Mama Said

As soon as the boys woke up and peeked out the window, they wanted to go outside. Overnight, their Tennessee world of greens and browns transformed into a brilliant white that demanded exploration.  

“Wow,” the boys said in unison with their mouths and noses pressed against the glass.  

It was the exact thing that I said when I woke up, minus the drooling at the window. Clearly, the novelty of the first winter snow does not wear off, whether one has seen it three or thirty-five times.  

Little Legs raced around, gathering things to take outside.  

Within a few minutes, he was prepared. There were three Matchbox cars, all of which he was to later lose in the snow, two mismatched shoes and one bright-green fisherman’s hat.

He said, “Let’s go outside. Ready, set, go.”

As though turning a trip outside into a race has ever worked to speed up a slow-poke, I thought. Then I realized he used my let’s-turn-things-we-don’t-want-to-do-into-a-game technique against me. The boy-sponge was absorbing too much.

I stared at him for a minute trying to remember when he changed from a toddler into a boy, a real boy. Someone who likes to stand up when he pees and eats cereal out the box and hugs his brother when he cries.  

Meanwhile, Baby Brother plopped down in front of the door, requested a “baabaanan” (banana, obviously) and waited to be clothed for the outing.

“Wait just a minute, little boys. We need to eat breakfast,” I said.

It was 7:30am. I glanced at the outdoor thermometer and shivered, 32 degrees was cold, even for someone with Hoosier blood.

“After breakfast, we can bundle up and go outside.”

They accepted the plan, perhaps encouraged by the early morning rumblings of their tumblies. Baby Brother grabbed his toast, smashed it into a ball and returned to wait by the door. Little Legs chugged a glass of milk, took one bite of oatmeal and declared, “We ready.”

“It’s going to be cold. You both need to wear layers, coats and gloves,” I said.

“What’s layers?” Little Legs asked.

“Wait and see,” I said.

I pulled shirt over shirt onto both boys and zipped them up into sweatshirts and double sweatpants and socks. I separated out the coats, gloves and hats into big and little and the pirates decided that they had waited long enough. They mutinied.

“We want out. We want out,” the ambassador for all small boys in the house shouted.  

Baby Brother cried and pulled at his sweatshirt.  

“We don’t want gloves or coats, we want out,” Little Legs said.

They took to pounding on the door and screaming like they had lost their minds, one feeding off the other. I tried to grab Baby Brother to put a glove on his hand and he turned into a jellyfish in my arms and squirmed away. Little Legs kicked and twisted when I tried to work his arm into the sleeve of his coat.

“Fine, let’s try it your way and see what happens,” I said.  

They laughed in delight at their victory and ran outside and after the second armful scoop of snow started to melt in his hands, Baby Brother cried as it stung his skin.

“It is too cold for us. We want back in. We need coats and gloves.” Little Legs said.

“Interesting,” I said.