I don't care what the calendar says. Each year there is a clear "first day of winter," a day which may or may not be connected to the official winter solstice. In New England, it's usually several days before the calendar claims it's winter. For me, the first day of winter is the first morning you need to get yourself and a small child out of the house and off to school/daycare/work. And on that morning, I better add some extra minutes to our routine.
It snowed here on Saturday -- just a few inches -- enough to coat the trees with a lovely icing and blanket the lawns. With such a light covering, it was easy to deny that winter was indeed here. But this morning, as I helped my son get ready for school, I realized that we needed to bring snow boots to school, just in case the playground was still snowy. I put them in his bookbag but took them out a few minutes later because I had forgotten to write his initials in them. (+3 minutes)
We were all packed and dressed -- coat, hat and mittens -- when I opened the front door and found my car covered with a thick frost. Oh yeah, that. "Noah, stay here, I need to go warm up the car," I said, as I headed outside. (+3 minutes)
I was feeling impressed that I had remembered to unlock all of the car doors before coming inside (I tend to forget to do this which usually adds +2 minutes when I'm trying to get the child into the car later). I again gathered our things at the front door before realizing that I had no house keys. Ugh... The key chain for my car keys broke a few months ago, and now all of my keys were stashed on one key chain. Which was in the car ignition. Ugh. "OK, Noah, we need to go out the garage door." (+3 minutes)
Noah was enthusiastic about helping to scrape the ice off the car -- I'll have to remind him of this when he's 15. So together we scraped the windows clean. This is usually +5 minutes, but with a child, it's +8 minutes. Noah decided it was easier to scrape without his mittens on (he'll learn, oh, he'll learn... I usually forget mine and have to go back inside which adds +3 minutes), but then it was +1 minute to re-apply mittens after scraping. Settled into the car, add +1 minute to re-adjust the blowing heater.
Nineteen minutes -- not so bad. Maybe we can break the record next year.
