but today made up for all that. I awoke to see a morning that looked suspiciously lighter than usual. As I drew closer to the window, I noted a softer, whiter world out there. At first this seemed so pleasant that I lit the tree just to create an early morning mood. It was doubly pleasant because it was only 5:00AM and the children were still abed.

Even after they awoke, I tried to keep the fact that it was snowing from them as long as possible. If you have children, you already know why. It may be only 7:00AM and it may be cold enough to freeze the snot as it runs from their noses, but they will insist on being out there, in the snow. Snow was made for children. Adults lose the ability to appreciate snow, it is one of the side-effects of aging. We begin to notice when we are cold, we mind when we are soaked to the bone and we don't get a day off to play, we still have to go to work and what is worse, we have to drive in it.

But children see the magical side of snow. You can fall in it, and you won't scrap your knees. You can build a mound of it even when there isn't that much and get a good slide going. You can mold it and shape it, make snow angels in it, create an entire man out of it and you can prepare a missile of it to throw at your sibling's face. Forgotten is the skateboard you got for Christmas, out come the sleds and the saucers and you are transported into a Norman Rockwell world of rosy-cheeked faces and snow-laced eyelashes peeking out from round little bundles of coats and snow pants and mittens.

I eventually relented and we all went outside to play in the snow. I got to "play" with my shovel and free the car from the soft and rounded mound it now occupied. My shoveling benefitted them in that I could throw all the snow from the driveway into their "hill" making it higher and more suitable for sliding down. I shoveled a lot more of the driveway than I had first intended to, originally intending to shovel the end of the driveway where the plows had made a barrier of snow and then just around and alongside the car so that it could be driven in and out with some ease. However, a nice stranger in a pick-up with a plow on the front happened along and in a random act of kindness, plowed out the entire end of the driveway before continuing on his way. This inspired me to do an even better job of it.

I got a bit carried away and was beginning to shovel the neighbor's half of the driveway when I realized all of my fingers had frozen solid and I surmised that if I was this wet and cold and on the verge of frostbite, the children might be too. After bargaining for a few more slides, even the boy was ready to go in. We stomped off the snow, we stripped off the outerwear and we took pink and chilled bodies into the house for something to eat and a nice warm-up while we took in yet another viewing of Mary Poppins. The snow continued to fall without us, but we were satisfied that we had not let a good snowstorm go by without partaking of it.

Oh, and the best part about children playing in the snow? The boy is taking a nap.