welcome aboard the weather coaster

Our weather has been crazy lately.  Really, really crazy.  Today the sun shone brightly and the temperature was 72 degrees.  It's January.  Over the weekend, we got a couple inches of snow, last week the highs were in the high teens/low 20s, and the weekend before it was 60 and sunny. Tomorrow we're supposed to get thunderstorms and warm weather, and by Friday they're forecasting more snow.

So we take it day by day, and check the weather app on our phones before we go outside so see what fun awaits us.  When it is sunny and relatively warm, we take as much advantage of it as we can.  A few weekends ago (when it was 55 and sunny) Scott and I decided to take Jed to a park, to let him get out some energy before his afternoon nap.  I'd been planning on taking some official 1-year photos, but didn't want to make a big deal of it and especially didn't want to take him to a studio.  So I brought the camera and decided to take advantage of the play day at the park.

Jed loves the park.  He loves wandering around and exploring, climbing all the stairs, trying to get his head stuck between the bars, looking down from high places, swinging on the swings, and sliding down slides.  He had a blast, and with Scott usually close behind him, I got some cute pictures of the two of them (which are always my favourite pictures to get).

Last Thursday we had snow instead of sunshine.  I wanted to see what Jed thought about it, so I set about bundling him up to take him outside.  I fashioned a diaper out of a plastic bag by poking two holes for his legs, and tying it behind him.  I assumed he was going to spend some time sitting in the snow, so I wanted to keep him as dry as possible.  Jed was fascinated with the noise that the bag made as he walked around.

Then I put a second pair of pants over top of the bag diaper for warmth, and gave him shoes, a fleece vest, a coat, a hat, and mittens.  The whole process took about 20 minutes, and at the end he looked like the Michelin Man, ready to face the Alaskan tundra.

As I had expected, I spent more time getting him ready to go outside than we actually spent outside - it didn't take long for Jed to realize that the snow was COLD and not very much fun for a baby who can't build a snowman to play in.  And being so bundled up and forced to wear hard-soled shoes, it was rather difficult for him to walk - resulting in much tripping and falling.  He decided he had had enough of the snow when he face-planted in it:

I kept him outside for a few minutes longer, and got a few more pictures.  As predicted, he spent some time just sitting in the snow not knowing what to do.  I was glad I had gone to the trouble of wrapping his bum in a plastic bag.

When I finally relented and brought Jed inside, he appeared grateful.  I un-bundled him (he was dry, hooray!) and he immediately set about chasing the cat like it was any other day.  While he was occupied with his favourite feline friend, I sipped some hot chocolate and warmed up my fingers.  Someday he'll like the snow - though ideally, we won't live anywhere cold enough to get it on a regular basis.