Snow Day

I loved Snow Days when I was a child! I would bundle up and first help my parents shovel our 125-foot driveway, curved uphill (what were they thinking when they bought that house??!). There were no plow services where we lived, some 30 odd years ago. But once that was taken care of (2 or more hours later, followed by a large mug of hot chocolate!), I would take my old fashioned, wooden toboggan and head to our local golf course, 3 houses down the road! What incredible fun it was for the local community to bring their sleds and swish down the hills into the powdery snow!

On other days, I would build a snowman on our front yard! I became so good at making them that passerbys in cars or sleds would stop to admire them! There were also snow angels to make and later, in my teens, learning to ski.

Besides the shoveling, however, I could never understand why my parents grumbled so much about the snow. Now, as an adult, I totally understand.

Here in the Northeast, we have had 3 blizzards within one month. Twice I had to stay up all night, when the snowfall was the heaviest, to shovel our back porch, steps and make a doggie alcove for our dogs to use. I was out there every 2 hours, for a half hour at a time. I was awake for 30+ hours during and after this past storm. And I actually measured 13 inches of snowfall with a yardstick at 4 am!

I am DONE with snow for the season now! Maybe forever! NOW I understand why my parents grumbled whenever a big storm came through!

Just pulling my car out of the garage is nearly impossible. There is a fence on one side and our house on the other, with 6-foot high piles of snow pressed up against the sides of the fence and house! My small size SUV barely squeezes through this snow tunnel!

Forget food shopping for lots of groceries. Try pushing a loaded grocery cart through slushy snow only to get home and find you have to very carefully unload these bags and pray that you won’t fall and brake something, because 5 people you already know have broken something by slipping on the ice. And they were all your age or younger!

Well, rather bore you with a whole laundry list of why adults all hate the snow, I decided to have you recollect once again, through a child’s eyes, the wonders of snow...my son’s!

During the day before last week’s Blizzard, we had gotten a call that there would be a two-hour delay for the district schools the following day. As I was shoveling another 8 inches of snow off of my back steps at 2 am, I couldn’t help but think, “This school superintendent should be out here shoveling with me! Two-hour delay my...foot! These kids can’t go to school tomorrow!!” Sure enough, two hours into a scant sleep, the call came: Snow Day!

The first thing my son said as he ran to the window and saw mounds of snow was, “Mommy? I have to go to school in all that snow?” I replied that, no, he had a Snow Day and would not be going to school. He excitedly shouted, “Yes!” then proceeded to lounge around trying to decide how to spend this glorious day. What I found most interesting is how in a matter of two elementary grades in school, my son has learned from his peers how valuable a Snow Day could really be! Last year he would mumble, “OK,” and not fully take in the value of this type of day. Now he had become socialized to the almighty, “Snow Day!” Cute to note how their school environment begins to permeate them!

“Um...Mommy? Where is the Igloo building kit you bought me?” Now why did I decide to purchase something that would ultimately drag me out of my warm and comfy home and smack-dab into a pile of white stuff that I had been trying to get rid of the night before?? Oh yeah, to provide fun and excitement for my son on a Snow Day. Right. “I think it’s in the garage, Sweetie...” hoping he would choose to lounge a little more before venturing out into the stuff I spent the night in. “Okay, Mommy! Let’s get dressed and make a Snow Fort! I want to make a fort rather than an Igloo!” Thank goodness my husband was listening to this conversation and said that he would take my son out since he knew I had been up all night shoveling. At least he still has a shred of compassion.

Out they went, bundled and full of the excitement I remembered as a child! My son worked on that Snow Fort as if he were building another Fort Knox! Even when he complained that his fingers were cold, he still wanted to continue. (Note: tenacious is definitely part of his personality! Both positive and negative for him, as far as traits go!). Once finished, he then wanted to make a snowman, but my husband convinced him to come inside the house to warm up first.

A little over an hour later, lounge time over, he came looking for me again. “Um, Mommy? Can we build a snowman now?” Now where is my dang husband when you need him? Never around. Okay, quick thinking...”Daddy said he would build the snowman with you (I did hear him say that to my son, whether in jest or not. I had to track this man down...). Let me call him and find out when he can build it with you.

I called. My husband grumbled, I reminded him that I was up all night shoveling so that our dogs could go out, he relented. “Daddy said he would be here soon. Why don’t we have a snack to give you energy to build that big snowman!” (Good thinking, Mom! Food! Food to eat for a purpose! Nice going!) I had him eating very slow-to-chew foods, such as apples, so that I could give my “missing in action” husband time to make it home.

To my immense relief, husband made it home just as my son and I were picking out fresh snow pants, gloves, and boots, as the first set was soaked. Good time to start a load of laundry. Out the door they went to make Mr. Snowman! However Mommy seemed to be missing some key elements: buttons for eyes, mouth, and belly; long carrot for his nose (see shopping disaster above); and an old scarf and hat (didn’t we have them available last year??). We improvised (see photo). Mr. Snowman was completed and my son’s Snow Day goals had been fulfilled!

I realized at the end of the day that becoming a parent brings about, practically overnight, a complex absurdity as to how time and situations differ from a child’s versus a parent’s perspectives. The most important entity that fuels our day - time - is so dramatically altered the second one begins to raise a child. Once upon a time, an hour was 60 minutes long, and time was fixed and predictable. But now, all time proportions have changed, due to a child’s world. And what brings joy and excitement to a youngster slowly becomes an obsticle and an extreme hassle once you become an adult.

People are constantly telling me that my son is going to be grown up in a blink of an eye. On a day-to-day basis, it is hard for me to internalize that “growth.” It just happens without my even being aware of it. All I can tell you is that now a “Snow Day” has so much more grand significance in my son’s life! And he can also build one awesome Snow Fort...all on his own!

The Calm After the Storm

My son wanted a White Christmas...badly. So badly, that he had me e-mail “Santa” the night before and ask for “lots and lots of snow.” Well, we did get “lots and lots of snow,” in the form of a Blizzard! But just a day late for my son. I fibbed and told him that if it snowed as badly as it had on Christmas day, I wouldn’t have been able to have us go to my best friend’s house to celebrate Christmas. Which also meant that he wouldn’t have been able to play with my best friend’s son nor her sister’s two children that day. So my son forgave Santa.

When my son woke up early Sunday morning he was practically counting the snowflakes as they fluttered out of the clouds! He kept running to the windows to see if there was enough accumulation to make a snowman...or at least a snowball!

Then around midday, the storm really started to pick up. My husband relented and said he would take our son to a park near to where his Mother lives, because there are small hills to ride down on a sled. My son was ecstatic!! We packed up his snow gear and sled! Then Daddy took him off to have some fun in his 4-wheel drive vehicle!

As predicted, but uncertain to us, the blizzard came on so quickly and fast, my husband was not able to get home even in his 4-wheel drive. They detoured to his Mom’s instead.

                                                                       

At first I was disappointed because I had promised my son that I would make the ”biggest snowman ever” with him on Monday, once the storm subsided. Unfortunately, everyone was snowed in very badly. And the roads were completely impassable. I opened my back door to let my dog out that morning and 4 inches of snow fell onto the floor...from behind the storm door!! I pushed the storm door with all my might about 18 inches - just enough for my dog and I to squeeze through.

We were completely and literally snowed in. We have a plow service, but they hadn’t arrived yet. There were 5-foot snowdrifts against my garage. If I opened my front door, 2 feet of snow would have fallen into my house. This was definitely a “go no where, stay at home," kind of day. And I began to like it!! 

I kept looking out of the windows to see the beauty of the snow on tree limbs and foliage, weighing each bow down. The pure, white powder, blanketing our backyard. Untouched in any way. Even our snowman windsock looked like a holiday card! Which it just might become for next year! Nature was finally still, pristine, magnificent in it’s own incredible way.

I thought back to my child who started this life in very much the same way: Pristine and beautiful, as all babies are when they are born. You watch them grow. You see how your manners, values and lifestyle influence their growth. Both the good and the bad! Then our children go through a period when they mirror us. I can remember my son watching me put on make-up when he was 2 years old and trying some out himself, as my husband freaked out over seeing this! I knew this was just a phase. Now I have to beg and plead for my son to put a tiny bit of Chap Stick on his lips so that they don’t crack!

My son is at an age where he is highly influenced by the norms of society, especially through his peers. His way of speaking, his gestures, his humor all demonstrate this. What he likes to do or dislikes is becoming apparent and obviously somewhat influenced by his small world. Like a butterfly in its chrysalis, he is metamorphosing right before my eyes!

They say that the most influential and formative years, where a parent has the most affect on a child’s “core” nature is between the ages of birth and 7 years. In many ways I can see how my interactions with him have had positive affects. Now it’s society’s turn. How will he fair against the odds when his parents aren’t around? How much influence will his peers have on him - both good and not so good? Only time will tell.

In a few days we will have a new year. Good or bad, I’m always curious as to where it will take me. And my somewhat optimistic nature always tends to see it as a fresh start. A new beginning. A time to change. Always starting out fresh, pristine, and untouched. Just like the beauty outside my windows.

I wish all of our readers a very happy, healthy, amazing New Year! Let’s see where it takes us all!

White Christmas

There is something about having a young child in the home that brings a little extra excitement to a holiday. Especially Christmas. Especially when it snows.

We had a blizzard run through the East Coast, where we live, this past weekend, which prompted my son to insist that Santa and his reindeer were coming! He was so sure, that he kept stopping in his tracks to say, “Shh! I hear reindeer!,” several times that night! I tried to repeatedly explain that Christmas wasn’t for a few more days. But he tenaciously insisted that if it snows, especially a lot of snow, then Santa would be on his way!

I bought ingredients to make cookies for Santa later in the week, but my son couldn’t wait. The only cookies we had in the house were Nilla wafers, so my son pushed a chair to the cabinet where we have the special “Santa plate,” took it out, put Nilla wafers on one side for Santa and baby carrots on the other side for the reindeer. He then brought the plate to a small table in our Living Room and pushed the table near to our fireplace.

Next was fireplace redecoration. All of the decorations that were in front of the fireplace had to be moved. Unfortunately to the middle of the Living Room. My son is quite lucky because I didn’t have a fireplace in my home growing up. We had to concoct a pretend one! Next, my son had to gather my assistance in hanging up everyone’s stockings on the mantel. Bye, bye Hanukkah display, hello stockings!

When my son was sure that everything was in place for Santa to come, he excitedly went to bed, but had a hard time falling asleep.

At exactly 4:45 am, I felt little hands pushing all of the blankets and covers off me (why do children do this to their mothers and not their fathers??). He was terribly excited that Santa had come and he wanted me to go downstairs with him to see if Santa had left some presents. I groggily told my son that I was pretty certain that Santa hadn’t come yet. But my excited little boy pushed the blinds to one of our window’s aside and exclaimed, “But Mommy!! Santa had to come!! There is so much snow outside!!” THAT part he was certainly right about...at least a foot of snow blanketed our backyard! And even at 4:45 am, you could see the wonder and the beauty of it!

To satisfy my son’s endless curiosity as to whether Santa had arrived, I went downstairs with him to see if there were any presents. To my son’s utter dismay, no presents were in sight and the Nilla wafers and carrots remained untouched. My son sulked to his room and I tucked him into bed, assuring him that in just a few short days, Santa WOULD be coming. And the magic of Christmas would be upon us!

He fell back to sleep, and I couldn’t help but think back to my own memories of trying to stay awake to hear reindeer hooves on the roof. Or to climb out of bed before anyone was up and search every present for ones that had my name on them!

The same scenario will occur tomorrow night! Snow will probably still be blanketing the ground. Homemade cookies and fresh carrots will be put out. Decorations will be removed from in front of the fireplace. And at approximately 4:45 am, little hands will be anxiously pushing covers off of me so that I can join my son in the REAL magic of Christmas!