Last year it snowed here a lot. As someone raised in North Carolina by a mother who has an unholy fear of cold, I was taught to abhor snow. Fortunately for me, Brandon speaks Arabic. Unfortunately for me, Brandon speaks Russian.
This year hasn't been very bad at all; we've had a few snow dustings that haven't even covered the road. Brandon got his wish on Christmas as we watched flakes fall for about forty-five minutes until the sun came out and I got my Christmas wish.
So when rain started turning to snow on Thursday, I didn't feel too irritated. After all, if we had been living in Moscow, the snow would probably be up to our ears by now.
The snow continued fairly steadily all day and by the afternoon an inch or so covered the grass. So when my housekeeper called during an appointment and asked if the girls could play outside I told her that if they wanted to freeze their little tushes off, they were welcome. I remember the giddy 'snow days' of my childhood, trying to scrape together a snowball from all of the white surfaces in my yard.
Friday morning the snow was still around, and had even gotten a little thicker, so Kathleen, Sophia, and Edwin got suited up to play outside again. After putting tights, two pairs of socks, jeans, sweaters, hats coats, mittens, and boots on the children (I kept thinking of poor Ralphie's mom doing this every day), I waved goodbye to them from my warm house and enjoyed an entire hour of complete silence all to myself. It was almost worth the thirty minutes it took to get everyone dressed.
Saturday we went to the park, where the shining sun had melted all but the most stubborn chunks of snow away. And that's the way I like my snow days.