This morning when my alarm went off I lay in bed thinking "if ever I needed a snow day, it's today" Then I hauled myself out of bed, looked out the window at what was either rain or sleet and flipped on the news to find that it WAS a snow day. And back in bed I went. Briton, who for reasons only known to himself, has been not going to sleep at night. Both kids get sent up to their rooms between 7 and 7:30. Evie usually cries for a little then promptly drops off, only occasionally staying up long enough to compleatly trash her room. Briton has always been a struggle at bedtime, but for the most part he plays for an hour then drops off after only one or two (or ten) warnings. Sunday night, however, he was just not sleepy. I can only guess that, like me, he just has nights where he cannot get to sleep. I know that he was still awake at 12, despite my threats, when I went to bed and when I got up in the morning he had clearly been down to the playroom at some point after that because the floor was litttered with bits of construction paper. After school he an major grump and he still tried to stay awake at bedtime despite being totally exhausted. So I was glad to let him sleep this morning (until almost 10!) and glad of the extra hour the rest of us got.
Snow day, here in Virginia, is kind of a relative term. Threat of snow day, threat of sleet day, might be some ice at some point today day would be more accurate. They cant help it though, they're southerners. I grew up in Northern Idaho where it snowed, and I mean SNOWED, from October to May. We're talking snowsuits under our Halloween costume, 6 foot high drifts have to have a snowblower snow. When I see snow here, or even when we lived in Portland and it would snow it's annual inch or snow, I can't help but think of Crocodile Dundee. "That's now snow, THIS is snow."
When we had a snow day in Idaho, it meant things were really bad. I loved those days though. I had an obsession with cooking over the big woodstove in our living room. My parents tried to explain that even if the power went out from ice on the lines, we could still cook since we had a gas stove, but I had read too many Anne of Green Gables and Little House books and I was always determined to cook over the wood stove. my mother, ever tolerant of her crazy child, gave in and would let me heat up a pot of soup over the wood stove. She probably thought it was less work to let me "cook" than to listen to me ask over and over about it.
My kids have been content to watch a little extra tv, play cars and legos and slide down the little plastic slide I hauled up from the basement this morning, so no cooking over a wood stove for me. (Which is good since even our fireplace is gas in this house and a woodfire would involve de-icing the bbq) While they have been playing I heated up some frozen chicken and rice soup in the crock pot and made mini apple crumbles for Will's lunch from the apple that Briton took one bite out of yesterday and then abandon in the fridge. Yumm, hot soup, hot apples, hot oatmeal and sugar and butter. What could be better on a cold, wet and almost snow day.