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Snow Day

School was actually canceled today. They started out by delaying it 2 hours, but as it got to be 8:30 and it was still snowing, they did the honorable thing and canceled it for the whole day. Lisa Belkin at the NYT "Motherlode" column asked what people did for backup plans: for stay at home moms, snow days are just like regular days only more intense. On most weekends, I have help from Michael or friends. On weekdays, I have one or 2 kids. Probably I'm just a wimp.

Luke woke up late (7:30) and all 3 kids (and Michael) played outside for a long time. There was a snowman which became a punching bag, a start at a snow woman, snowball fights between Michael and the neighbor boys (Eleanor fought against both sides), tasting of snow (it tastes like water, but with more flavor), snowball fights with the neighbor girls (Luke won lots of hearts), sliding on cardboard, and so on.

Luke came in first with cold hands and immediately wanted to go outside again. Then he came back in. Eleanor came in next, had some hot cocoa and wanted to warm up with a bath. Amanda was out there for about 1.5 hours---she did have the snowsuit, but no boots. It didn't seem to bother her. Eleanor was wearing her crocs, because they are waterproof, she said... she had wool socks, but they were pretty wet by the time she got inside. Luke was most protected, with boots, jacket and snow pants, but his mitten-socks were not very protective or very useful. It wasn't all that cold by the time I went out, but my mittens and sweater were very helpful.

We also made playdough. I highly recommend this for snow days: first you have to make the playdough, then you add the food coloring, and then you get to make trophies and purple cats and so on. They took a bath to warm up, which was very fun. There was some television watching.

I'm not sure school will be on tomorrow, since the snow that melted tonight will refreeze. We'll have to see.

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