He seems too big to be my baby boy, yet still so small for someone who will one day be a man as big as I.

Little hands fill tiny mittens. Growing feet squeeze into small blue boots. My hat. His gone missing in the rush to get out into the snow.

His sister watches through the sliding glass door from her high chair. Jakey and I scoot around the deck scraping up hillocks of snow to mold into snowballs.

Cold snow, not made for packing.

Also not the kind that soaks your gloves and clothes immediately. It works up to it.

Trivial snowfall, but I remember that my son has only known a couple Oregon winters. Mostly mild, mostly snowless. He cannot remember a few years ago when we bundled him into the bright green poofy snowsuit and laid him in the snow just for a moment. Just until he started to cry.

He only knows that bright green costume as his sister’s snowsuit, the one she wears when we strap her into the stroller for a December walk. It is too slippery and amorphous and does not allow for arm carrying.

Now the cold, dry snow melts against his tiny mittens. Chills his fingers. Distress creeps into his voice, let’s go back inside.

Tap the snow from boots and shoes. Strip off winter outerwear to drip beside the vent.

We revel in the heat.

How much bigger next year and the year after? Up to my navel and then my ribs and then my chest.

And then?

My little boy.