The Great Mitten War of 2009

Lately it's been freaky ass cold here. Mid/late January cold when it's only December. Below zero wind chills and all that jazz.

Still, the dog has to be walked and the G-man isn't old enough to stay home on his own with a cup of cocoa and crossword puzzle yet. So every morning, we pack into the stroller and head out. For these freezing days, he's been squished into a variety of layers, coats, hats, pants, sweaters, then tucked into a few blankets. Which he immediately kicks off. 

And there lies the problem.

Turns out, G-man doesn't like blankets. Or hats. Or shoes and socks. And most of all, he hates mittens.

Just mentioning mittens can toss him into a frenzy. I tried to tell him once that they kept his hands toasty. Now he loudly complains, "No toasty! No toasty!" if I even bring them out. I have three different pairs for him and all are met with overt distain. 

Every low-temp day is another battle in the mitten war. Let's face it, I need to win. Not for pride, but for his own safety and my sanity. I simply can't let his fingers freeze off. He's going to need them. Actually, he needs them now, he just doesn't realize it.

I'm not an ogre. For trips in the car or going in and out of places, he can be mitten-free. But the walk? That's a long time, made longer when I have to stop every three feet and either replace the mittens on his hands, pick up the mittens, quell the screaming dervish rebelling against the mittens or wait for the dog to find the perfect blade of grass to pee on. There's a reason we need an hour to cover 2.5 miles.

One day, while being annoyed by insomnia, I realized if I walked the dog before G-man woke up, I could avoid the daily drama. So that's how super-pooch and I came to be roaming the streets at 4:00 in the morning. Poor Tino, not only did I wake him up and get him out from under his warm covers, I didn't even offer him mittens.

Lately, we've reached an unsteady compromise: he wails, fights and wriggles for a while, then succumbs to wearing my mittens. Sure, he can still shake them off, but it takes longer. And I have the patience to keep at it. Sometimes I can even distract him for the first few moments and he'll forget he's wearing them. But really, I just need to book it and get this over with, knowing that spring is only three months away.