The Kids Third Snow Day

For those of you living in warm climates you may not know what a “Snow Day” is. Wikipedia describes it as:

“A snow day in the United States and Canada is a day in which school classes are cancelled or delayed by snow, heavy ice, or low temperatures.”

Kids call it the greatest day of each school year. Some call it a day off. Who ever said it was a day off was obviously not a single parent. I live in Colorado, so occasionally we will get snow days. It is rare but does happen. My daughter didn’t have one snow day last year. She was depressed all summer when reminded of this. My son did get a few but that was only because he goes to an all boys school that has students attend from as far away as 45 miles away. Snow days for my kids are better than Christmas, birthdays and the occasional check in the mail from their grandparents. You can only imagine how happy my kids are now that they are going on thier third snow day in a row.

I can not remember a snow day that lasted for three days. I grew up in Montana where we never had snow days. You just got in the family four wheel drive and headed off to school. If you were lucky your parents would actually pick you up at the end of the day. More times than not we just walked home. I will cherish those days for the rest of my life. It was where I honed my throwing skills. We would fire off the occasional snow ball at a car and then run like hell so that we didn’t get caught. Occasionally someone did get caught and lectured, but it was always the slowest kid in the group. I always made sure that I walked home with at least one kid slower than me. We also learned the art of “hooking”. Hooking is where you hide behind a bush and wait for a car to stop at the stop sign. We would then sneak out with stealth precision, crouch down behind the car and hang on to the bumper. If you did it right you would get pulled home most of the way. Now days they would call that suicidal but again, if you knew what you were doing it was a quick easy way home.

For now snow days are about sleeping in, not worrying about homework due or tests that need to be taken. Oh the tests will still need to be taken, and the homework will need to be made up, but for today my kids do not have a worry in the world. It’s time for movies at home, hot chocolate, sledding and Face Booking with friends. It’s a time where no one (except dad) gets to tell you what to do. It is in essence nirvana for a kid. For me, well that is a different story. I still have work to do and appointments to keep. I still have calls that need to be returned and blogs that need to be written. I still have a life that requires my participation. Fortunately for me I have the ability to do most of my work from home if need be. But yesterday I was thinking about all of the single parents that do not have that luxury. About all of the single parents that won’t get paid if they don’t show up for work. At first I felt bad for them but then I realized how lucky they actually were. They get to spend an entire day one on one with their children. No movie theaters, no malls, no shuttling them around and I started to think what a great thing a snow day actually is. Wouldn’t we all give up a couple of days each year without pay to spend an entire day or two with our kids? You know I think that we should all book a snow day with our kids a couple of times a year regardless of whether it snows or no. Kids will always remember their snow days and so will you when you believe that time with your kids is the most precious thing that you can give them. As the old saying goes:

Love is not spelt LOVE, it is spelt T.I.M.E.