A Story of One Girl and Her Dirty Chunk of Snow

Cordelia is a pretty compassionate kid. She always wants you to feel good; one of her most common phrases is, "Don't worry!" She's always doling out hugs, and kisses.

Sometimes the love goes to far, though. On the way home from taking Delphine to schol, Cordelia picked up a big ol' hunk of dirty snow, big enough that she needed two arms to carry it. I said, "What are you gonna do with that big dirty hunk of snow?"

"I'm gonna throw it!"

"Who are you going to throw it at?"

"No-one!" You can see who has the sense in this family.

"No, it's not nice to throw things at people. So what are you going to throw it at?"

"The ground!" She stopped, planted herself firmly and threw the chunk of snow down where it broke into a big chunk, some smaller chunks and some slush.

"Are you going to take a piece?"

"Yeah!" She picked out one of the smaller pieces and off we went. As we walked she was talking to herself, constructing some kind of narrative for this piece of snow; she's big on anthropomorphising. I wasn't really paying attention so I didn't catch the details.

After a block she said, "The snowball is lonely! He wants his daddy! Can we go back and put him with his daddy?"

"Um, no, let's take him home and leave him on the porch while you take a nap, and we can take him to his Daddy when we pick up Delphine."

Satisfied with that, we walked on, and she kept on talking. Half a block later: "Can he come with me while I nap?"

"No, he would melt. Remember Peter brought his snowball inside and then it wasn't there? His jacket was just wet?" Appealing to literature sometimes helps.

"But he will be lonely!"

"But he will just melt into water if you bring him inside. I think he'll be okay on the porch."

We rounded the corner and crossed the street onto our block. I walked a few paces ahead of Cordelia, and then turned around to see how she was doing. The snow was no longer in her hand. "I dropped him! Now he will never go back to his Daddy! He's gonna be lonely! He wants his Daddy and his brothers and sisters!"

And she wept, heartbroken, all the way home over the sad fate of this little chunk of dirty snow. I had to carry her and commiserate. Poor thing.