Snow Days

Snow Days

Its 5:30 in the morning, the luminance from the falling snow has woken up the kids and I am wondering how safe the roads are to drive on.  The kids are smashing their faces against the glass or drawing pictures in the frozen condensation on the windows.  I  remember when I was a kid anxiously watching the weather channel to see if my schools name would flash across the TV and I would get a day to play outside in the snow making snowmen, building igloos and lots of snowball fights. I didn’t have to wait very long for each of my kids in turn to ask if school was cancelled. I couldn’t hide my smile, even for kids like mine who like school; a snow day is a treasured jewel.

I went to the computer to look at the news channels to see if their school was delayed or cancelled for the day.  I was less optimistic than my kids about it being cancelled or even delayed. Having looked at more than my kids smashed faces when they were at the window; I could see that our road was bad.  However, our road is usually worse than the main roads, so our road is not usually a good gauge for whether or not school is going to be delayed or cancelled.

As I pulled up the news channels on my computer my kids huddled in around me, those who can read not waiting for me to read it to them. NNOOOO SCHOOOOOL is shouted as they run around celebrating. I quietly laugh as I put on some cartoons for them.

As they watched cartoons I went out to shovel the driveway and sidewalk.  So far the plan my husband had devised was working. The night before we had looked at the weather and lay in bed talking about a potential snow day after the kids were in bed.  So when there was no school I went out to shovel and my husband put the suburban in 4-low and slowly drove to the store. 

Where we live it can snow frequently, however it doesn’t accumulate enough snow to do anything really fun very often.  For example, if you scrape up enough snow for a snowball than you will see ground where the snow was. Which is definitely not enough for a snowman, igloos and snow angels would just get you muddy. It’s lame really, but what can you do about it?

I shoveled our sidewalks, driveway, vehicles and a little into the road but this time I put the snow into a big pile.  When all of the extra snow was gathered I looked at the pile and knew I had enough for the kids and me to make a snowman and have a snowball fight.

In the meantime my husband had gone to the store to get a bag of marshmallows.  He was still not recovered enough to try balancing in snow but he really wanted to be part of the activity. So he got the needed addition to the hot chocolate to go with breakfast.

I got bundled up, making a quiet show of getting dressed warmly. Our youngest daughter asked

“Where are you going?”

“To go make a snowman” I said with a smile and as I was walking out the door.  She was quiet for a second, a look of shock on her face. Our kids had asked many times in the past for us to make a snowman and we had always responded that there was not enough snow for that.  It was always sad for them and us. When she was over her shock she said,

“Can I help?”

“Sure if you are dressed warmly”

She raced around loudly getting her snow gear. I had left the front door open since I knew she would not be long. I am glad I left the door open because I heard her answer her younger brothers’ question

“What are you doing?”

“Going to build a snowman with Mom.”

“I want to build a snowman.”

“You just have to get dressed”

 

 

A short time later our older children came out to see what we were doing. They really got into it.  It was a lot of fun for the kids and me.  We were just about done with building the snowman and were starting to throw snowballs at each other when my husband pulled up in the driveway with the marshmallows. It was then time to get in and get warm.  While I made the hot chocolate the kids warmed up some by standing over the heater vents.

 

Breakfast was really nice, not because it was elaborate but because it was fun; just homemade donuts, hot chocolate and heaping amounts of marshmallow in the hot chocolate.  It was a great snow day.