You may remember from back in February, Locke and I went to NYC to meet up with my family to spend some time with them. Things have been tender since a falling out a year or three ago, but we’re rebuilding confidence with each other. We have weekly calls again, and have been trying to meet up. I asked my parents if they’d like a wintertime visit, and we arranged just after Thanksgiving. I was nervous, but knew it would be worth the investment.

Not only was time with grandma and grandpa much easier, but we also got a snow storm!

As the storm kicked off, Locke and I made our way to a Rural King (yes, really) to try to get him some snow clothes. Queue my being dressed as “clearly not from here” in a subtly rainbow long wool coat, subtly rainbow jeans, plus black stompy boots waiting patiently while my child has a meltdown on the floor screaming about how “boring” all the boots and clothing there are. The looks. Admittedly we were underslept and jet lagged from the travel, but they don’t know that. We finally picked out some too-big boots that were at least purple and a black jacket. We had to go to the nearby Carhart dealer to get snow bibs in his size. Yes, there’s a Carhart dealer. So now my child, he looks like a farmer. But at least he can go into the snow!

But Northern Indiana, you see, is very flat. So grandpa and I took turns dragging Locke around the yard on a sled so he could get some of the experience. The next door neighbors have a tiinnnny hill in their yard that’s about 3 feet tall and 10 feet long. They invited us over! So Locke got to have a tiny sledding experience.

So that was pretty dang joyful. Then we went inside and sat by the fire and read books, which is The Main Thing My Family Does, so I was glad to share that with Locke as well.