Snow: The (Temporary) Cure for What Ails You

Snow! And in March, no less. The unexpectedness of it made it, I think, even more delicious.

I was slowly getting out of bed this morning--Jackson was attending to his daily, first-thing-in-the-morning ritual, finding Tim to "take glasses to Daddy"--when I heard children's voices and laughter outside, and then, distinctively, the word, "snowman!" At that, I leapt out of bed and raced (well, walked much more quickly than I usually do before noon) to the window. Snow, and a couple of good, sticky inches of it, had fallen quietly in the night.

Now, part of the reason why I was getting up so slowly this particular morning was due to my dreading the morning's planned activity: a trip to the pediatrician. Both children have been sick for the better part of a week, and now the high fever was back, and it appeared Emily also had strep.

But when I opened the blinds for the rest of the family, our troubles were momentarily forgotten. Jackson exclaimed (and I wrote this down, so I wouldn't forget it), "Look at all that...amazing!"

We'd been looking forward to a snow this season since, oh, November. You see, we'd made all kinds of plans with the neighborhood children--plans that involved sledding down the huge hills near our house, making snowmen and throwing snowballs, ice skating on the "lake" at the end of our street--well, you get the picture. (For any grandparents who might be reading, I won't dwell on our plans to sled behind the neighbors' 4-wheeler.) And it was kind of looking like we might not get that snow this year. And when your children are under six, next year sounds just about like next century to them.

Well, as it turned out, both children were sick (just when you think you've heard of all of the nasty-sounding throat viruses out there, and believe me, I thought we'd had them all by now, they throw a new one at you. Herpangina, anyone? Oh, don't look disgusted...you're over four, you've had it). We were glad (well, as glad as a germaphobe can ever really be to visit a microbe-infested superbug breeding ground) we schlepped it over to the clinic after all. But it also turned out that we thoroughly enjoyed our snow day! The schools were not closed, so our neighborhood friends couldn't join us, but we discovered that whether you're eating it, throwing it,














or some combination of the two,













snow can make you feel well again.