Oliver and I had a full morning. He went to bed very late yesterday because of a late nap (we woke him up at 6pm -- I think it's so dark when it's time for him to wake up that he doesn't get the signal and keeps sleeping), so we didn't get up this morning until a little after 8am. I noticed at breakfast that flurries were coming down, which I hadn't been expecting, but it went right along with our plans for the day. After I explained repeatedly to Oliver that what he saw outside was snow, not rain, he went out with Lucy to check it out firsthand. I got ready, and then he and I headed off for the Gaylord Opryland Hotel to go to the ICE! and SNOW! exhibits on their grounds.
The ICE! exhibit is a story of huge ice sculptures. The one last year (which we didn't go see) was based on the Peanuts cartoon, I'm guessing something along the lines of
Charlie Brown's Christmas. This year's theme was S
anta Claus is Comin' to Town, which I wasn't as excited about but wanted to see nonetheless. I should have realized that Ollie was a little too young to really appreciate it, but I didn't really know what it was like and wanted to see. They gave us big blue parkas at the beginning that went on over our already considerable layers. Ollie rebuffed the toddler one and got an extra-small, which probably kept him warm but also made it difficult to walk. The one big drawback is that I couldn't get to his hands in this thing, which meant he couldn't feel the ice to realize what it was. It was very, very cold in there -- obviously -- which Oliver commented on. He named some of the toys in the scenes, like a bicycle and duck and such, but he doesn't know the animated movie to have recognize anything depicted in the scenes, so I don't think it was that exciting. They have ice slides that visitors can go. Ollie was 4" too short for the big slide, so he went on the kids' one (probably a good choice). He had to go by himself, and I think he liked it. I passed due to my advanced state, but it did look like fun.
After the ICE! exhibit, Ollie and I went to the SNOW! area, which is an area about the size of a football field covered in 1-2' of snow. There are things out to shape bricks for forts, decorate snowmen, and an area where kids can throw snowballs at targets (since you're not allowed to throw them at other people). Ollie liked this a little better. I took his glove off for a minute so he could feel the snow. He kind of wandered around, though, wanting one of the scoops used to shape bricks and wanting to "help" other people with their forts in progress (which amused a few parents). I tried to get him to go once, thinking he was bored or really cold, but he asked to go back so we stayed a while longer. We did finally get a free scoop, and he made one brick and put it out, then stomped it. I think at this point his fingers were really, really cold, but he was having trouble telling me, and he got fussy, so we headed home. Unfortunately, there was a bit of walking to and from these things, and Ollie was for whatever reason not motivated to go the direction I was moving him (he kept wanting to back to the "bus" where mommy used the potty). I ended up carrying him quite a bit of the way, which is not terribly comfortable right now.
He fussed on the way back to the car and as we got going on the way home, but within three minutes he was dead asleep in his carseat. I think all the cold, the playing outside with Lucy (which seems, of course, to have been his favorite part of the cold/snow experience), and the walking really wore him out. When we got home, we had hot chocolate with marshmallows, and he talked about the snow, the cold, and his cold hands (and the bus where mommy went potty). I let him play for another hour or more before I gave him lunch and put him down for his nap, which once again ran into 6pm, at which point I gently moved to wake him up. He's in bed now, after a warm bath with baby oil. I know he won't remember these outings, and it's clear that these exhibits won't really be fun for him for another 3-5 years probably, but they're fun memories for me.
Ollie had a lovely Christmas yesterday. He slept late, until after 8am (though I was up at 6:30am since I couldn't sleep). He got dressed and came downstairs to find his workbench all set up. He immediately wanted to play with it and get out his other tools from the toy cabinet. We literally had to coax him to open up the few wrapped presents sitting there. (Note: A two-year-old has enough focus to really love about two or three gifts at the holidays. While he's played with everything he got -- only a few more than this number -- the things he hasn't stopped playing with or talking about are, in order, the workbench, the turtle slippers, and his baseball pajamas.) In addition to the workbench, he got two books (ones I read as a kid that feature Sesame Street characters), two $1 puzzles from Target, and a $1 wooden airplane also from Target, which has already lost its wings. On Thursday night he opened up a gift from Grandma Kay, some footed pajamas with a baseball on them, and either that night or Wednesday night, when we were having a meltdown over taking off his shoes, I got out the turtle slippers as a bribe (yes, even I give in sometimes). He has some more highly-touted (and I've no doubt, deservedly so) gifts coming from my parents and my sister and brother-in-law, which he'll get to open Tuesday when my folks are here for a visit, which might be just enough time for him to break his focus on the workbench and open up something else. 
He has basically played with workbench every minute he's been inside since yesterday morning. He loves his workbench. He's colored on the paper roll, clamped things, used his hammers and screwdrivers and wrenches interchangeably, figuring out what works on which bolts. He likes to open the drawers and the door to the shelves and moves the pegs on the pegboard around. Basically, he just loves the thing. An unexpected gift yesterday was some fresh snow on the ground. It started snowing Christmas even and has been on and off until this morning. It's now getting a little warmer and even a bit sunny, so I doubt it will last much longer. Oliver wanted to play in it as soon as he got up yesterday but waited until after his nap (yes, a nap!) to go out with Wes, who was rummaging around the garage. Our neighbor, Renee, came over with a bone for Lucy and a foam football for Oliver. Wes and Ollie managed to play with it only briefly before Lucy, who becomes frisky as a puppy in the snow, absconded with it and tore about half of it off, which naturally moved Ollie to tears. He's asked to go out and play with it several times since then. All the snow play, now for two years, sent us to Wal-mart today for rubber boots, snow pants (3T so we can get some extended use out of them), and extra mittens. He's been soaking every pair of pants and shoes he has.
