Snow daze

In Northern Virginia, any type of frozen precipitation is treated as though it has the same rarity as a solar eclipse. I mean, come on, ordinary rain sends traffic into snarls that take hours to untangle. You would think, what with all the folks who drive fully rigged status SUVs that winter weather would just be a walk in the park. Ummm.....no.

And so we are all forced to do this annoying little guessing game about which schools/businesses/governments will be open and for how long. On storm days you put your radio or TV on and keep it on as you go about your morning routine.

Yesterday morning presented our family with just about the worst possible snow day scenario. That is, it wasn't snowing even a flake when my husband (who teaches in the county just north of us) got up and checked all the news sources. But all the counties to the west of us had closed school -so we knew it was coming. Which meant I had to go to all the trouble of getting 3 children up, dressed, fed, bundled, and in the car to drive to the bus stop.

Except....by time I got up there was nearly an inch of snow on the ground - which, silly as it sounds, generally means all schools will be closed. I brushed the snow off my car 3 times before the kids were ready to leave, got them bundled in, and got to the bus stop. I was just in time to see my daughter's bus pass our stop going the wrong way. This puzzled me, so I called the transportation line - and was told they'd JUST made the decision to close school for the day. Sigh.

So I got to spend the next 2 hours with 3 excited children bouncing off the walls and trying to respond to questions and requests every 30 seconds.....

Mommy, can I go out in the back yard and play in the snow?
Mommy, where are my boots?
Mommy, can I have some hot chocolate?
Mommy, do you know where my gloves are?
Mommy, is Daddy off from school too?
Mommy, can Daddy take us sledding?

and on, and on , and on.....while I am trying to hang up coats to dry, dry other wet things in the dryer, put out the trash, feed the cat, find the cocoa, make some COFFEE for crying out loud because I haven't had any yet in all this confusion. In the midst of all this my mother calls - and then my husband calls to say he can't get to his in-service class and his principal said he could just make his way home.

Well.

Once we got all that sorted out it was a fun and relaxing day off. The kids got to go sledding, and after they got back anyone who wanted to took a nice long nap. Ahh.

It's funny how time seems to move differently on a snow day. Plus there's always the interesting challenge of keeping little ones occupied once the sledding time is done. And the ever popular how-long-can-we-manage-to-feed-ourselves-before-someone-must-make-a-treacherous-run-to-the-grocery-store game. Day 2 and still going strong. But if everything freezes up again tonight we'll be eating plain rice and noodles tomorrow....