Winter

This is a strange winter, no?  We made it through January, which is always my month to wallow in glum, but then things remained very wintry.  We are not getting snow like they are in Boston, where my sister, Martha, is battling 6 feet of snow and ice dams.  And it is not as cold as it is in Maine, where my parents daily wake up to negative temperatures and new arctic birds for their life list -- some snow buntings!:

And I am also very glad that we have not experienced any electricity outages this year like we did last.  But it has been very cold for very long, and also very gray.  The snow storms (until perhaps tonight) have all come towards us but then swerved at the last moment, leaving us with the inevitable “dusting.”

Two weekends ago it made it to the high thirties, so Owen and I  went out to play for a bit.  

But then this past weekend it was single-digit cold and we were once again rather housebound:

So there you have it: almost a whole post about the weather.

Miss Dorothy is probably the only one happy with it—she loves going out for a quick snow romp and then coming back inside and recovering for hours on the couch.  Here she is, having spotted danger from her comfy perch:

Owen is getting a little stir-crazy.  When he gets slightly tired and slightly cranky these days, he starts being Destructor, and rampaging through all his toys and books.  I had vague recollections of my nephew, Henry, doing this at Owen’s age, and Martha confirms that he did:  it’s good to know it is a phase that will pass, as it is rather annoying to follow behind him saying no in increasing tones of aggravation.

He is still loving watching Curious George, and his new thing is to say, when Sean and I are talking to each other and not to him, “Stop talking about ANYthing.”