1998

oooh! the visit after the next will be the 2000th visitor! who will it be? I'm so excited!

Today it was snowing softly all day, so I dressed Hayden up VERY WARMLY and we went outside to go tobogganning. That was my intention. There's a small hill that I figured would be perfect right here in our compound area, so there would be no need to cross the highway. Here's how I dressed Hayden: two pairs of socks, t-shirt, heavy sweat-shirt, lined thick pants tucked into his outer socks, snowpants, winter boots, heavy parka, hat with cheek flaps, hood up on parka, zipper up to his nose, scarf, and wollen mittens. Yes he was able to bend his legs, but just barely. This is what I wore: two pairs of socks, polar fleece pants tucked into the outer socks, sweatpants over top (so the snow wouldn't stick to the polar fleece so bad), t-shirt, sweater, winter coat, gloves, scarf, ear-and-forehead warmer, hood-up on my coat, winter boots. Time it took getting ready: 30 minutes. Time we spent outside: 15 minutes. Time it took to get everything off after we were back inside: 10 minutes. Oh well! It was worth it.

The problem lay in the fact that Hayden was not having a good time being pulled on his new toboggan that my parents got for him for Christmas. I sat him in it and pulled him along in the snow on the way to the hill, but he wimpered the entire time. We only got 3/4 of the way there before I gave up and turned around. The snow was very light and fluffy but underneith it the hard frozen snow was very slippery. The two layers of snow hadn't gotten to know each other fully yet. Halfway back to the house Hayden fell off the toboggan (again - the rope is kinda short unless you walk backwards) so he walked. He was so cute and stiff-kneed, waddling along like a little stuffed Hayden doll. When we got back, he didn't want to go back outside either. My mother had called, so I took the phone outside and we stood around in the gentle snow for a while, until it was acceptable for him to go back inside. Last time we went out to play in the snow and he didn't have a good time, he cried his head off when we went back in. I think he likes being out in the snow, but he likes to just stand there. LOL it was so cute!