Let it Snow

Ah, the excitement I used to feel as a child when the forecast said snow.  No snowflake icons on our iphones, just a trusted forecast by a mustachioed TV weatherman.  Schools rarely canceled the day before. Instead, in the era before email—‘olden times’ as my daughter Caroline calls them—the announcement of school closings came with an early morning ding-a-ling-a-ling ring on a non-cordless, now choking hazardous landline, where some member of the PTA had been given my family’s name in her to-call list. Of course we didn’t even call them landlines then. We didn’t have non-landlines.

Now the news is delivered much differently. We certainly don’t need to wait and hear what Al Roker has to say. With the iphone, we are all meteorologists. We all see the weather alerts, blizzard warnings, and storm trackings. And, more often than not, our kids are quicker than we are to spread the news. My oldest texted me from school on Monday in all caps ‘NO SCHOOL TOM’.  She’s very busy, there’s no time in a high schooler’s life for the full word ‘tomorrow.’ I’m starting to get better at textish, a language of today’s generation that saves valuable time by abbreviating and acronyming whenever possible and has no standardized form of spelling. In fact, fully and correctly spelled out words seem to often cause confusion among young readers today.

Within another hour or two I received the email from school sharing the unfortunate news that in anticipation of the blizzard expected to hit the area on Tuesday, there would be no sessions. We were told to “stay safe and warm.” Yeah right. More like “stay sane and warm.”

My kids came running home from school elated. Knowing the night before that they could sleep as late as they would like, stay in pajamas all day, watch as many episodes of “Gilmore Girls” or “Grey’s” as they could ingest at once—they were in heaven. For a parent, I made the emergency runs to the supermarket, drug store and liquor store, the gloom settling in as I realized it was going to be me in a house alone with my six kids for a whole day. Unluckily for me, my babysitter’s train runs aboveground and was shutting down at 4 a.m. 

I can’t remember the last time I was alone with all six of my children for an entire day. I’m honestly not sure it has ever happened. My husband and I have done it together once or twice, but on Tuesday, my husband ran off to work suspiciously earlier than usual, with a gusto and determination to uber, walk, crawl if he had to, anything to get out of this house. Can’t say I blame him. “Good luck,” he waved as he ran for the hills.

I decided that if I stood any chance of being responsible, kind and loving towards my children, I needed to somehow find a way to squeeze in some exercise. Obviously, I’ve been living on the Upper East Side for a while. But let’s admit it, just as the school’s email came out and the dermatologist and orthodontist offices called to reschedule my Tuesday appointments, and every form of business, commercial life and city transportation shut down for the day, the emails came flooding in from Manhattan’s plethora of workout franchises. My preferred exercise, SLT (Strengthen, Lengthen, Tone to those who are not in the know) sent out an urgent avant-snow blast “NYC Studios: Open During Snowstorm!”

The good thing about a snow day and every bureaucratic office being closed is that I assumed most children’s services agencies must also be closed and that it would be perfectly acceptable for my eight year old to watch my twins while I indulged in some body conditioning. No of course I did not leave my children alone and go to SLT. That would be reckless. I ran down to the gym of my building. I had my phone with me, and my older girls, who are of appropriate babysitting age, but unwilling to babysit gratis for me, were technically there, they were just still sleeping.

With a good sweat and my head cleared I went back upstairs, just in time to hear a loud crash. No one was hurt, but a glass shelf in a medicine cabinet had shattered into a million pieces all over one of my children’s bathrooms. And several lotions, toothpastes and eye drops that had been sitting on that shelf had fallen into the toilet. Yay! Of course it was no one’s fault, but that never stops a mother from screaming at the top of her lungs and nonsensically placing blame on someone nearby who had nothing to do with it. I blamed both Gabby and Caroline for sleeping so late and keeping so many creams and toners that are expired and that they don’t even use. That, I told them, is why the shelf broke. It had nothing to do with the loosening pegs that were technically supposed to hold it in place. It was carelessness over their skincare. That made me feel better. Then I gave them the “what do you think this is, a hotel?” line. “Do you think someone is going to come and make your beds for you”? This is another thing a mother does when she is alone with six children for a day. Random rants.

I then decided that spending quality time with my kids on this cozy day was not in their best interest, so I threw myself into a project—cleaning, organizing and purging my kids rooms of toys, papers and junk that was cluttering up our apartment. I threw out or gave away half of what was sitting in my twins’ room. I might have overdone it. Barry has been looking for his plant he brought home from school last week. I told him it grew so tall I had to move it to the park. Eliana is looking for a candy bracelet, a set of stamps, and the rest of her glitter tattoos. I’m stalling with the “I’m sure they’re here somewhere. We will find them,” knowing full well they are now safely sitting in one of NYC’s landfills.

But I emerged from my household cleanse with a sense of accomplishment. Problem was it was only 1 pm. The rest of the afternoon went by about as fast as an MRI. By 4 pm, I decided it was time to make dinner and that everyone was helping. It’s rare that I allow my third grader to chop romaine lettuce with a Santoku knife, but anything becomes possible in a snowstorm. She did a good job too. 

The other girls helped set the table, roast vegetables, wash dishes, and Barry helped by staying out of the kitchen. Half a bottle of wine later, James Taylor Radio playing on Pandora (“what IS this bad music” they all wanted to know), Rob walked through the door at 6:34.

The truth is it ended up being a feel good day. It’s nice to know every once in a while that I can actually take care of my own children, get to know them a little better, have lunch with all of them at once, watch them bond with each other—thank you Gabby for building a Lego ship for Barry for one hour (she’s an oldest, she needs me to say that publicly). It feels good to know that I can do it. I just never want to do it again.

Well, at least not until the next snow day.