January 29, 1986
This is the season when I try to set the clock radio to coincide with the listing of school delays and closings and the kids decide whether or not to do their homework after listening to the weather forecast.
Those inevitable words broadcast from the storm center, “schools are closed” cause a phenomenal reaction at our house only surpassed by Christmas morning.
Children who have to be dragged out of bed to catch the school bus are up in time to hear their school’s name on the very first closing announcement. Feeling legally “at home” the fun begins.
“What’s to eat Mom?”
A flick of the TV dial leads to the realization that Saturday cartoons are not shown on Tuesdays and a conflict over TV preferences arises producing the first of many sibling uprisings for the day.
After trip to the refrigerator there’s nothing left to do but go out to play in the show.
A house wide hunt for mittens and scarves, struggle with snow pants zippers and the stuffing of jeans into boots, finally leads to the outdoors. After five minutes of rolling in the white stuff everyone troops back inside to the bathroom leaving little clumps of wet snow to be stepped on by my stocking feet.
Ten more minutes outside and everyone dashes into the house again leaving a wet trail behind them as they head for the kitchen and hot chocolate.
This follows with the lament – “there’s nothing to do,” and several phone calls are made with the end result a plea to please shovel out the driveway, scrape the ice off the car and drive to a friend’s house where they are sure the refrigerator will be better stocked.
The fact the roads are too bad for driving apparently only applies to drivers of school buses, not mothers with front wheel drive.
If this plea goes unheeded there is another sibling confrontation and the listing of all the things they could be doing if only they had a friend over. Finally after playing every game received for Christmas I am informed that if they were at school, right then, at that very moment, they would be eating lunch – and the eating marathon continues.
Why mothers are punished with snow days that contain eight extra hours is beyond me, but I can at least look forward to tomorrow when it’s school as usual and all I have to do is figure out what to eat for the rest of the week.
CCW