When you are preparing to leave the house at –20 with two small children, remember the flight attendant telling you to put your own oxygen mask on before helping someone else. Remember the card in the seat pocket in front of you and the picture of the masked mother calmly helping her little girl into her own mask. Remember, even though the plane is crashing, no one is crying in that picture.
Apply this to your shoes and coat. Before you can even begin to think of helping your toddler and infant into their outerwear it is absolutely essential that you put on your own shoes and coat first. If you have a “no shoes in the house rule,” break it in this instance.
If the two year old has to wait for you to get the infant ready and to put your boots on while she’s wearing a snowsuit, she will invariably go completely floppy and refuse to walk out the door. Worse yet, she will be naked when you turn around again.
When it was just Cedar and me, cold weather departures involved some wrangling—the car seat, the snowsuit, the hat, a blanket—but once I had her locked and loaded, it was done. She might cry until I was wearing my boots and I could bounce her, but she wasn’t going anywhere. Now I have the baby to bundle and buckle and a stripping toddler to manage at the same time. It’s much more complicated.
One afternoon, after I got Cedar’s coat, mittens, and hat on, I turned to put Coral in the car seat and lace up my own boots. Cedar walked into the bedroom to play with the dollhouse. When I was ready I looked in. She was smiling and standing in a puddle of discarded clothes. 
Now I put my boots on first. It’s either that or move someplace warmer. A land without snowsuits and car warm-ups.
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