World of Snowcraft

Hi all.
Anna has clearly re-discovered the creative spirit; motivated by you guys (thanks), she's posting up a storm. Speaking of storms, it's been literally one after another here in Philly. (Aside: Anna and I had an uneducated debate about whether this counts as a sign of global warming, or a random variance blip; I'm going with random variance blip - Anna countered with "global warming means more evaporation, so more moisture in the air, so more precipitation." That's some hard-to-refuse pseudoscience hand-waving. (Note: this is not a political blog, and I won't hijack it, but there is no actual debate here about global warming - it's pretty clear.))

Now, back to storms - it's been so snowy! I was talking to some people at work, and said that I remember being a kid, and just hoping and praying for a snow day, and not having to go to school. And then I remember being older, and having to go do things regardless, and really hoping for no snow. And now, things cycled back again - the kids really like the snow, and it's so much fun to play with them!

On Sunday, Anna was away, and I was left alone manning the fort. And what a fort!



This is step 2. Step 1 was convincing Lara that a snow fort would be fun to build (she has a natural tendency to "con" just about anything new. She gets that from somewhere, I guess. Ahem. Moving on.) Actually, step 1 was convincing Lara, and step 1.5 was finding something Jakey liked better than breaking the in-progress snow fort. He loved breaking the walls. "Sow-baaahl!" as he lifted brick after brick of snow and flopped it on the ground with glee.

Yeah, so we made that awesome snow fort - but then Jakey wanted to go in! ("Indaaaah" - aka, 'in there,' chanted regularly, until I acquiesced and dumped him in with his sister... note the joy on Lara's face. Joy, I tell you.)



This is NYC-style - 2 people in a 3x3 foot space. These two clearly grew up in Philly, and couldn't hack the close quarters. "Daddy, Jakey's pushing me!" "Nopush Nopush!" And neither would tolerate being removed from the frosty studio.

So, we smashed down a wall and expanded into a duplex - and this time, everyone helped!



Finally, Lara's glove fell off, and she got snow in her arm, and inconsolable crankiness ensued. From her, at being wet and cold, and from Jakey, at being forced to leave the snow. I promised them food at home; as a sign of what "daddytime" means, the minute I said "Let's go home and get food," Jakey said "No pipa! No pipa! que-deeah!" meaning he not only knew that "food with Daddy = pizza," he decided he didn't want that and requested a quesedilla.

So not only did we indulge that request, but then Lara and I whipped up these fantabulous chocolate chip cookies! (no recipe included: this is Daddy-style blogging)



One of the best things about these cookies? Totally awesome, but too hard for Lara and Anna to eat, and Jakey doesn't know they're there... thus, more for me.

And so everyone had a happy snow day!


(Also, my own Jakey language addendum - Anna's blog post-with-video is awesome and totally captures his budding little language, but one of the funniest things is him using his 2- and 3-word phrases to make sentences. One morning last week, he woke up at around 5, and so I took him downstairs to watch Sesame Street, which in Jakey-tongue is "watchy-ehmo" (watch-y elmo). So I fell asleep, and then I woke up to getting whacked in the head with the remote while Jakey says the following: "Daddy no seep! Kakey 'mote! Watchy-ehmo moah." (Daddy no sleep, Jakey remote, Watch Elmo more).

Last tidbit - Jakey has a joke! "Kakey watchy ehmo. Shish watchy ehmo?" then you say "Fish can't watch elmo!" and he laughs uproariously. Because, see, our fish are not near the TV. Trust me, it's funny. He's so cute!)