Snow Day: An Adventure

 To be fair, the adventure started at 5pm the day before the snow day when two things happened at about the same second: 1. School sent an email cancelling Tuesday classes on the basis of weather forecast models alone. 2. Ben had to step out of his car where he was idling on campus for pick up Cooper at diving practice so he could THROW UP. In the street. (When he felt better yesterday afternoon, he brought the scarf he was wearing into the laundry room to wash, carrying it in a plastic bag because he used it to wipe his face. HE WAS SO SICK).

Soooooo. 

We planned on him being at work during our snow day with an overnight bag packed in case he couldn’t make it home and had to stay in a hotel. Instead, he was sequestered in our room doing unspeakable things to the bathroom.

**Yikes face**

I slept on the couch, and Minnie bellowed IT’S WAKED UP TIME at 6:24, the second her ok-to-wake clock turns green. She joined me, and we watch TV and the snow fall on her swing set in the back yard.

I went to the co-op for coffee last week and left with $100-worth of odds and end that fit in one single grocery bag— something the cashier marveled at for its efficiency but I was like dud e that’s not cute at all; inflation is the worst—and one of those things was buttermilk in a huge bottle that’s in date for WEEKS. All this is to say, we started our day with brown sugar buttermilk pancakes, customized to order:

Except for Harry, who just wanted cookie dough in Jack’s mini waffle maker.

Everyone cheerfully trashed the kitchen like it was NBD

Every counter was demolished, plus some of them ate at the table **eye roll** I was kind of grumbly, but they took Minnie downstairs to play, and I cleaned it up and made my own pancakes **chef’s kiss**

Minnie spent a little time drawing. You can see she always makes her tomato people look worried. Also— the scribbles are the letter “M,” and you can see a coupe of randomly placed attempts at “i”s as well.

We did that whole stereotypical thing where you spend forever getting ready to go sledding and then stay out for mere minutes. I think we went too early— we had really pointy snow and high winds early in the day, but the afternoon was still with the biggest snowflakes you can imagine. I tried to rally the troops to make a snowman, but everyone was over it by then.

We had from-scratch pizza for lunch— a meal and an activity! (I remembered to start the bread machine for dough before we left the house).

The afternoon was lovely and lazy. Harry and some friends went sledding (and a friend went into a newly frozen retention pond on purpose (??) so they all came home to get dry clothes and hang out in Harry’s room while chaos raged.) Dorothy talked to a dance friend on FaceTime for quite awhile. Jack and Minnie watched a bunch of Star Wars (Minnie loves all of the movies) with plenty of light saber fight breaks, and Cooper played Fortnite with hockey friends. Harry was mad briefly because we wouldn’t let him drive to pick up a friend who lives in an adjacent neighborhood, but we pointed out that his other neighborhood friends could not drive either, and neither could the kid he wanted to pick up. Eventually, his friend just walked over. I love that Harry had the confidence to think he could drive in a storm and that we would let him. Then he asked me to help him with the zipper on his jacket. LOL for days. That’s a 17 year-old in a nutshell.

Ben felt well enough to clean the bathroom, air out the bedroom, take a shower, and sit on the couch with Minnie while she played, so I went out to shovel. Jack did the first round, and Cooper and Harry did another, but it had been quite some time in between, so I spent 2 hours listening to a book and clearing the driveway and sidewalk. It was so nice to be outside, be active, and be alone. Ben joined the boys for round 3 with the snowblower after the snow finally stopped at 8pm, and he and Harry have big plans to do an early sweep before Ben leaves for work today. (Harry also went out the night before the storm while Ben was occupied being sick to get gas for the snowblower— he’s such a helper).

I LOVE SNOW DAYS so much.

We’re back to the grind today, and I hate driving on snow. Minnie’s class has been studying hibernation as part of the “cozy home” unit, and I joked with her teacher that we were going to operationalize those lessons. She was like see you in the spring, and I wish I could really just hunker down until it’s warm and green again.

Also! Cozy home! The sensory table has laundry stuff, and there’s a toddler bed with lots of babies in it, and the loft has a hot cocoa bar. It’s adorable and also low-key subversive. Even a couple kids ago, the preschool units were much more stereotypically boy-centered. BUT COZY IS FOR EVERYONE, and all kids should learn how to cultivate a cozy home. Laundry is a  sensory delight, after all. Love it so much. (We actually put several preschool units into practice— pizza, cozy home, teddy bear picnic, etc— yesterday. Minnie has been set up to ace sow days).