- at one point she did have a word for bunny (buh-buh) but we haven't heard it for a while. She has lots of bunny toys in addition to the real bunnies! And she does appreciate the real ones. Likes to go rattle their enclosure, and stick her hand in to try & pet them, and giggle like crazy when they hop away!
She also, ummm, tends to treat the evidence of their outdoor presence as something akin to raisins. Remember, this is the girl who eats banana peel... We do have to keep a watch on her outdoor activities as winter turns to spring, before all the droppings revert to the soil and get covered up as the lawn springs green.
Spring. Ooh, does that sound good. I bet the outdoor bunnies are looking forward to it even more than I am.
We rarely catch them in the act, but we know they've been there!
They nibble birdseed at the base of the feeder:
They munch the raspberry canes:
They chomp the lower branches on the lilac bush:
They chow on compost:
And then there are the spoiled indoor bunnies. Look what they get every night:
Just to make this a little bit Joy-applicable -- at one point she did have a word for bunny (buh-buh) but we haven't heard it for a while. She has lots of bunny toys in addition to the real bunnies! And she does appreciate the real ones. Likes to go rattle their enclosure, and stick her hand in to try & pet them, and giggle like crazy when they hop away!
She also, ummm, tends to treat the evidence of their outdoor presence as something akin to raisins. Remember, this is the girl who eats banana peel... We do have to keep a watch on her outdoor activities as winter turns to spring, before all the droppings revert to the soil and get covered up as the lawn springs green.
Spring. Ooh, does that sound good. I bet the outdoor bunnies are looking forward to it even more than I am.
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