Day 20: Let It Snow

Today it snowed. Colette was in a store with Rex and when they got out, large white flakes were falling from the sky. He looked around in wide-eyed amazement, silent. As far as we know, Rex has never seen snow before, in person that is. We had sent him a photo album before he met us, and there was a picture of Asia standing next to a snow princess she had just made. Who knows what he thought? Was this Asia's very white, very round Norwegian big sister? We don't know. He did keep asking for Helga when he first got here though.

As an internationally adopted child, Rex will experience so many new things. It's fun to be along when he does, and I admit a twinge of jealousy at his awe. As an adult, there aren't many new things to be part of anymore. Sure, new things do happen, and they're amazing, but I don't approach them with the same wide-eyed wonder and crinkley-faced focus that I used to. Maybe it's a product of age, maybe I've seen it all on the Internet, maybe I'm too "sophisticated."

I wish I could have known what Rex was thinking when he first saw that snow. Did he think it was rice? Rice falling from the sky? Was God tossing down rice to the hungry masses? Or maybe it was soap suds. He knows about those, swims in them every night. Maybe the world needs a bath and a swim. Or maybe, just maybe, it was mashed potatoes, the kind we try to get him to eat by telling him they're french fries all mixed up, but it doesn't work. Snow doesn't look like french fries.