The Long Winter

The Long Winter

We are halfway through February, and my kids have had it up to here with the weather.

“Is winter almost over?” they ask hopefully. Every morning they come downstairs, rubbing their eyes and asking in scratchy, sleepy voices, “Is there school today?” and “Do we have a delay?”

I try really hard to not complain about the choices our school district makes when it comes to weather-related closures. I’m not the one in close contact with the city and their plows, I haven’t consulted with the police department regarding the safety concerns of an entire fleet of school busses on the road when snow removal is at its peak, and I hear conflicting weather reports from every neighbor I talk to. Seriously, what do I know?

I trust our schools to make the best choices for our children with the information they have at 4 or 5 in the morning, when plans need to be made and phone call need to go out to parents.

Truthfully, I love a two hour delay. The mornings are relaxed, and everyone can get up at their leisure. I get some quiet time with my coffee while watching the snowflakes fall, and we aren’t paying for our long morning by adding a day to the end of the school year. Snow days and delays are part of living in New England, and since I work at a school, I don’t have to scramble like many families do on snow days or delays. I know how lucky I am in this regard.

There are many things I like about snow days, too. We eat popcorn and drink hot chocolate, and we throw our snow pants over our pajamas. I yell at the kids to stop jumping on my bed, and they ignore me and cry when they bonk heads.

We Facetime with grandmothers who miss the days when the kids were available all day, and not just outside the hours of eight and four.

The kids build snowmen and fight over who gets to help shovel, the winner only shoveling for a minute before offering the loser a turn, because shoveling isn’t that fun, after all.

Another Snow Day? Alrighty Then.

Our doorway is wet, and strewn with boots and mismatched gloves, as gloves in our home are all divorced, with one member of the set AWOL mere weeks after joining our family. There must be a singles bar for gloves somewhere, where the missing halves are sipping pina coladas and gettin’ caught in the rain.

I like a snow day, but too many snow days make me extra yelly. If I have a deadline, snow days can be a drag. My zen attitude can only last so long, and there is a good chance I will be hating these snow days with the intensity of a thousand suns come June when summer vacation is the stuff of dreams and our kids are still trudging off to school instead of skipping to the beach.

I know for a fact I would be feeling different about this winter if I lived further north, where many of my friends are almost buried in snow, with literally no place to put the stuff they’re trying to shovel. Where does one put eight feet of snow?

But there’s no fighting Mother Nature, and it’s almost like she doesn’t even care that we are sick of the weather situation. For now, I embrace a lazy day with wet socks and popcorn stuck in my teeth, with the knowledge that spring will come eventually, and with the fervent prayer for school tomorrow.



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