Who doesn’t love snow days? As a kid you wait with bated breath..prayed under your covers..”Please God, please God, please God let there be no school”. You’d listen to the radio for school cancellations and when you heard your school’s name you’d do a victory lap around the livingroom. (No? Just me again?) BUT. As an adult with kids? Not so much. Here are my top 5 reasons for hating snow days.
1. Obviously, your children are at home. Have a job? Hope you have backup ready. Grandparents, neighbors…hey, the mail lady seems nice…maybe she can stay for a couple of hours?
2. “Mom, we’re bored”. While it’s great to send them out to play in the snow, you can’t really do it when it’s blizzard conditions and screaming wind. We’re fond of the kids, we don’t want them blown up to Nova Scotia just yet. Hopefully you’ve gotten your Pinterest on and have several crafts and activities ready for the little demons ones. Be prepared to be sweeping and vacuuming corn starch and glitter out of your kitchen for a week.
3. You’re trapped in the house, at the mercy of that hag Mother Nature and your wee heathens kids. You are now on duty and expected to clean, feed, entertain the masses. Kids being stuck in the house means you are, too. After a day or two of this a run to Hannaford sounds like an absolute dream. So what if the city plow is sliding sideways down your street? You have good tires..you can probably make it, right? (don’t really do this, as tempting as it may seem)
4. If the storm gods hate you, your power will go out. Then it’s time to get real. If you’re lucky enough to be able to keep warm and safe, you still have to face the prospect that in Maine in winter it’s dark at 5:00pm. 5:00. No tv, no internet, nothing but your ingenuity and the thought that if Ma & Pa could get the kids thru the brutal prairie winters on Little House on The Prairie with no power, you can too. But no one at our house plays the fiddle and I think Ma secretly drank a lot.
5. The un-Christly amount of shoveling that comes with a big storm. Luckily, we have a snow blower and Mark likes doing it..but certain areas still have to be cleared with a shovel. Porches, decks, stairs. At 45, I always wonder if the snow I’m shoveling is considered “heart attack snow” and if so…how long exactly will I lay outside in a snow drift before the kids stop fighting and notice that I’m not coming in the house? Hope you all stay safe and warm over the next few days…if you happen to be driving thru my neighborhood do me a favor and check and make sure I’m not toes up in a snow bank, OK?