My daughter knows what a snowman is. We have coffee mugs with snowmen, we have children’s books with snowmen, we have a snowman candle, and we had some snowmen hanging on the Christmas tree. So, of course, when the snow fell on Monday, January 14th, I knew we would be making her first snowman soon. She knew we could use a carrot for the nose, so we got one out of the refrigerator, and my wife gave her a couple of old “yuzu” for the eyes. Some sticks and stones would do for the mouth and buttons.
We were all set to decorate the snowman. We just had to build it now. We opened the door and went into the garden. She put her hands into the snow like me to collect it into a ball and then let out a long, loud wail of complaint. It seems she had not known that snow is very cold. She went into the house and cried for ten minutes to her mother and could not be persuaded to come near the snow again…. I built “her” snowman.