The Family Snowles

Our Valentine /Presidents' Day adventures captured on film.

Rough life on the road, answering so many Valentine prayers.

Slide up, slide down

When Dad wasn't immediately available we made a substitute...

And then another friend.

Wouldn't it be nice.

Blue Face FaceTime Blues

We looove to facetime with Grandma. Unfortunately, if we can see Grandma then Pippa believes we should be able to touch Grandma. When I tell her we can't touch Grandma on the iPad, then Pippa believes we should drive to Grama's hoooouse. When I tell Pippa that Grandma's house is too far away, she pouts and starts to demand we go to Grama'a hoooouse now!

I think she finally knows we won't drive her to Grandma's house. Clever girl that she is, she decided today that she could travel through the iPad. While talking to her cousins, who happened to be at Grandma's house, Pippa asked to go over to Grama's hooouse once more. When I starting shaking my head she turned and tried to back into the iPad with her shoulder. I asked what she was doing and she stated, "I'ma goin to Gramma's hooouse!"

Forging Phobias

Hello humiliation, it's been a week since we've last met.

Sometimes your daughter has an obsession. And you feed that obsession until you can no longer blow up balloons, or you lose the Super Bowl. Then you chide yourself and think that a Valentine Balloon will be the perfect solution. It pre-inflated, helium filled, and features cute animals. And your daughter giggles with delight holding the string shouting, "I got it! Pippa did it! oohhhhh!"

Never you mind that you just watched the Curious George movie and George was carried away by a balloon. Or that your daughter's favorite book tells the woeful tale of a baby that is wafted away by a bubble and plunges through the air (he lands on a patchwork quilt and giggles-good ending).

No, when you leave the store in the bitter cold and wind, you'll say, "Do you have a hold of that, because it might not end well for us" Then it's gone. The string will snap in that frosty air. Your daughter will exclaim, "Oh goodness! Oh gosh!" Your husband will run back inside at the sight of her crumbled face. While he's gone you lose your mind and remind your daughter that it's just like Curious George and the balloon flew away. She'll repeat this. Again and again and again. Then daddy appears and tells her he found a better balloon.

She'll reach for it timidly. You'll pull out of the parking lot and terror sets in. Soon your daughter is crying and tearfully asking for you to hold the balloon. Not an easy task with a stick-shift, but sure. Then once you have it, she shrieks, "No mama, no!" So you give it back and she cries harder. Your husband will look at you dumbfounded and ask what happened in the time that he was gone. You tell him that you explained the balloon flew away, like in Curious George. He'll stare at you like your crazy (rightfully so) and say, "Great so now she thinks that balloon is going to fly away with her...or you."

Yes, yes she does. The balloon is now in our house and she stares at it and cries. She doesn't want to hold it, she doesn't want to be near it. She's pretty sure our house is going to be uprooted (like the movie UP) and we will all fly away, out of reach. This day may be a parenting fail. Cheer up, the balloon will be here tomorrow.

Keeping the Peace

 Leading up to the Super Bowl...when I still had hope and spent plenty of time trash talking Skip...I also committed to converting Pippa to the Broncos cheering section. I failed to realize that the two times she'd watched five minutes of football the Seahawks had won her love. Every time I instructed her to say, "Go Broncos!" she'd pump her fist and yell, "No! Go Seahawks!" And like every class A parent I'd wear her down with a Bronco-Seahawk cheer-off until she'd finally wimper, "Mommy! Go Seahawks too!" 

That fateful Sunday, you know the one where Skip missed his team battling my team because he was flying home, I showered Pippa with orange and blue balloons and pom pom ribbons. All for nothing as she continued to insistent on something green. Green, the color of Tinkerbell and the Seahawks. Green a color that had not been picked two days before by her BFFs. She referred to all blue balloons as Kent's and all orange balloons as Owen's. Therefore she could not play with them and needed her own green colored balloon. She tore off her orange sweater and demanded the blue, purple, and green sweater instead. She chanted Seahawks until I cried in the second quarter, quickly said Broncos too, and continued with that Seahawks nonsense. 

No those weren't happy tears I shed. But I was eerily aware that Pippa had called the game. Hall boys, if you have a chance please send Pippa some game day apparel. I only have six months to get this straightened out!