Bad Snow Day

So yesterday, the phone rang at 5:20… AM.  I was not awake at that hour.  I have a ten-month-old who sleeps through the night, thank you very much.

It was the school district, announcing via robo-call that schools were going to be closed due to snow on Wednesday.  Fair enough, I thought, once I saw that we had about 4 inches worth of the white stuff.

However, when I got up to see the Webmaster off 90 minutes later, I realized two things:
1) The snow was very slushy, melting quickly, and temperatures were rising
2) All the other local school districts were running 2 hours late.  They hadn’t closed down.

And in retrospect, our school district should have done the same.  Now, I know that they have to make that call in the earlyearlyearly morning, before people start showing up to work, but really.  The forecast wasn’t calling for anything more than rain, and temperatures were already rising.  And ALL the other districts just took a couple hours off.

While the break in the middle of the week stinks for us – it messes up Tad’s schedule tremendously, I miss getting to volunteer in Ane’s class as I usually do on Wednesdays – taking the whole day off actually works to my advantage in another way.  With a 2 hour delay, all half-day kindergarten is automatically canceled, and they won’t make that day up.  So while Ane would have spent a “legally full” day at school, Tad would have missed out on a day completely.  This way, he will actually end up getting the day back.

So, I let the kids lounge for a bit, but after our late, short-order cafe breakfasts were over (Ane: homemade egg McMuffin, Tad: toasted PB & J on an English muffin, Rerun: hot oatmeal with peaches), I told the older two to get dressed and get cracking – they had schoolwork to do.  Ane had her weekly homework packet to work on (which consists of her spelling words and math worksheets), and I had just picked up some spelling and math puzzle kits at Costco that I thought might be good for Tad.  He and I worked on spelling and reading lowercase letters, then one-to-one correspondence in counting, while Ane plugged away at her spelling (her mean mother makes her write out each word 8 times on lined paper – the cruel woman) and worked on more of her math.  I brought out the Bristle Blocks for Rerun, who enjoyed getting first crack at them before his siblings finished up and took over.

So, the day wasn’t wasted, but Ane now swears she will never be homeschooled.

They did play outside in the snow – snow pants and all – but the snow had gotten so slushy and wet that it wasn’t as much fun as it usually has been.  They spent an hour outside, though, and came in sopping wet to a hot lunch of Shells and White Cheddar.

And we did have our regular programs at church in the evening – which were well attended, despite the snow day – so there was a bit more normalcy at the end of it all.

But you can bet I will be packing Ane’s lunch and Tad’s snack with a little bit of glee this morning.  I love my children dearly… but they need their time at school.  And more importantly, I need their time at school.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 13th, 2011 at 1:33 am and is filed under Children, Life in the Pacific Northwest, Mommyhood, School Days.
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