If you’ve read this website for three or four minutes you might already know that winter is not my favorite season. I’ve been known to shiver uncontrollably as soon as the temperatures dip below 70 degrees.
When we started hearing about Snowstorm Jonas I just ignored it because that’s my favorite way to deal with problems. I act like they aren’t real.
Me: Maybe it won’t happen?
Weatherman: It will happen.
Me: Maybe it won’t be bad in Richmond?
Weatherman: It will be bad in Richmond.
Me: Maybe the forecast is exaggerated?
Weatherman: The forecast is not exaggerated.
Just a few hours before the storm, Thomas woke up with a fever. I can handle a baby with a fever, but coming on the heels of three straight weeks of a virus, which ended in a hospitalization and was capped off with strep throat, I admit I was a little on edge. That, paired with a forecast of the biggest snowfall in the history of Richmond, I was feeling a little Britney Spears with a buzzcut.
Whenever it snows my biggest worry is that we’ll lose power. We live in a neighborhood with big, old trees, and our house tends to lose power. (Ahem. Here, here, here)
Here’s my question: if you have a heat pump, how do you heat your house if you lose power? This is a legitimate question. Growing up, we lost power in snow storms but we had a wood stove. Now if we lose power do we just freeze? Is that the only option? My disdain will keep me warm, but what about my babies?
It snowed and snowed and Tom and I took turns held our fever baby. I kept a big pot of hot cocoa warm on the stove in an effort to have FUN, but could not stop imagining us losing power and all of the food in my freezer spoiling.
The snow stopped sometime before midnight on Saturday, and right around the same time Thomas’s fever broke.
The next day we still had power, the sun came out, Thomas was on the way to recovery, and I finally felt like I could exhale. Turns out the only real inconvenience of the snowstorm was that two packages from Amazon are delayed. We are still waiting for something I ordered four days ago. THE INCONVENIENCE! I feel like I’m living in 2013.
On Sunday morning I stuck my head out my front door, blinking like I was coming out of a bomb shelter, and smiled at the piles of perfect, powdery snow in my front yard.
We’ve been outside playing nonstop; dragging the kids up and down the street in sleds, exploring our alley, stomping through drifts with neighbors, eating snow ice cream, going on sledding adventures with Daddy.
A snow day is sort of like if, occasionally in the summer, sand and saltwater fell from the sky and your entire yard turned into the beach until it got cold enough to freeze it away.
Sort of incredible.
For the past few nights, Tom has been taking David and Mary Virginia sledding after dinner. We wriggle them into their boots and layers (again) and they’re gone for an hour while I clean up after dinner. When they get home they’re snow-exhausted and collapse into bed.
Last night I decided to leave the mess, because I wanted to go too. Tom pulled the big kids and I carried Thomas, who was still chewing a pork dumpling from dinner.
Childhood sledding stories, I think, are hilarious because everyone thinks their sledding was the best. No one ever says, “Yeah, when I was a kid our sledding was mediocre.”
Everyone had the best, fastest, longest hills and the most incredible wipe-outs.
Except I can say with absolute authority that the sledding in every single back yard in Franklin County, VA is better than the best hill in Richmond, VA. Richmonders, don’t even try. If you have to drive me to a hill then you’ve already lost.
But when David tells the story of that time he went night sledding with his parents and catapulted off the sled, I hope he says the drop was almost 90 degrees, and he flew almost 50 feet.
If he needs someone to corroborate the story he won’t have to look any further than his mother.
Your kids are ADORABLE! :)) I love how your oldest looks like he’s having the time of his life.