There are icicles on the weather dude's weekly chart. The entire word "Wednesday" is frozen over. This means only one thing: we are about to enter the Missing Mitten Zone.
Akin to the Bermuda Triangle and the place where socks go, the Missing Mitten Zone shows up at about 7:45am on the first freezing morning and lasts until about five minutes after the last school bell has rung on the first day of Spring. Buckets, baskets, those see-through shoe holders that I've tried hanging on the back of doors, clips, safety pins -- nothing works. The Missing Mitten Zone trumps Missing Ballet Slipper Zone, Missing Shin Guard Zone, Missing Shoe Zone, Missing TV Clicker Zone, and Missing Permission Slip Zone.
And four year old boys who insist on wearing gloves but are totally incapable of putting all the right fingers into all the right slots and can't open car doors on sub-zero mornings because three fingers are jammed into the pinky slot of said gloves thus rendering the hand entirely useless and who will then rip off the annoying glove and throw it the driveway where it will inevitably get buried under leaves or blow away -- breathe -- will cause parents to enter another zone: the You Know What Just Put Your Hands In Your Pockets You'll Be Alright Zone.
21commentsBrilliant Person Wrote...
Why, oh why, do the 4 year old of this world insist on having gloves when they can't work the damn things! Mine will insist on the gloves - but then throw a fit when I won't let her wear flip flops in 10 degree weather.
Must be a boy thing. Which is why I buy those 3 packs of cheap stretchy gloves. And I buy like 10 3 packs. When my kids are running around in the morning yelling, "where are my gloves," I pull out on of my spare sets and send them on their way.
I got too many dirty looks from Mom's who live by the, "my kid is warm and he matches perfectly rule..." to continue with the hands in pockets zone.
We dove headfirst into that pocket zone this morning. I'm immune to dirty looks since I bypassed 35 (O, the Liberation.)
My house is one gimungous Zone without organizational systems in drawers.
I mean why bother? With an 11 year old, and a 6 year old who believe all things that enter this domain is theirs, things I put where they belong will end up in places they shouldn't be.
Mittens, hats, shoes, backpacks, jackets, socks, underwear (oh wait, not that one), "boo bear", they all get lost in the Zone well also call the "Pit".
We have been living in the freeze for almost two weeks now. I keep thinking it will get better.
The snow melted, thats about the closest to better we seem to get.
Hmmmm I think if you were to use duct tape to attach socks to the hands in some fashion... I'm not sure. We don't have much use for them new fangled mittens down here in 'lanta.
I'm thinking about not letting the kids in the house without a full mitten check. And the lids of their lunch containers will also be thus accounted for.
Mittens seem to be the least of our problems. My kids will only wear hoodies to school and Teen just stopped wearing his flip flops, not because it was 31 degrees, but because they started to stink!
btw, It took me some time to figure out why I couldn't match up the lyrics on your previous post with Joni's words. I'm slow sometimes. Well-done, girl!
i don't know man, GFYO has been rockin sister R's fingerless gloves and seems to really like em!
Lord, I am living in this zone, too. It's arctic here, and two weeks ago, I saw the oldest boys gloves. Apparently he wore them to school, but I've not seen them since. Nice. Real nice. Tomorrow he may have to buck up and wear a pair of my mittens!
Oh man. You just made me shiver. And not because I'm cold. But because I too will be in that zone soon...any mine are too cool to wear cheap gloves.
Let 'em freeze, I say! (My spoiled ones; not yours, that is.)
I tuck a pair of the cheap-os in everything: backpacks, pockets, soccer bags, play purse. I don't guarantee that they match.
BTW the snotty recess ladies DO judge you based on cheap gloves...they judge me too.
Get thee to the Target Dollar Spot and stock up. Stash them everywhere.
It's going to be 80 here tomorrow and sunny. Just gloating, sorry.
So it's true about boys being developmentally, um, delayed, is it?
What about those one stringy things I used to have to wear with the clips on the end? Are those uncool? Not that they weren't back then, but ya know.
P.S. It's roll your windows down weather in Vegas. Still.
P.P.S. Sorry, had to share.
On a related note . . . this morning I went searching for my husband's nice leather gloves that he wears to work. I found one in the guest bedroom closet downstairs, and it was COVERED in mold. Like, FUZZY with it. What kind of house results in mold like that INSIDE, I ask you? An evil one like Blackrock, that's what.
I wiped the glove off with leather wipes and sent him on his way. Ew.
In my house, the inability to find mittens and/or gloves results in the Mommy Mitten Fit -- a New England matriarchal ritual in which said matriarch curses the gods of winter (and the perfect mommies whose children always have their matching North Face EVERYTHING) and runs in circles while tossing random articles of outerwear in the air. It ends with her head spinning, a la Linda Blair, while she yells "Why can't you keep track of your things?!?" and then proceeds to search frantically for her car keys.
Gloves and mittens are one thing. As long as you can always locate the tequila, you're good.
10 lbs of meat mitts into an inch of fabric is just.not.nice.
especially when I still have to put the kids gloves on.. ;-)
p.s. miss you.
Ugh, we are only about 2 weeks into the cold weather and we've already lost gloves.
Just as there are five stages of grief, I believe there are four stages of parenthood, and they roughly correspond to the mitten zone cycle that plays itself out in my house each winter:
First stage: smugness. As new parents vow only wooden toys, hand-milled baby food, and organic duds for their little ones, I hopefully purchase ridiculously expensive name-brand mittens at the Small Town overpriced outdoor store.
Second stage: despair. Parents come to realize with horror that their children actually prefer plastic Disney characters to handmade Amish toys. I moan and rail as each child promptly loses one of the crazy pricey mittens on the first day of wear. Another twenty minutes of my life devoted to finding a mitten!? I used to read. Now I load the dishwasher and look for other people's crap.
Third stage: questioning. We not only survived moms who drank and smoked while pregnant with us, but we used to ride I-95 from Pennslyvania to Maine evey summer without seatbelts *and* fighting over who got to sit IN THE LAWNCHAIR that stretched across the back back of the station wagon. And we lived, right? So will the kids die if they don't go to baby story hour at the library? If they have crappy mittens, or even no mittens?
Stage four: acceptance. Princeton does not care if my child watches Pokemon, walks around singing the "greasy grimy gopher guts" song, or never ate chard. It is going to be the end of winter, someday. The missing mittens will reappear with the lacrosse stuff and the crocuses. Breathe. Buy a tide chart. Remember this while it is still November.
ha ha ha! Great one Mizz Picket! Great! Alas, we have no little ones here and will go through the same thing. Perhaps you'll write a post just for me that will help explain that whole thing?
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