winter

The baptism went very well, although I think that being surrounded by so many people in my immediate family (plus the godparents, and a whole lot of friends) has been very exciting and stimulating for Emma and she has a hard time falling asleep at night now.  She is very talkative, and has great control over her hands, which reside deep in her mouth most of the time.

The moment that we arrived back home from Vancouver, winter came.  First thing off the plane, Emma decided that -20C is too cold (that is -4F) and she started crying.  She has continued to cry every time she sticks her little nose outside, even if she is warmly dressed and in a bunting bag.  This morning we woke up to at least one foot of snow on our deck and a completely snowed in driveway.  MrH walked to work, I tried to shovel with Emma in the baby Bjorn, which soon proved not to be her favourite activity, so I stopped the madness and waited until it was nap time to shovel.  I shovelled for two hours straight.  Once I was done, I realized that despite the fact that I had a clear driveway, I still could not get the car out because the garage door was not working and got stuck in a closed position.  (Among other things, because it was cold while I was shovelling and I had to have the patio door a little open to hear the baby monitor, the ice that formed made it impossible to close the door back.  I had to use a knife as icepick to chip away at the ice on the door frame.)  Anyway, deciding that winter is not going to keep us indoors, and really wanting some milk for my tea, I put Emma to sleep in the bunting bag, and covered the stroller with a transparent plastic cover for the wind, and off we went to the store to buy milk.  HUH.  The driveway was not shovelled-nor was the neighbouring driveways-nor was the street-nor was the store's parking lot, so I was pulling the stroller through deep snow deposits for half the time, and pushing it for dear life the other half.  She didn't even wake up until we got home, and she was warm the whole time (I checked her hands and head and they were warm, plus she lets me know if she is not warm by screaming her head off).  All in all, I have used up more than 1000 calories today just for daily activities, and that was without even trying.  (I got the milk by the way).

Ugh.  I wish we had enough money for a snowblower.  I don't want to do this again anytime soon.  I am sore all over, my back hurts, and Emma is bright awake and won't let me sleep, despite the fact that it is well past midnight.