:: Snow Baby ::

It's weird, since baby is due in early July, but I think I will always think of baby as a snow baby. We've just had a little two-week series of storms here in Columbus, and there's been snow on the ground, without even any grass showing, for weeks. Some people get seasonal affective disorder from lack of sun in the winter months, but I think sometimes I get it from lack of snow. It's funny, because when you grow up in Rochester, you think you hate snow. You think you want to get away from it and never ever pull yourself out of a fishtailing swerve and never tromp through that snow-slush mix that makes your calves ache in the middle of the night. You promise you'll give up the snowball fights and snow angels and even the cocoa mugs held in frostbitten hands.

But something in the snow has gotten into you, and try as you might, you feel connected to it. You feel solidarity with the folks in Oswego who currently have 10 to 12 feet of snow and go around telling your friends in Ohio, D.C., or Oregon about the time you were in 7th grade and the snow was above your head.

And you miss it, almost like an adict.

So when the white stuff starts falling here, I am like a little kid again -- so excited and cheered up. Sure, I hate scraping my car, I hate wind burn and feeling stranded inside. But then, I don't mind driving in the snow, so I'm not often all that stranded.

Add to my snow joy the fact that today is my second ultrasound, the big one, the one where if baby cooperates we can find out if it is a boy or a girl, and it just frankly feels like Christmas. I struggled to sleep last night and was up an hour and a half early this morning. So I just can't help feeling like baby is my little snow baby, even if I'm only halfway to delivery.