Sledding During Vacation

We love sledding.  We barely got to sled last winter at all, so I really hoped to get everyone out of the house for a sledding excursion during Christmas vacation.  The weather was quite frigid on Christmas Day, and one little person was battling the start of a nasty cold, so we didn’t try to take everyone out for our traditional afternoon of sledding.  Things were busy, but we did manage to find a day that was cold, but not as cold, for some winter fun late in the vacation.  Dr. Peds was at work, and YaYa had a bit of a sinus headache, so she stayed at home wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket.

Mr. SP and The Banana were thrilled to head out with the sleds.  Mr. TOF was terrified of the sled.  He doesn’t even like riding in a sled around the yard these days.  He didn’t want the sleds to ride in the car.  He didn’t want to have to touch a sled.  He didn’t really even like watching other people recklessly slide down the hill in a sled.  He is one cautious little boy.

We drove to Bagley Nature Area, which has a small sledding hill, since I knew that Mr. TOF and I would mostly be observing the activities at hand.  Up and down the middle kids went, having a wonderful time and only occasionally fighting about who was to ride in which sled.  Mr. TOF grouchily watched.  On and on they sledded, and of course, if you aren’t actively moving around, cold weather makes you cold.  And bored.  Mr. TOF was done.  I tried to ignore that he was done as long as we could, because The Banana and Mr. SP were truly enjoying themselves, but it became apparent that Mr. TOF was just not in a flexible mood that day when he started the biggest meltdown of his life.  The child was wailing!  He wailed all through the car ride home.  He wailed all the time I was unbundling him.  He wailed through a glass of milk.  He wailed when his biggest sister tried to cheer him up, and finally, we had all had ENOUGH wailing and I put him upstairs in his bed.

Five minutes later he decided to stop wailing and he was fine for the rest of the day.