Snow Days

When I was a child in Miami, once a year, usually on a "cold" (read 50 degrees) day in January or February, my elementary school would truck in a load of snow and dump it in the playing field for us to play in. My mother--as probably most of the mothers did (and in those days, it was always the mothers)--had to scrounge up gloves and scarves for us kids who never wore a glove or a scarf before in our lives. I had heard of this magical thing called a "snow day" where it snowed hard enough that the schools closed and kids got to play all day in the snow! Wow! What a concept. Of course, I only liked playing in the mountain of snow for about five minutes, because then my face hurt, but hey, I was still sure this "snow day" was a marvelous thing.

At the age of ten, my family moved for a brief time to Boulder, Colorado. Now Boulder is a hearty city. A little snow never stopped anyone. I don't think once, in all my four years in that town, we ever had a snow day. The city was prepared. Plows, sand, dedicated teachers all added up to no snow days. Oh how I longed for the mythical snow day!

And then, it was back to Miami Beach for us, where once again I tossed away all winter gear. Never a snow day. However, back in 1984, we did get one or two riot days, which has none of the cachet of a snow day but does have the same desired result: no school and a day to play. I spent mine at E.'s house with a bunch of schoolmates, eating raw cookie dough and watching The World According to Garp on cable.

So now I am a grown-up. I live in New England. And what do I live in fear of? Snow days. Ugh, how I detest snow days! It didn't start out that way. I was actually quite excited for a snow day last Sunday. This past Saturday, the whole town was on edge knowing that a storm was headed our way. I casually headed out to Whole Foods to get a few things we needed and was stunned by what greeted me. The check-out lines were so bad, they reached through every aisle of the store to the milk case on the back wall and curved around. Shopping was difficult to say the least. But I bought the essentials plus a few fun extras to get us through the Patriots game (okay, get Adam through the game; when the Dolphins aren't on, I don't watch) and to make for a cozy afternoon.

And on Sunday it was indeed a white, slushy, snowy day. We had a lovely twenty-six inches or so of snow surrounding us. We huddled inside. I baked banana bread and made a big pot of red beans and rice. We watched movies. We, unfortunately, didn't read the papers, because they were never delivered. We even took a very short walk outside, although it was cold enough to chill my little Doodles, and we'd like to keep him a Doodlebug, not a Doodlesicle. We muddled through just fine. Until... the moment of terror hit. The one phone call no parent ever wants to hear. Day care would be closed on Monday. ARRRRRGGGG! Okay, okay, I can handle another full twenty-four hours inside the house with my energetic toddler. No problem. So we stayed home. All day. Luckily, we have two friends also in the day care with us who are not petrified of driving in the snow and one came to play in the morning and the other in the afternoon. I was a little stir crazy, but it was fine. Both agreed the roads were terrible.

Then, on Tuesday, I was looking forward to our Music Together class like I never have before. I was desperate--desperate, I tell you!--to leave our house. Except... class was cancelled. Because the public schools were all closed, so was class. Thank goodness the library came through with its singalong. I drove five miles an hour to get there, but get there I did. "I can do this snow thing!" I thought.

And I could. Until this morning. When we woke up to even more snow. On the ground, swirling in the wind, coming down. Snow, snow, snow. The road was ugly. No plows. Adam called me from his way into work to report that the main highways were not plowed.

So what to do? Time to evaluate. Which is worse? My absolute deathly fear of driving in the snow especially on unplowed streets? Or my fear of being trapped in the house for yet another day with Doodles? I'm sure you know the answer. So at 9:30 this morning, I bundled my child into his snow jacket and hat; wrangled him into the car seat (having to climb across one seat to get to the other seat because his seat is on the passenger side; and the snow bank on that side is too tall to get around), get the car out of the driveway (no easy feat given the snow plows have created a wall around our driveway that's as tall as I am); and drive five mph to the toddler gym. Very few morons were out on the road today. Definitely no plows in site. But eventually, we made it to the toddler gym. I get my child out of the car, make small talk with a dad bringing his son to the gym and make my way upstairs only to find... the director closing up the gym early. Too much snow and not enough folks to come out. Although to our credit, there were about four of us parents out there. I felt so ridiculously depressed. I let Doodles run around for twenty minutes before getting him bundled back up and heading back home, this time driving at three mph because the weather was that much worse.

What's the point of all this? Really not much. I just needed to complain a little. And rue the day I ever longed for a snow day.