May Mittens

My preschooler recently discovered a pair of mittens hiding in the bottom of the diaper bag.  I put them there early in the winter to make sure we always had a pair in reserve.  He was delighted when he found them.  He’d been trying to wear his sisters’ gloves but they were always too big and he couldn’t quite get his fingers in the right places.

Now he wears his new blue mittens as often as he can.  Inside, outside, to the park when it’s seventeen degrees…

But who can blame him?  It might be seventeen degrees today but there’s no guarantee it will be above zero tomorrow.  Hi, I’m Kathryn.  I live in Alberta.

I’m often amazed around mid-March when people start complaining about the long winter and how spring just does not want to come this year.  I feel like taking them gently by the shoulders, looking into their eyes and, with as much kindness as I can muster, breaking the news to them that snow could be in the forecast for another two months.  Hi, what’s your name?  Do you know what province you live in?

I must admit, by early May I’m as tired of winter as everyone else and by then I’ve got seven pairs (each) of winter boots, splash boots, running shoes, and flip flops kicking around the house.  Enough!  So I start washing winter coats and packing away boots.  Away – but never too far.  At least until after the May long weekend.

If it snows after Victoria Day, I may have to move back to BC.

The Wrong Country

I celebrated my birthday in the middle of a blizzard.  A friend called to wish me happy birthday and asked why in the world I didn’t stay in New Zealand where I could blow out my candles on the beach.

Believe me, I’ve sometimes felt like I’m living in the wrong country.  While others are loading up their skis and snowboards, dragging out their sleds and skidoos, and lacing up their skates and snowshoes, I’m doubling up my socks and sweaters.

My aversion to winter sports may have started my first year in Canada when I was two and couldn’t see over the snow drifts.  Or maybe that same winter when I walked onto an ice rink in regular boots, slipped, and whacked my head.

Sledding is about the only winter sport I’ve ever enjoyed.  Growing up on the side of a BC mountain it was kind of hard not to.  Yes, I’ve done my share of sledding, also enduring the related injuries, including the worst bloody nose I’ve ever had when I crashed on crusty snow.

Skating and skiing were part of our PE curriculum (I think).  At least they dragged us off to the rink and Red Mountain ski hill enough times.  I tried, but I knew things weren’t going well when the teacher asked, “Kathryn, would you like to help the Kindergarten class put on their skates instead?”

I just don’t get what there is to like about skiing.  It’s cold, it’s fast, it’s high (chair lifts: “don’t look down, don’t look down”), and one can snowplow for only so long.

I’m glad many of you enjoy winter sports; I wish I did too.  Maybe I really do have Kiwi climate preferences in my blood.  But if I lived there, I wouldn’t get to shovel walks, drag garbage bins through snow, or start my car a half hour before I go anywhere.

 

Or have a white Christmas.