Yesterday the kids were playing outside in the snow. Well, the ice-encrusted snow. And of course, they were eating snow and munching on shards of ice like they were eating doughboys at a fair.
Irrational things pop into my head - not just because I have kids - my head has always been like this. I jump way ahead to disaster scenarios. I'm the original mountain-out-of-a-mole-hill-maker.
So I'm watching them happily licking and gnawing on rough-edged sections of backyard ice, their little cheeks and noses red from the cold. And isn't that ice cold? You're cold...the ice is cold...isn't that kind of reducing the amount of fun you're having out there? But you're kids...and you pay no attention to extreme cold, because it's too much fun to eat great pieces of ice and great scoops of snow, because it's there, and you're kids, and that's what kids do...
But I am (in theory) an adult, and more sensitive to the cold, and more aware of things like, oh, frostbite! But of course they don't know what frostbite is, and how can I explain it without graphic pictures that I'm sure I could download if I just did a quick search....
So I open the window over the kitchen sink and yell out to my foolish, fate-tempting children the following:
"STOP EATING SO MUCH SNOW AND ICE!....YOUR MOUTHS WILL FALL OFF!"
They glance at me for a moment, then go back to their snacks. I close the window. I tried.
And from behind me, downstairs, where Bill is changing water in the fish tank, he says, "your mouths will fall off?"
As I said. I say dumb stuff.
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