I made some lofty New Year’s resolutions this year. Fifteen days into 2012, I hadn’t really done much about them, and Sunday afternoon I was ready to blow one more opportunity. We came home from church, had a light lunch, and I was parked in front of the computer, cleaning up some files.
Hunter had called the little neighbor girl, Addison, and asked her if she wanted to go sledding in our back yard. Addison may be young, but she’s obviously quicker on the up-take than I am, because she didn’t hesitate. She quickly said, “Yes!”
Hunter asked, “Want to go sledding with me and Add, Mom?”
And I said, “Thanks, but no thanks, Hun. I’m busy!”
“But, Mom…” Hunter started to say. I gave him that ‘mother’ look, and he turned around with a disappointed sigh and headed for the front yard to wait for Addison to arrive.
It wasn’t five minutes before he was back in the house. “Mom, you really need to see this. It’s awesome out there!” he pleaded.
“Hunter, I told you I was working,” I began, when a flash of memory erupted behind my eyes like the shutter of a camera clicking.
My conscience was rolling a tape for me. “You said, when your kid talked, you would listen. When your kid wanted to play, you would play! When he wanted to make some memories you would pick up your camera and save some memories! What’s a New Year’s Resolution for if you’re not going to keep it?”
Just like that, I knew if I wasted this opportunity, I would live to regret it. How many times had I told the other boys, “I’m busy right now. I can’t.” Really, why couldn’t I? Who was driving me to work on a Sunday afternoon when Hunter was at home and we could be doing something fun together? This is nuts, I thought! “Hold on, Hunter. Let me grab my camera, and I’ll be right there.”
Hunter was right. It was awesome outside, shirt-sleeves weather, yet still plenty of snow on the back yard hill. He and Addison had hauled all of the snow equipment out, the two sleds, the toboggan, and the two small round bowl-shaped plastic sleds. As I stepped out the back door, Add was whirling down the slope in the bright purple one, a smile a mile wide plastered to her face as her pony-tail whipped in the wind around her.
To think I almost missed it because I was going to work, I laughed. Traipsing down the hill in my high-heeled boots, because being the Miss Fashionista that I am, why would I own a pair you could actually traipse through snow in, I turned just in time to take a picture of Add and Hunter on the toboggan as they almost wiped Buttercup, our miniature golden retriever, out. Buttercup’s old, but she’s not stupid. At the last second she ambled out of their path.
While the bowl-shaped sleds were giving the kids super propulsion down the hill, they didn’t have a lot of control. Once the spin started it lasted until the sleds reached the tree line. After a couple of trips like this, Addison wanted to ride the toboggan. She and Hunter tried rocking it back and forth a little to set it in motion, but in the end, Add’s grandma, Marilyn, walked over and gave them a push with the toe of her boot.
The snow was packing perfectly, and the toboggan took off like a rocket. Lucky me, I got the perfect picture of two smiling faces as they flashed by me and my camera. This might have entertained them for a while, but Hunter, being Hunter, couldn’t miss an opportunity for a good snowball fight.
He dumped about three quick snowballs down Addison’s back and made her tearfully mad. I thought for a few minutes she was going to go home, but then she must have decided that paybacks are heck, because she packed one as big as she could make it, and plastered Hunter with it. Now Hunter was the one who sent icy wet snow down her neck, right? So it should have been Hunter she took it all out on, but no. Addison decided she was mad at all of us, and started plastering her grandma and me with snowballs too.
For the most part, I was able to shield my camera until Hunter started his own barrage of snowballs too, and I quickly realized my camera was in major jeopardy. I fled up the hill, only turning around when I was satisfied I was out of range. From my vantage point I was able to snap shots of both kids plastering Marilyn with snowballs.
She was holding her own though, and managed to get in plenty of good hits right back at them. Suddenly, Addison decided snowballs weren’t enough. She started filling her purple sled up with snow. It was almost more than she could pick up, but she managed to dump it on Marilyn despite how heavy it was.
Hunter being Hunter, thought it was a terrific idea, and within minutes I had to flee the scene again to save my camera. By the time Addison took another snowball in the face, I figured it was time to go in and thaw out. I bribed them with marshmallows and hot cocoa.
While they were sipping their warm drinks, Hunter showed Addison his homemade shampoo, and his homemade bath soap that looked like a giant chocolate chip cookie, even offering to share one with her. Addison was duly impressed, sniffing both with interest, because not only did the bath soap looked like a cookied, but the shampoo also looked like pink jello. However, neither the soaps or the hot cocoa were enough to distract them from the wet snow gleaming softly in the fading sunset outside for long.
We rode sleds and threw snowballs until it was almost dark, and I had border-line frostbit toes in my black high-heeled dress boots. I figured, because the kids wouldn’t wear gloves to throw their snowballs, that their fingers had to be almost frost-bitten too. I told them, “One more trip down the hill, and we’re going in.”
They took two, and I had to confiscate their sleds to get them both to stop, but honestly, I couldn’t blame them. Why would any of us want a perfect afternoon to end? I had thought my New Year’s resolutions were for Hunter’s benefit. To heck with that idea! My New Year’s resolutions were really for my benefit. It took a Sunday afternoon playing in the snow with my son and his friends for me to get that.