The boy who cried snow

Over the last month, there have been three separate occasions where the weather app on my phone predicted snow. Each time, we all got our hopes up, only to be disappointed the next day when the snow never eventuated, or the little snow icon changed to a boring old cloud or rain icon. Boo.

The last time that little snow icon popped up, we tried not to get too excited. It was probably just another false alarm, right? Still, when I woke up in the early hours of the morning for a loo visit, I couldn't help but peek through my bedroom window's blinds... and when I saw a soft white glow covering the trees and road below, I had to wake up J to show him. We couldn't tell if the snow was still falling or not, so we tiptoed into the girls' room for a better look out their window, where the street lamp would answer our question.

It was still falling, and we stood watching for a minute, hushed whispers as we discussed how we'd spend the day (I was pretty sure that school would be cancelled). As we whispered, our voices must have woken the Faery because she stirred, saw us looking out of her window, and then sprang out of bed to see the snow.

It was still early, so in attempt to keep Miss Pie from waking, we offered a space in our bed to the Faery. She eagerly accepted, but spent the next hour tossing and turning - too excited about her first proper snow day to let sleep pull her back in.

After a while, I accepted that I, too, was a little too revved up to fall asleep again, so I switched my phone on and found two recorded messages from the school district. The first one had been left at 6am, and notified that school would be starting two hours later than usual. I almost deleted the next message without listening, thinking it would be the same, but then saw it had been left at 7.20am, so I listened. Due to 'worsening weather', school was cancelled. It was supposed to have been the last day of school before the Christmas break, and the Faery was a little bummed not to give her card and gift to her teacher, but the lure of snow play outweighed any bad feelings there (and her teacher emailed all the parents with the loveliest thoughts and sentiments for the students to read about their hard work so far).

For part of their Christmas presents, J and I had bought some snow/cold weather boots and mittens/gloves for the girls. We decided that they may as well receive them early, so as they ate their breakfast, I hurriedly wrapped the gifts in our closet, and then presented them.

Then, thermal underwear on and new snow accessories in check, we headed outside. I only had rain boots for myself, which I discovered do not keep feet warm enough, but it was worth it. We had snow ball fights, I took photos, the girls built a snowman with J, I took more photos, then we shovelled snow from our sloped driveway and found a bag of chunky salt to spread, worried about slush freezing to ice later. Then we piled on more layers of coats and walked to our local park and embarked on more snowball fights and snowman-building... along with dozens of other kids. It turns out that baseball fields are an excellent source of endless snowball-rolling, and snow-forts.

Eventually we decided to head home again, and passing the last cul-de-sac before our street, found a number of the Faery's classmates on their sleds, so home was delayed a little longer while the Faery and Miss Pie joined in and took turns on various sleds. As we walked home, the Faery chatted about how the weather app had wrongly forecast snow a few times, so she hadn't really believed that it would snow on this day: Mum, it's like the boy who cried wolf, but instead, it was the boy who cried snow!

By midday, the swirls of snow had given way to soft rain. By the end of the day, much of the snow had melted, and by the following day, the only evidence of snow were the occasional piles left where the biggest shovel-fuls and snowmen had been scattered around town. Just grey skies and drizzle, business as usual. We were all a little sad, but it was a fabulous start to our Christmas break and I'm crossing my fingers that we get more snow, locally, this winter.