Do Tears Freeze?

So, we thought we'd be super-parents and take Caleb out to play in the snow yesterday. After all - kids love snow and he seemed to think it was pretty awesome last year, even though he was only 8 months old. Here's how it all went down:

All morning, Caleb went to the window and said, "'no" (his attempt at "snow") and laughed and looked in absolute amazement. So...after Caleb woke up from his nap, we started the bundling. We all put on a couple of layers and asked Caleb if he wanted to go outside. His normal response of, "'side! 'side! 'side!" was a pretty good sign that we were headed out for some fun! At first, his eyes got big, then he managed a half-smile. Then I picked up some snow and let Caleb touch it. He REFUSES to wear gloves or mittens, so I didn't push that too hard. Even though there wasn't much snow, we got out the sled and Rudy pulled Caleb down the sidewalk a couple of times.

After that, things went downhill fast - and I'm not talking about sledding. Caleb freaked out. He cried when we tried to go for a walk, when we tried to go inside and when we tried to put him in his wagon. He was so upset! I asked him if he wanted to go inside and he cried harder. I asked him if he wanted to play and he cried. I'm embarrassed to say that it took me WAY too long to figure out that Caleb's idea of "outside" was very different from what he was experiencing and he was not handling it well. When I asked Caleb if he wanted to go outside, he expected to go out and find grass and concrete and sunshine. Even though he could see the snow through the window - that was just not his idea of what happens when we go "outside." We finally came in and stripped off the outer layer of clothes. He calmed down after a while and we went on with our normal lives...inside the house.

We have a 2nd snow day today and we are NOT going outside.