This morning we got up to snow. There was a light dusting all over the yard & car & plants & things. The kids were so excited. They watched the news to see if school would be canceled, because here in East Texas, that is highly likely. We went outside & gathered up as much as we could, made a small snowman, & threw small snowballs at each other. We thought that would be as good as it got.
As the day went on, the snow came & went. Sometimes it was more like ice or rain, but as the day wore on, more snow began to fall. The kids came home from school, surprised that there was more snow on the ground than before. They spent the afternoon running in and out of the house, depositing more and more damp clothing, and once the smallest one cried hysterically because the "snow got me and it hurts! It bad snow!" Eventually he stayed inside while the other two ran in and out, flinging snowballs at each other and the house and the jungle gym. They attempted to jump on the snow covered trampoline. Eventually the other one came in, leaving only biggest boy outside. He did all right for a while on his own, but eventually he, too, came in.
(We tried to take pictures all along the way, but our cameras were not decent enough to catch any images good enough to broadcast here of the kids playing in snow)
Around bedtime, the kids petitioned to go back outside one last time. "This might be our last chance ever to make snow angels!" Alas, no one had any more clothes to change into and they refused to put wet clothes back on to go outside in (I thought going out in wet clothes to get wet making snow angels in a perfectly reasonable consideration, but apparently that was not the case). So they quite unhappily went to bed, sure that the snow would not last. One child popped up every 5 minutes for an hour after bedtime to check on various things, but eventually he went to sleep.
Once they were all asleep, I bundled up and ventured out. It was quiet out there, though not as quiet as I remembered the winters of my childhood. I had somehow forgotten the dripping noises of melted snow dropping off rooftops and the skidding of cars in the street and the creaking of overly burdened tree branches. The crunching of the snow I did remember, as well as the light crinkling of snow in my hair and near my ears.
We’ve actually gotten enough snow to blanket stuff, too. Usually here we get snow that comes down through the air, maybe gracing a few plants with it’s shiny treasures for a few hours, but never sticking. Here, now, we have toys in the yard completely mounded over, signs on the street with snow piled high, and trees swaying under the weight of it. The sky is very bright tonight, full of warm pink light. It’s really quite beautiful, but living under all those snow covered trees, it is also worrisome.
Lisa Holcomb 