Stab Me in the Eye With an Icicle

Now that I'm a parent, I can appreciate a blog post like this, which describes the anxiety of dealing with snow days. I already have to burn my days for when my kids are sick, have doctor appointments, or are home because daycare or school is closed for whatever reason, whether it's a holiday I don't celebrate or because the teachers have to do some organizing or something, like they don't work in the summer so they now need an extra day during the year to organize.

But at least for those days (besides when they're sick), they're somewhat planned. And snow days, unless you live in North Carolina where they close the schools with a dusting of frost, are usually the kind of days in which you don't want to be outside.

"You must be lucky," the childless often say to me. "You get to play with your kids all day in the snow!"

Let me tell you something. I do not like playing in the snow. I haven't enjoyed exposure to sub-40 degree weather since I was like 11. And until my kids are old enough to go outside without parental supervision, which in these times will probably be when they're 24, I will have to accompany them when they're outside.

My snowmen always look like albinos who fell into nuclear waste. And the hill where we go sledding, even though it's not that big, has me dry-heaving after just two sled runs. Yet the kids never express discomfort with extreme weather. Jackson's bed has a sheet and a blanket, and he HATES using the blanket. This is during weather when I huddle in my bed under two heavy quilts while trying to siphon the heat from my wife.

Sasha, on the other hand, will insist on her heavy blanket during a heat wave, then wonders why she's all sweaty in the middle of the night.