"SNOW!"

"SNOW!"

Being awoken this way is not atypical in our house, however it is better than a large meaty thump followed by a snowballing cry. Those are the rough mornings.

Yesterday we were scheduled to go to my parent's house to help them with their kitchen remodeling project (I don't need a ladder to reach the ceiling which decreases the construction time exponentially), but plans changed the minute that my crew woke up and looked outside. I then spent most of the morning negotiating who would ride what sled when and dodging cranium-crushing snowballs delicately tossed off the deck by my wife.

After Princess Ballerina was lured back inside with hot cocoa ("ckocklate" she says), and a warning from Mommy that lunch would be in an hour, Jedi II and I strapped down our three-person tube sled in the bed of the truck and drove to The Sledding Hill, now currently known as Sledding Hill Park (directions).

Since this was Jedi II's inaugural trip to the Sledding Hill, I briefed him along the way on what to expect (minus the gory stories of splintering sleds and firetrucks roaring up the hill to care for injured sledders). The most important thing: Always look uphill.

We parked and picked our launch spot. I scanned the dirt-smeared slope for sled-busting rocks while Jedi II scanned for prairie dog mounds that would make great jumps and tall weeds to sled through (just like I did when I was his age). With a shove and a warning ("Always look uphill"), he was off.

About ten feet down the slope he fell off and was almost hit by a kindergartner on a red plastic toboggan, which then almost led to him being side-swiped by a high-schooler standing up on a kneeboard.

He made it back to the top, then continued sledding for two or three more runs safely.

By the time we got back to our house we missed lunch and had to explain to Princess Ballerina where we had been before she would lay her head down for her afternoon nap.

Needless to say that bedtime was not a struggle yesterday.