Perfect Snow Day

I am a little tired of this winter wonderland. I am tired of the statement, "I'm bored". I am REALLY tired of  hearing, "He hit me---no he hit me first--well he was saying mean things to me--well he..." I think you get the idea. We are all a little bit cranky in the Bombeck household.

After a particularly long snowy January, we kick February off with an ice storm and two days home from school. I have tried to think of fun things for us all to do. We have played board games, done art projects, watched movies, cooked, built lego cities - don't all of these things sound like fun? Just like my children are perfect and well rounded and I am a Connecticut version of Gwyneth Paltrow? Yes- well all my children want to do while I come up with ANYTHING I can think of is play video games.

I have banned the games for the first half of the days we are stuck at home. I love my children. I love parts of these days. I love when they crawl in bed with us early and ask "Is it a day off?". I call the school hotline and inform that, yes it is a snow day, at which point they jump up and down on the bed, screaming as if they have won an elementary school lottery. I am reminded of myself and my sister at that age and I smile. We all then snuggle into the bed and go back to sleep. There is no rush for clothes, breakfast and bus. This part is nice. When everyone does get up our deal has been that they have to spend the morning doing things that don't require nunchuks. This is not well-received. My five year old then informs me that we will be playing the board game "Sorry", and that I have to play. I start to explain that I have things to do around the house, I have lessons and a workshop to plan, there is a MOUNTAIN of laundry, there is that whole situation in Egypt I have keep tabs on...basically I don't want to play Sorry. He then informs me that if he can't do anything "with a plug" then I can't either. He has me there.

We play, and we laugh, A LOT. We play again. This leads to making chocolate chip banana bread and doing a couple of puzzles while it bakes. I help with the puzzles. The puzzles evolve into headstands and  airplane on the floor and more laughter. This is wonderful, I am a wonderful mother, I have wonderful children, look at us! Then 12:30 hits and I am informed that they are done playing with me and as per our agreement they are entitled to now play video games.

I look mournfully at my 8 year old and ask, "Don't you want to play with me anymore?" He responds, "Well you can play on your computer now Mom." So I sit down and stare at an empty page. The interesting thing is that today I was going to write about the fullness of life.

When we are stuck in the house together we can engage- or not. I sit at the computer staring at the screen and feel a touch on my shoulder. My 5 year old says, "I'll play with you". This child has just made my life a little more full. I basically forced my children to play with me which evolved into something genuine. And then when I least expected it he says, "I love snow days because I get to be with you all day long".  Now my heart is full. Then he says...

"I also get to play SpongeBob Wii"

I'll take what I can get, because when it is real, it is all I need.