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All<\/span>I wanted was to build a nice snowman.<\/p>\n It was the perfect day for it. The snow was fresh and tacky. The sun was shining and there was a beautiful, brisk bite to the air. I took a deep breath in, wanting to inhale the essence of this memorable day upon which my son would build his first snowman.<\/p>\n I glanced back at him from my reverie. He was standing motionless a few meters behind me, absentmindedly chewing on the chin strap of his toque.<\/p>\n “Wanna help me roll a snowball?” I called.<\/p>\n He looked my way but didn’t move. To be fair, he was fairly immobilized by his snowsuit.<\/p>\n “It’s gonna be fun!” I insisted, with elfish glee.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n He gnawed on the chin strap like a cowboy chewing on a piece of straw. It was a standoff.<\/p>\n “OK,” I said. “I’ll get started and you can join me.”<\/p>\n I began forming the first snowball. It had been a long time since I’d made one and I had trouble rolling it into an even ball. It kept coming out lumpy and squat. I rolled it over to the kid and said “look! A snowball!” <\/p>\n He eyed it up and down, waddled over, and sat on it. Everything was a chair to him.<\/p>\n “Ok, yeah, or a snow throne!”<\/p>\n I rolled a new base snowball, followed by a second, smaller ball, while the kid watched from his snow-throne. Hoisting the second ball onto the first caught his interest. In the schema of his brain, this was like a new version of stacking blocks. He slid off his chair and toddled over to the half-made snowman.<\/p>\n “What do you think? Do you like ——,” I stopped mid-sentence as my son pushed the snowman over, giggling like a maniac.<\/p>\n The best part of stacking blocks? Knocking them down.<\/p>\n I put the body back on and added the head. The kid peered at the snowman from under the sagging brim of his toque. I didn’t trust him alone with Frosty.<\/p>\n “Now, we need some sticks. Can you help me find some sticks?” I said.<\/p>\n Off we went. The kid loved collecting bits of nature — my pockets were usually full of various rocks and twigs that he presented to me on walks. With the concentration of a chess grandmaster, he selected two sticks. One was roughly the length of a ruler. The second was a full on branch with gnarly bits like tentacles sticking out of it. When I asked the kid where I should put them, he pointed to Frosty’s left shoulder and lower abdomen.<\/p>\n This was not going to be a nice-looking snowman.<\/p>\n As we stood back to look at the contorted creation, I could tell the kid was catching on. He had that shy little smile he gets around strangers. In his mind, the sculpture was now detectable as a vaguely humanoid-shaped thing.<\/p>\n “Eyes!” I said. “We need eyes and a mouth. And I have something very special for the nose.”<\/p>\n One pinecone and a pebble formed the eyes, while a three-inch-long stick added a neutral and unenthused expression to the face — kind of like a snarky emoji. Meanwhile, the carrot I’d brought in my back pocket was gone. I looked around and caught sight of our 100 lb. great Pyrenees lab chewing on it. Oh well, I thought, snatching the nibbled nose and jamming it onto the snowman. At least it suited the overall aesthetic.<\/p>\n There, on my front lawn, sat the ugliest snowman you have ever seen. With its mangled arms and toddler-Picasso face, the lone snowman brought an eerie vibe to the yard. You know how clowns can creep people out? Snowmen can too.<\/p>\n It really was a very, very ugly snowman. But my son absolutely loved it. He giggled and waved at it triumphantly, as if it was real. And that was all the Christmas magic I needed.<\/p>\n — Charlotte Helston gave birth to her first child, a rambunctious little boy, in the spring of 2021. Yo Mama is her weekly reflection on the wild, exhilarating, beautiful, messy, awe-inspiring journey of parenthood.<\/em><\/p>\n FIND PAST STORIES HERE<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" OPINION AllI wanted was to build a nice snowman. It was the perfect day for it. The snow was fresh and tacky. The sun was shining and there was a beautiful, brisk bite to the air. I took a deep breath in, wanting to inhale the essence of this memorable day upon which my son […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":310,"featured_media":4680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"guid":"","source":"iNFOnews","byline":"Charlotte Helston","published":"2022-12-22T06:19:05","updated":"2022-12-24T10:30:00","_infotelid":"IT95907","_prepressid":"95907","_multisite_post_sync":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[542,2,819],"tags":[568,821,820,706,33],"region":[322,323,324,325],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured4","category-inhome","category-op-general","tag-bc","tag-opinion-editorial","tag-social","tag-vernon","tag-yo-mama","region-kamloops","region-kelowna","region-penticton","region-vernon"],"blocksy_meta":[],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/infonews.ca\/inhome\/news\/63\/yo-mama-how-to-build-a-snowman-with-a-toddler\/","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"YO MAMA: How to build a snowman with a toddler","url":"http:\/\/infonews.ca\/inhome\/news\/63\/yo-mama-how-to-build-a-snowman-with-a-toddler\/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/infonews.ca\/inhome\/news\/63\/yo-mama-how-to-build-a-snowman-with-a-toddler\/"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/infonews.ca\/inhome\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/MediaItemID95907-1220.png?w=150&h=150&crop=1","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/infonews.ca\/inhome\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/MediaItemID95907-1220.png"},"articleSection":"featured4","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Charlotte Helston"}],"creator":["Charlotte Helston"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"iNhome","logo":""},"keywords":["bc","opinion-editorial","social","vernon","yo mama"],"dateCreated":"2022-12-22T14:19:05Z","datePublished":"2022-12-22T14:19:05Z","dateModified":"2022-12-24T18:30:00Z"},"rendered":"![\"|\"](\"https:\/\/infonews.ca\/inhome\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/MediaItemID88497-3733.jpg\" "\\"|\\"")
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