An Igloo of One's Own

Virginia Woolf posited that one of the reasons that women were less likely to have been recognized as geniuses and less likely to have contributed to the life of the mind was because they didn't have space in which to think and imagine.  In order to remedy this, she suggests that women need "A Room of One's Own."*

I think that Margaret and Ellie have perhaps been reading my literary theory shelf when I'm not looking, because when faced with a great deal of snow, they immediately decided that they would build an igloo all their own.

They labored to make snow bricks.  Of course, they soon realized that it was a lot faster to have me pick up snow on the shovel and drop it into the boxes for them to pack, but they were still working.  Of course, Ellie wasn't clear that you needed to pile the bricks on top of each other for effective igloo construction, but they tried. 

And then they realized that an igloo of their own was a much more plausible goal if they got other people, people with more design experience, and larger hands, involved in their building project.

Of course, we only really built a pile of snow before they got cold (there's a difficulty with gloves; either they are waterproof, but you lose all mobility in the hand, or they aren't, and your hands get cold super-fast. If someone were to invent a glove for small fingers that was waterproof, warm, and had mobility, I would be very pleased with them).

And then we went inside and watched Frozen.  Because we were.

*Also money, but that's not really the point here, and if my children can become independently wealthy, that would be great.  Less likely than the plan of theirs that I am about to discuss, but still, an admirable aspiration.

Home Decoration

This weekend was cold.  Cold and wet.  Cold and wet and snowy and full of soggy mittens.

In other news, while Ellie is avoiding naps as if they will give her cooties, she is also has entered a phase where apparently the only acceptable clothing once she walks in the door of her home is pajamas.

As she is still struggling somewhat with the instructions she received when they gave her a bladder, this can become problematic, as her acceptable pajamas cannot keep up with her need of pajamas.

So on Saturday, we were at Costco, and they had a lot of pajamas.  I bought her another two sets, and that meant that she spent most of the weekend in her pajamas.  Both my children have, for reasons unknown to me, decided that pajamas are the best costume to wear under their snow pants, so that did add to the time she spent in pajamas, but it was ridiculous.

That afternoon, Leo and Margaret trooped off to the Art Museum to do a survey of which countries different works of art were from.*  Ellie wanted to stay at home because she wanted to take a nap.  I was right in my assumption that when she said "wanted to take a nap," what she meant was "wanted to put on her pajamas and do anything other than take a nap."

So that she then did.

I'm certain that disassembling the couch and then spending an hour leaping from couch to cushions while wearing pajamas is almost as good as a nap.

When she tired of this, she dug a catalogue out of the trash and perused possible bedroom furniture.

She has relatively good taste -- she wanted a twin over full bunked to share with Margaret -- but she lacks a good eye for space.  There's no way that bed would fit in their rooms.

*Seriously, they took a printed-out world map mounted on cardboard so that Margaret could note where everything was from.  It was ADORABLE.