The call came last night at 9:45. I was watching TV upstairs and didn’t get up to get the phone. I saw that it was our county calling (the TV showing me who is calling = one of my most favorite inventions ever.) I had my cell phone, and the email usually comes simultaneously, so I waited for that. Nothing. Then I saw a FB post about the call.
I asked if it was a 2-hour delay.
See, I had been out around 5:30 during the snow. It actually was snowing. Big pretty flakes. Enough to cover the grass, well, some of the grass anyway. I was looking at the wet pavement. I saw that it was 30 degrees. Uh oh. Wet pavement, 30 degrees, temps dropping, and no salt means… …black ice. I’m a Yankee. I know about such things. (Well, I didn’t really know about the no salt thing until I moved south. But I’ve been here for 17 years *gasp* *blink, blink* so now I know a little about the no salt thing.)
Imagine my surprise a few minutes later when I got the response that school was closed. For the whole day. For this:
It’s really for the ice, not for the snow. I get that. But still…
So I turned off Maggie’s alarm clock.
Nick and Mike woke at the crack of dawn (just like every other day.) Maggie slept a little later than when her alarm would have woken her. I slept (I use the word loosely, since I was able to hear a lot of the conversations going on, but stayed in bed with my eyes closed) until 7:30 when Nick came woke me for his breakfast. I assumed Mike had told Maggie she didn’t have school, but apparently he was gone before she woke up.
So I snuggled up with Maggie on the couch as we looked out the window and told her she didn’t have school.
“I knew it! I knew it was going to be a snow day! As soon as I looked out my window and saw the snow, I knew it!”
(note: look up at that photo again. She looked out the window and saw that and assumed school would be cancelled. That’s what happens when you grow up in the south.)
And here’s the kicker. She thought she had slept through her alarm. She thought I had slept through my alarm, and she was doing nothing to wake me or to begin getting ready for school. She was playing dumb about what time it was and I guess thought going in late would be all my fault. Heh.
The other thing that struck me? She was thrilled to have this much snow. I know the first snow every year is magical. I remember that from my own childhood. She got dressed and bundled up, you know, in her coat and rain boots, and went out to play in the snow.
She was thrilled. And a little confused. It wasn’t really enough snow to do anything. She marched around a bit and made a snowball. She was very proud of her snowball. It was the size of her fist. It’s on our porch now, waiting to melt.
Something I’m concerned about – how do children who grow up in the south manage when they move to another part of the world where snow is but more than a nuisance? Three feet, so what? Get to work.
Also, she asked me to put my coat on to help her make a snowman. Umm, no. I’m not getting cold a wet for 1/16 of an inch of snow. How does a southern kid ever learn to make a real snowperson?
