Snow! What fun!

Raking leaves ...

then later the snow

I was already outdoors cleaning snow off our car when our grandson arrived with his mom. His eyes were bright with excitment seeing all that snow on the ground and watching more coming down. He slipped on the driveway and fell down a couple of times as he made his way up, for it was already slippery underfoot. He cried a little because it hurt, but a hug from his mom and the tears were soon gone.

When one is two and a half, one does not necessarily remember the winter before. He’d helped his dad rake leaves days before, as only a toddler can do, and now there was this white stuff. Heaps of it. He scurried off to the side of the house and chose a shovel. Nolan is tall for his age, and the shovel was meant for an adult, but it did not matter. He proceeded to do his version of snow clearing.

Bundled up in warm winter coat, hat, boots and a neck warmer, he started pushing snow around. I would have loved to get a video of him eagerly pushing and pulling shovelfuls of snow from one side of the driveway to the other, around the car, across the grass, but you’ll have to imagine the scene. It was play and he was loving it.

When I cleaned the car off a little more, he said, “Gamma, shovel.” Meaning, I want you to do it too. And so I joined him in making his rabbit trails around the driveway. At one point, he’d had enough and declared he was ready to go in. “Snack,” he said. It was clear that all the energy he’d used meant a refuel was needed.

After awhile indoors and watching a short cartoon, I said, “Time to go for a walk.” I told him my friend lives far away and we’d put a card in the mailbox for her. At first he didn’t want to go, but then neither did he want to be left behind, even with his Papa, so he decided to come out again.

We had our trek down the street to mail the card. I lifted him up so he could deposit the envelope in the big red box. Then on the way home, he found a stick that he trailed along in the snow. We saw rabbit tracks in the snow and maybe tracks of a dog being walked. Then we shovelled again.

I marvelled at my grandson’s exuberance, and his love of this new weather. When I mentioned snowballs, he was eager to try it out, even if it was just a tiny ball. To him, there was nothing scary about handling a big shovel and trying to dump the snow he’d collected, although he was quite tired by nap time.

We never did get the whole driveway cleared, and if our neighbour had looked out his front window, he would have seen a toddler making a single path past his house and enjoying the task.

We, as adults, may be weighed down by many cares, but, oh, how fun to see a new experience through a toddler’s eyes. May we, too, approach our days with such enthusiasm.