The first week: Day 6

Today's mission: Hang out at home with mommy and baby on a snowy Saturday.

Mission accomplished? Yes! With 35 cm of fresh powder on the ground and no particular place to go, it was a perfect day to spend with just the three of us. In the afternoon, we all bundled up and trundled out to shovel the driveway. Like laundry, it's a task that babies are good at supervising.

Things learned:

• Watching mom playing with the baby after five days of mutual withdrawal was a blast. For one thing, it reminded me that playing with the baby is one of the many things she's a lot better at than I am.
• On a day when it was easy to grumble about all the damn snow, I was glad that babygirl lives where she'll get to experience it all: snow forts, snowball fights, snowmen, snow angels, skiing... assuming we can dig our way out of the house.
  
• As it was in my childhood, the best toys are improvised: in this case, a drum kit made from a plastic cookie container and two wooden spoons. Mostly all she did was chew on whichever spoon she happened to notice first, but it was pretty funny when she would wave her "drumsticks" around like she was trying for the patented Tommy Lee twirl.