January 6, 2017

Well.  I missed a day.  Darn.  Here we go again.

Yesterday, I was full of ambition so I completely cleaned out the mudroom.  Since our ski trip, the new snow clothes we got for Christmas had all been hanging on hooks, drying and airing out.  I carefully folded and placed everything into bins.  I labeled the bins, climbed on a chair, and stored them high in a closet.  I wiped out lockers, threw away trash, and swept the floor.  I even washed the rugs on the floor.  By dinnertime, my mudroom was looking very spiffy.

And then it started to drizzle outside.  Soon hail was loudly pinging on our windows.  By eight o'clock when it was time to pick up Julia from basketball, we were experiencing a full-on snow storm.  In St. George!!  Around here, snow is like a miracle from heaven.  We were ecstatic to see that it all stuck around until morning.  Lance and Owen stood on the couch and peered out at the white blanket of snow covering the backyard. It was so magical to see the wonder in their eyes.  I grabbed my phone and videoed Lance saying, "Snow," in his sleepy little voice.  It was adorable. In the back of my mind, I was having a debate about the snow clothes. Would I have to get them all out? I had just gotten around to packing away all of the snow gear!  What kind of mean trick was this?

I got the kids all out the door to school without anybody begging to go roll around in it or anything.  Luckily they had all seen plenty of snow on our ski trip.  And Lance seemed a little timid with it.  But when the snowballs started hitting the door in the afternoon, announcing that the kids were home, I knew that the snow clothes would be coming down.  I quietly sighed and got it all out again: pants, gloves, coats, boots, hats, and goggles for Austin.  And the kids played and played.

At the end of the day when I hung each wet and dripping item back up in the mudroom, I stared a moment at the puddles forming on the floor.  The rugs had bits of slowly melting muddy snow on them, and there were water spots on the benches of the lockers--exactly where I had wiped the day before.  And then I looked at all of the boots lined up in a row against the wall.  It all looked like fun.  And that just has to be okay.  Instead of feeling frustrated, I allowed myself to feel satisfied.  The kids had been tromping around outside in the sunshine and snow for hours.  As a mom, that's a good day.  Every time!  I can pack the clothes away another day.  Today, we had a snow day.

And that's a happy day.