Our son Nic has been anticipating this day ever since a month ago when a snowstorm was predicted, but never arrived. When he woke this morning he had a huge grin on his face. “It’s a snow day!?” he half asked, half shouted with glee.
“Yup! It sure is,” I smiled at him.
“Yes!” Nic said, pumping his fist in the air.
“Hey Em,” I said, looking over at Emma who had returned to the comforts of her own bed, having gotten into ours earlier. “Are you excited it’s a snow day?”
“No school bus,” Emma said in a worried tone.
“That’s right. No school bus.”
“It’s a snow day! Do you know what that means, Em?” Nic asked.
“Yes,” came Emma’s reply.
“Really? What does it mean?” I asked her, curious to know if perhaps she’d picked up on some of Nic’s excitement and had overheard our explanation that Mayor Bloomberg had declared it a snow day.
Emma snuggled deeper under the covers and said nothing.
“It means there’s no school today because of the snow storm,” I told her.
Interruption alert
I wish to take this moment to say – when we received the THREE phone calls this morning at 5:00AM informing us Mayor Bloomberg had officially declared today a snow day and as a result all public and private schools are closed, I muttered something derogatory about New York City being wimpish and if they wanted to see snow, they should really take a look at what constitutes a “snow storm” in Colorado. And then fell back asleep feeling more than a little self righteous and indignant. Upon waking later when Emma crawled into our bed declaring, “someone turned the lights on outside”, I learned Central Park received 19” of snow over night.
“Wow! Really? That’s almost a storm by Buffalo’s standards,” Richard commented peering out the window.
When I told him what I was writing for the blog he said, “Yeah, you might want to temper your indignation. That’s a lot of snow.”
Interruption over
“Yes!” Nic said again.
“No school bus,” Emma confirmed, nodding her head.
“Exactly. No school bus, no school, no…”
“Stay home,” Emma cut me off.
“Yes, stay home,” I agreed.
“So what do you guys want to do today?” I asked.
Nic said, “Stay home” just as Emma shouted, “Go sledding?”
“Okay. Stay home first and then sledding,” I suggested.
“Snow day,” Emma said.
Emma's Hope Book 