Chelsea Kaplan’s Musings About Life... After Birth

While many birds fly south for the winter, The Kaplans bucked tradition (and, you might argue, a little bit of common sense) over the holiday break and made a trip up to New Haven, CT to visit my husband’s brother, Michael, and his family. I don’t have brothers and sisters myself, so I always love spending time with my in-laws, and I especially adore seeing my little guys hang out with their cousins. Michael is eight years older than my husband, so his children are a bit older than ours. Our boys are 3 and 10 months, and his are 12 and 9. Despite the age difference, however, the kids have a blast together.

Prior to leaving on our trip, the weather report predicted that New Haven would be blanketed with a decent amount of snow. Michael called and told us to make sure we bring the kids’ snow clothes so they could go sledding. Snow clothes? Yeah, we live in D.C. No snow clothes for these dudes. We were leaving the following day, so I bolted to the mall in search of snow clothing. Now, keep in mind, I’m from Atlanta, so being put in charge of snow clothing procurement was a little scary. My first stop was the kids’ shoes section of Nordstrom, where I asked the salesman to show me what snow boots are (I kid you not - I wasn’t sure what they looked like. Rain boots? Those duck shoes from L.L. Bean?). They had one pair, so I snagged them for Big Bro. Good ‘ol Nordstron also had a little baby snowsuit in Little Bro’s size as well as a size 3T Columbia snow bibs and a little kid-sized Under Armor turtleneck to go underneath - all of which were on sale (not to mention all matching as they were all gray and black - this pleased me more than the fact they were on sale, admittedly). While at Nordstrom, I ran into Momtourage member Jenny, who advised me to check out Sears, mentioning that they carry Land’s End’s clothing - including the kids’ stuff. Sears? Really? You get, like, washing machines at Sears. Oh no - Sears is my new place for jackets and fleecy things - their kids’ winter clothes were super cute, and all were 40 percent off. While there, I picked up a fleece hat and gloves for Big Bro.

So, when it came time to dress the Big Bro for sledding, I was very excited. We made the decision to keep Little Bro home, thinking it might not be worth it to schlep him out - in retrospect, we should have taken him, as he could have handled it, and he really would have had a blast. Next time, Little Bro, I promise! Here is Big Bro, in all his winter glory:

Needless to say, Big Bro had a blast, so all of that last-minute, frenzied shopping was worth it. Here he is having fun with his cousins:

..kinda makes me sad I missed out on all of this fun when I was growing up!