The JoyFam lives in a part of the world where snow - that elusive, magical elixer - rarely sees the light of day. Our winter days reek of grey and wet. And damp. Oh the incessant damp. Sometimes it makes my bones feel tired. However, every rare now and then, the weather Powers-That-Be tell us that snow makes its merry way down to us. We are all agog when it first makes its grand entrance, drifting down tentatively from the sky.
We can't believe our luck. We run - frenzied - to the garage, hoping against hope that therein may lurk snow boots that accomodate much-bigger-by-now feet. I, the Mother, the-One-who-is-supposed-to-be-in-charge-of-such-things, berate myself, knowing that by now the snowboot shelves in the stores are staunchly bereft. All the really organized mothers have snatched them all up by now. Their kids are at the top of the crazy-carpet hill right now as the rest of us stare gawping at the snow-speckled sky. But of these uber-tobogganers we will say no more.
My kids run merrily, if somewhat less tastefully, outside. Joy characterizes everything. No one feels inclined to fight with their younger sister and not a tattle is heard in all the land. Their snow suits don't match and sometimes the boots feel tight, but oh! the exhileration of it all. The dollar-store crazy carpets are dragged out from underneath a dusty workbench in the garage and bursts even of song can be heard as they make their way to the nearby hill. Their childish footprints stagger to and fro as they follow their - by now - shared fancies and as I watch them with a cup of hot coffee thawing my chilled hands, the scene seems to capture and consequently mean far more than the ordinary trudging of four little kids to the biggest hill they can find. I think I'm perhaps the luckiest woman there ever was. All this snow.
We can't believe our luck. We run - frenzied - to the garage, hoping against hope that therein may lurk snow boots that accomodate much-bigger-by-now feet. I, the Mother, the-One-who-is-supposed-to-be-in-charge-of-such-things, berate myself, knowing that by now the snowboot shelves in the stores are staunchly bereft. All the really organized mothers have snatched them all up by now. Their kids are at the top of the crazy-carpet hill right now as the rest of us stare gawping at the snow-speckled sky. But of these uber-tobogganers we will say no more.
My kids run merrily, if somewhat less tastefully, outside. Joy characterizes everything. No one feels inclined to fight with their younger sister and not a tattle is heard in all the land. Their snow suits don't match and sometimes the boots feel tight, but oh! the exhileration of it all. The dollar-store crazy carpets are dragged out from underneath a dusty workbench in the garage and bursts even of song can be heard as they make their way to the nearby hill. Their childish footprints stagger to and fro as they follow their - by now - shared fancies and as I watch them with a cup of hot coffee thawing my chilled hands, the scene seems to capture and consequently mean far more than the ordinary trudging of four little kids to the biggest hill they can find. I think I'm perhaps the luckiest woman there ever was. All this snow.
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