Some day, I'll get around to finishing the story of our epic 3 week long road trip from 6 months ago... But today, we have snow. And no school. And neighborhood kids building igloos in the front yard. And hot chocolate. And sleds and shovels and a rack in front of the fireplace that's literally dripping with hats and gloves and snow pants.
I like the snow, in case you can't tell.
Actually, I love the snow. Like L O V E the snow.
It used to be, that when snow was predicted, I would glue myself to the tv, watching all 3 or 4 channels of local news, morning and evening. (This is significant because I am not a news-watcher. I actually hate the news.) Now that the way we watch tv has turned into something completely different, and we don't even subscribe to any channels, I'm glued to my weather app (or apps, actually), watching, days in advance to see if that snowflake still stays on that day. What % chance is it? How much accumulation? Is there an advisory? A warning?
I'm going to stop here for a second and explain a few things about this crazy, vigilant, obsessive behavior I've just described. 1. I live in western Washington. 2. Snow here is infrequent. Maybe once or twice a year. 3. When snow is predicted, it doesn't mean it's actually going to snow. Our mild, coastal weather patterns mean that, even when it does snow, the temperature is usually hovering somewhere between 32-37 degrees. Usually, when it's actually cold enough to snow, it's because there is no cloud cover keeping things temperate. So having clouds, with moisture, and temps low enough for that moisture to be snow requires a very magical combination that doesn't often happen. And even when it does, as soon as it does snow, it generally starts melting almost immediately, resulting in a very disappointing wet, sloppy slush situation that can really crush a kid's soul.
Anyway. So everything that needed to happen last night, happened. The prediction was for about 1 inch of accumulation. This morning at around 8, I measured 7 inches on my garbage can.
The call that school was closed came at 5:02am.
Since I work at the school, I was just as excited as the kids about this news.
There is something about snow that makes me feel very nostalgic. Most of my favorite childhood memories are set in the snow. Snowball fights with neighborhood kids in my front yard, using the lids from those old, metal trash cans as shields. Sledding for hours and hours on our hill. How kids we didn't even know lived there would just show up and everyone played like we were best friends. The time our across-the-street neighbor got his station wagon stuck at the bottom of the hill and a tow truck came to tow it out, and my friend's little brother went sledding down the hill, right under the tow truck, miraculously not hurting himself, but tore open the back of his green snow pants. He had to walk back up the hill, dragging his sled, crying, while we all laughed about the stuffing that was flying out of the rips in his pants. (Yes, that's cruel. I know. But we were young and stupid and had no idea that what he had just done was dangerous, not just stupid, and he was someone's annoying little brother. Stop judging. It was the 80s.)
My most vivid snow day memories, however, center around my parents. Mostly my mom. This is not to discount the time my dad laid down on our old wooden metal runner sled and I laid down on his back and we slid down our hill, continued down the hill in the neighborhood below, took a left at the bottom and continued around the corner and UP the incline on that street about 5 or 6 houses before we finally stopped. It was epic, and I'm pretty sure we set a world record, were there anyone there to document that sort of thing. Also, it was a very long walk back to the top of our hill.
But my mom loved snow more than anyone I knew. She would wake me up in the middle of the night if it started snowing after I'd gone to bed. We would sit in the dark in the living room and watch the snow fall outside. She taught me the fine art of making snow angels, AND getting up out of them without messing them up. She taught me that, although daytime snow was great, night snow was the best thing ever. Something about being out after dark, in the snow, under the streetlights, with nobody else around. It's amazing.
One night, in particular, stands out in my memory with such vividness, it could have happened yesterday, although it was easily 34 or 35 years ago. We went sledding. At night. Just my mom and I. And it was her idea. All that is significant enough, but the one thing that made this event especially memorable was the fact that we went sledding on the OTHER hill. My house was at the top of this hill. Smack dab in the middle. The one hill ("the big hill") was the one we used for sledding. It was steeper, longer, and ended continuing into a neighborhood. The other hill was also of decent size, but it ended by intersecting with a rather busy road. Nobody went sledding there, for obvious reasons. I have no idea why she chose that hill. Maybe the snow was better, having not had a million kids using it all day. The traffic issue was non-existent since it was late and the road conditions were obviously terrible. We slid over and over again down that hill. It's one of the happiest memories I have.
Of course, there are no pictures of this event. No videos, no Facebook posts or Instagram stories. She and I were the only ones with this memory. And now it's only me.
And thus, I write it. I put it here to share with you. I don't know if it matters if anyone else knows about this. Probably not.
I wonder what memories my kids will have of snow days. Probably the friends and the igloos and the snowmen. Maybe Shane using the lawn mower to pull Layla and Micah around on a sled. Maybe Micah trying to get the dog to pull his saucer sled, although I'm pretty sure that actually happened in the summer.
This lengthy retrospective indulgence has alerted me to one major issue of neglect on my part. My children have yet to experience night snow.
That must be remedied.
