Pants on the Ground

My six year-old son comes walking downstairs before school and my eyes involuntarily roll somewhere into the back of my head.

He's dressed in his standard uniform of shorts and tee shirt.

Problem is, it's about 45 degrees out with a tiny ray of sun peeking out from the completely overcast sky.

I gird for battle. Because this kid will fight to the death for his right to bare arms. Get it? HA! Anyway, I order him back upstairs to put on "long-sleeve pants" as he calls it and a long-sleeve shirt.

He comes back down. He has pulled jeans on over his shorts and found a pullover to go over his tee shirt. I then make him take off the shorts.

"But I'm going to be HOT!" he argues. "The sun is out!"

This is what happens when you are born in a place that is, 90 percent of the time, sunny and at least 70. My kids have never watched from the warm house while their mother frantically scrapes ice off the windshield of the car because we're running late. Never had a snow day. They sure have never stepped outside on a stunningly bright day to have the breath stolen by the single-digit cold.

To them, sun = heat.

It's not often, but it does get chilly here. Not nose-numbing,fingers-freezing-in-your-gloves cold, but it does get down into the 30s some nights. Highs some days don't make it out of the low-50s and that's usually when it's cloudy and damp.

There are days that the sun actually doesn't shine. Shocking, I know.

And if you hadn't heard, we got more rain in like two hours one day last week than we had in the previous 10 years. Or something like that. The second the rain took a little break and the sun peeked out for five minutes, Sawyer raced to his room to change into shorts.

Because seeing the sun is an occasion so rare it must be celebrated by an outfit change.

He apparently did not inherit my love of sweater weather. After living in South Florida for a couple years and out here for the past (gulp) almost 11 years, I love putting on jeans and a fleece and pulling on my Uggs.

I get tired of sweating, of the heat sucking the life force from my pores.

But not my kids. No siree. And don't think Sage hasn't noticed her brother's wardrobe malfunctions. This morning she appeared at the top of the stairs, ready for school, wearing thin cotton pants and a sweater - with a short-sleeved polo under it.

Hopefully the layered look is back in. It's supposed to be a rainy winter.