On Fatherhood and Snowball Fights

Despite the beautiful smiles you see here, Maddie is still fairly ambivalent about snow, although she loves any excuse to get outside and walk around. But big brother Ollie is now a big fan of snow, and of every possible use for it -- making snowmen, shoveling with his "baby shovel," sledding, tromping through it instead of using a perfectly good path right next to him, and, more recently, snowball fights. He is slowly learning the intricacies of snowball fights under the expert tutelage of his all-knowing father. When I point out to Andy that he doesn't have to aim quite so precisely at Ollie's neck -the only exposed part of his son's body as it runs away from him in a frantic combination of glee and horror - he replies with a glint in his eye, "He loves it!!" And it's true, Ollie will yelp out a protest after being pelted yet again, then will quickly dash to prepare his next round of ammunition and attempt a valiant retaliation... I think I was the only one to notice the injustice of his return fires mostly landing at Andy's lower back, not a particularly sensitive area. Therefore, I ocassionally tried to wollop Andy's head or neck on Ollie's behalf, and only once had a halfway decent (albeit immensely satisfying) result. You can follow the general chain of events in this photo selection: Andy tosses a huge mound of snow at his 4 year old son, Ollie runs around like a happy crazy boy and gathers tiny snowballs in his little boy hands to try to throw back at his dad, all the while avoiding the very real threat of the next huge snow-mound that's headed in his direction (see final photo, with snow in mid-flight). Never let it be said that this boy is coddled!!