Beyond Cold

We've been inside all day, which happens quite a bit around here. Elodie looked outside and saw that the snow had cleared up and the sun had come out. She decided she wanted to go outside to tromp through the snow. It is 9 degrees right now (and weather.com says it feels like 6 below, how do they calculate that anyways?). I didn't especially want to brave the cold, I mean, I'm not like my sister and her husband who live in Iowa and run around barefoot in the snow just for fun. :) But I couldn't just let my petite little girl get stuck in a snowbank somewhere, so we both bundled up and headed out. Lucky for Elodie, Hazel was napping. I stepped out in full gear--snow pants, coat, hat, gloves, neck-and-ears tube-thingy, the works--and immediately had cold eye balls. That's the only thing that was exposed. I figured Elodie wouldn't last long. "Aren't you cold, Elodie?" "No, I'm good." After a pretty extensive tromp up snow banks, under the deck, around the house, through the fluffy snow field, and under the car port to make beautiful snow angels, I made up an excuse about how I needed to check on Hazel (so I could warm up for a second). Still, Elodie insisted that she wasn't cold so she waited for me outside. Hazel was still asleep so I went back out with Elodie. Whoosh--cold eyeballs! After tromping up a snow bank and sliding down, I noticed that Elodie's cheeks had white circles with a ring of red around them. Ummm, are you sure you're not cold, Elodie? If she was, she was having too much fun to admit it. I told her I thought it was too cold for her cheeks to be safe and she wasn't not swayed. "How about we go inside and have a cup of hot chocolate?" That did the trick nicely. In the past, Elodie has not been one who is tough about the cold. But I guess she's a real Montanan now! I was impressed. And the red-rimmed white circles faded quickly, so I guess no harm done! Yikes!