Snow Day

After lunch we suited up the crew and braved the fallout from Snowmaggedon. Roughly 20 inches over 22 hours with 5ft. snow banks in some places. The tallest snow bank against the kids was roughly 3ft. The kids' reactions to the massive amounts of snow varied. Nikko immediately started hiking up the drifts and meandered independently. He was content to march in the snow. Ronin tried to tackle the tall snow drifts, tried to push his shovel around, but gave up to make snow angels around the corner of the house. Audrey whined a lot. A LOT. She wasn't thrilled to be outside in snow drifts that came up to her waist. Luckily, our neighbors Brianna and Alex, joined by two other girls, were out to play and ushered our kids into their backyard for a spell. Even Nikko joined them, and when I went to check on the kids I saw Nikko marching in the snow away from the swingset where the kids had congregated. Their dad offered his more powerful snowblower for us to use, and Denis gladly accepted. I didn't mind the physical workout of snow shovelling, but if we didn't take up the offer then I think we would have been outside for five hours instead of two.

We came inside for snack and to thaw. Nikko had fallen asleep for a short moment but I had to wake him up to change his diaper. Ronin fell asleep next to me, too. Audrey was the only kid who didn't succumb to being tired, but unfortunately her sleep tonight seems fitful instead of restful. In hindsight I marvelled that Nikko was very interested in being outside and walking around in the snow. He didn't go in right away, and when I was taking off his snowsuit I was alarmed to find a ball of snow the size of an egg down the front of his boot. The bottoms of his inner pant legs were soaked. I wonder if this had made Nikko uncomfortable the whole time he was outside or if he had a high pain tolerance and didn't notice the snow in his boots. My guess is that he was uncomfortable but not enough to stop playing. After all, toward the end of the outing he and Ronin were climbing up a 5ft mountain and sliding down. Ronin went face first, like Superman, whereas Nikko opted to spin and tumble down the back side. No one had the dexterity to make snowballs and throw them, except for mean attempts by Audrey.

Tomorrow school has been cancelled for a second snow day. That means we'll be homebound. Sarah will come to work with Nikko at 2pm instead of 8:30a, which is fine by me.