I Double Dog Dare You...

I love winter. Mostly. I love the snow and the winter sports. Even curling. I love how freshly fallen snow paints a new pristine landscape and erases the sins of yesterday. (Or at least covers the dog poop and McDonald's cups thrown out of the back of my car.) I love toques and scarves and stylish leather gloves. I have six winter coats, (Sorry Boo, you still love me right?) to alternate with what ever I happen to be wearing.

I love the feeling when it is very cold the air seems to bite your lungs when you inhale and the snow actually crunches beneath your feet. I love hurling myself and my children down steep hills on inner tubes and praying to God that we will walk away with our bones intact. I love how the sky looks at winter, and how the stars seem so especially bright. I love standing still while the snow gently falls to the earth and marvelling at how quiet and peaceful the world seems. As I stand there with my tongue out, trying to catch the fat, fluffy flakes, I am transported in time, once more ten years old and making angels in the snow; not a thirty-one year old mom with a big mastercard bill and a looming mortgage.

Of course, if I'm stuck inside for long periods of time with my children, I hate winter. Or if I manage to drive into a snowbank and get stuck, I really hate winter. Or if I fall on my ass in front of my kids, God and a group of goodlooking men while trying to walk in three inch stilettos across an icy parking lot and look cool, well I fu%*ing hate winter.

But I have great winter memories, growing up here in a winter wonderland. Snowmen, snow forts, tunnels, tobaggoning, watching my best friend ski into a tree and break her arm. Great memories. Like the time my dad was struggling to bring in supper (KFC I believe) and he slipped. The bag crashed to the ground and the gravy container popped open and splashed a bit on the outside of our metal screen door. Dad picked it up, brushed his bruised ass off and we dined like royalty that night.

That's not the great memory. No, we had two basset hounds at the time. They were begging and getting underfoot so Mom put them outside to relieve themselves and give us a break while we feasted like kings. A few minutes later we heard some whining and a ruckus so we opened the door to see what the commotion was about. Turns out one of the hounds discovered the gravy on the outside of the metal door and did what any dog would do. He licked it. And promptly regretted it.

No, opening that door to find my dog with his tongue stuck to the door will be a childhood memory I will forever cherish. And don't worry Mrs. Chicky, he wasn't injured. We grabbed some warm water and melted his tongue loose. While laughing our asses off.

Which of course brings me back to the time I was seven and a young, nose-picking child. It was recess and I was on the swings. I was working up a good sweat. Suddenly, the frost on the metal pole looked so enticing. So I had me a Dumb and Dumber moment. There I was stuck to the damn pole. Crying and panicking, while a large horde of children gathered about me and started to laugh and poke at me with sharp pointy sticks. (Well, okay, maybe not, but they may as well have for the scars on my soul from their verbal taunts are surely equal to that of being prodded by the pack of blood thirsty children.) My older brother walked through the crowd, which parted like the Red Sea when Moses walked through it, and wrapped his arms around my waist and gave me a good tug.

F*&ker. I was still attached to that damn pole and now my tongue was bleeding. As my brother was trying to amputate my tongue, some wonderful guardian angel (I think it was the fourth grade teacher) appeared with some water and saved me from having to have my tongue reattached.

I was teased about that for weeks until the next dumbass kid tried the same thing. Ahh, fond memories of surviving winter.

Which of course, leads me to the point of this post.

Guess what I did last night? Nope, I did not stick my tongue to a metal post. Or watch Nixon the World's Greatest Dog. Ever try to wrestle his tongue free from the front door.

I merely double dared my children to stick their tongues to the frosted side of our metal pool. And then I whipped out my camera to document this monumental moment of their childhood while laughing my ass off.

They survived, tongues intact, and now have their own winter war story to pass along to their kids.

Me, I'm still laughing my ass off.

I LOVE winter. But I love being an evil, masterminded mom even more.

***Sorry folks. I only publish pictures of my dead kids, not the ones with a pulse!!!***