our ice expertise
We've had some icy adventures the last few days. Yesterday's park day saw its fair share of sledding, but the snow was really too thin for sustained fun so it was the ice that really held everyone's interest. It was a solid as you could wish for—well, as I could wish for, anyway. Plenty of other parents were a little nervous, so I did my best to reassure them. My line of reasoning was that once a big section of pond is frozen to any depth, to the point that it doesn't move or squish when you step on it, its failure mode becomes much less obvious. Nobody's going to "fall through" at that point, unless they find a weak spot, and I checked before the free-for-all began to make sure there weren't any near the beach. And we weren't totally reckless: I bet we could have ventured pretty far out, but to the disappointment of a couple kids we kept them within 20 yards of the shore. Where, I must say, there was still plenty of fun to be had.
new vistas of delight
So nobody got wet, like the last two weeks. But don't worry, we had our ice-tastrophe for the week a little earlier, on Tuesday, when on a walk at October Farm Riverfront in the beautiful 12° weather Zion stomped through the ice next to the river and got wet up to his knee. No real harm done, of course, except we had to cut our walk short, which made Elijah very grumpy. Even with the quick retreat to the car Zion's pant leg froze completely solid before we got the heater on it, which was pretty cool!
I think it was actually my stories of all the times that I and the children in my care did fall through the ice that convinced some of the other parents that the park day ice wasn't as dangerous as they thought. Clearly, we've had vast experience and must know what we're talking about! So eventually everyone let their kids venture out and they all slid around on feet, tummies, sleds, a snow skate, and in the case of one prepared family actual ice skates! It could only have been better if we'd had hot chocolate, and if there wasn't a thin layer of sticky snow on the part of the ice we allowed the kids to play on. We did manage to scrape some of it off, though a shovel would have made it easier; but in the absence of anything designed for the purpose the big kids were happy to use Elijah as a sweeping tool!
he's happy to do his part
We all hope it stays cold, and also snows, so we can play on the ice more next week and also sled down the hill behind the beach way out onto the ice. I'm checking the weather forecast a couple times a day now...