I immediately burst into laughter.
I look like a five-year-old wearing her dad’s clothes.
But I’m warm, and that’s the point.
Shuffling my heavy feet, I make my way to the laundry room and out the back door. It’s not nearly as cold as it was last night, with the sun warming the air and slowly melting the snow. A bubble of laughter catches my attention, and I’m suddenly smiling beneath the scarf wrapped around my jaw as I watch Colton pull his son on a little red sled. It has a seat in the middle with a buckle, and with the help of blankets for positioning, he’s reclined in the seat to keep from falling over. His nose is red, but the smile on his face says everything as he reaches for the fluffy white stuff just out of his reach.
I make my way to them, Colton’s eyes dancing with humor. “You look…”
“Like I’m wearing clothes three sizes too big?”
“Amazing,” he answers with a grin as he reaches over and adjusts my hat, pulling it down on my forehead. I’m ready to throw my hands around his neck and plaster my marshmallow man body against his when Milo lets out a screech. “Okay, buddy.” He looks at me and reaches for my hand. “Care to take a walk around the backyard with me?”
And we do.
I walk beside Colton as he pulls Milo on the sled. I fumble with my phone, but I manage to pull it from my pocket and snap a few pictures of Colton and Milo. I’ll have to send them to him later. We walk slowly around the large yard, making new tracks with each pass, but when we reach thirty minutes, Milo is at his max with sitting. He lets out a squeal of annoyance and tries to slip from the seat. “All right, buddy. Let’s try something new.”
Colton unclips the belt and helps Milo sit in the snow. The little guy instantly reaches for it, shrieks of laughter filling the air as he whacks his hands down into the fluffy snow repeatedly. I plop down in the white stuff beside him, fall back and stretch out, moving my arms and legs to make a snow angel. I’ve never made one before, and I feel like a kid on Christmas morning. I wave my arms and legs, just like I’ve seen done on television or the internet.
When I open my eyes, I realize I’m smiling so wide, my face hurts. Okay, it could hurt from the frigid air, but I’d like to think it has something to do with how happy and free I feel lying in the snow, making my very first snow angel.
My eyes connect with Colton’s, and it takes a few seconds before I realize what he has in his hand. He’s holding his cell phone, angling it down and tapping on the screen. But it’s not at Milo that it’s pointed. No, it’s at me. Something passes between us. Understanding, maybe. Acceptance. Joy. Probably a good mixture of it all.
When I turn my head, I burst into laughter. Milo is lying beside me in the snow, kicking his little legs like he’s running a race. “Milo, are you making a snow angel too?” I ask, crouching carefully next to him and moving his legs and hands until we’ve made a small baby snow angel.
“Buddy, look here,” Colton says as he snaps a few more pictures of us making the angel.
I stand Milo up in the snow and laugh at his eager little shrieks of delight. Glancing up at Colton, I see him still snapping photos. With my right hand, I hold Milo upright, but with my left, I reach for the phone. “Give it to me. I’ll take some of you two.”
His entire face lights up as he hands me the phone and gets down on the ground with his son. For the next several minutes, I take photo after photo of father and son frolicking in the snow. Colton demonstrates the building of the perfect snowball, to which Milo tries to eat. They build a few more and toss them off into the yard. When I slip Colton’s phone into my pocket, and the boys stand up, there’s a gleam in their eyes that gives me pause. Well, to be honest, I’m pretty sure the look in Milo’s blue eyes is because he’s trying to grab the snowball, but the one in his father’s eyes…?
That has trouble written all over it.
Carefully, I take a retreating step backward, followed by another, but Colton advances. I have about a half-second warning before the snowball hits me square in the chest. “What the…”
“It slipped!” he insists, though the sparkle in his eyes betrays him.
“Slipped? Seriously?” I ask, bending down and gathering up a wet ball of snow in my hand.