Snow For Days

Growing up in New Jersey I remember waking up at 5 am when there was snow outside, to sit in the living room watching the names of schools that were closed for the day scroll across the bottom of the local news channel alphabetically. If you missed your school, you’d have to wait another 20 minutes praying for it to come up. Depending on where we live in the world for assignments, my children may never know what a “snow day” is. We received an unusual amount of snow for Virginia this week and it was lovely. The first snow fall brought us 11 inches of fluffy white powder to pounce around in and enjoy.

In the fake parenting course I am constantly creating in my head, I will be sure to include an entire chapter on preparing children to go out in the snow. It takes preparation, planning, and much patience to take two children out into the frozen tundra of my front yard, especially when I was completely unprepared with snow gear and had to dig through our unpacked boxes to find mismatched snow items. Audrey wore pink glitter combat boots and snow pants that went to her ankle, while Maxwell wore 3 pairs of sweatpants, too small snow boots, and gloves 3 sizes too large. After sweating while running around and getting everyone ready to step out the door we were ready! After a solid 6 minutes outside Audrey declared that it was boring without Jamari and she wanted to go inside. Wrong. It took me 27 minutes to get ready to go outside, we were spending at least 28 minutes outside having the time of our lives before going back in. We had a snow ball fight, took a snow scavenger hunt walk, cleaned the snow off the car, made snow cones, and tried to create a snow man. We couldn’t find a sled so we rolled down the hill instead. After our 30 minute jaunt outside we came back in to enjoy hot cocoa. I wouldn’t change the struggle of snow suits and toddlers multiple times a day for anything, it was so much fun to watch them roll around and enjoy the snow.

Next year we won’t get to experience snow without traveling for it, so I wanted to be sure to create all the memories we could in case we don’t have snow again this season. I remember snow days and the joy that they brought as a child. I hope my kiddos will look at the photos and remember the same joy.