Snow Days and Big Wheel Days and Happy Family Days

What a weird weather week! Last weekend, we were snowed in. Tuesday, I bought groceries (bad timing, because there was a winter storm forecast to begin that night and the stores were crowded with people who interpreted that as the apocalypse), and it was warm enough that I didn't have to wear my coat. Wednesday morning, the promised winter storm hit. Thursday afternoon, no coat again. All that and then some make this week's Ten Things of Thankful list:

1. Last Saturday, my daughter had to be at school at 5:45 a.m. in order to ride a school bus to a show choir competition in a neighboring town, about 18 miles away. While she can drive now, there was a pretty good chance of snow that morning, so my husband VOLUNTEERED to get up and drive her to school. At 5:45 IN THE MORNING. While I stayed in a warm bed with two kitties snuggled up against me. 

2. It gets better. Before coming home, my husband stopped by our favorite doughnut shop (do NOT tell me that you don't have a favorite doughnut shop) and brought home a box of doughnuts. And unlike the Mother's Day Fiasco of 2014, he got the kind I liked! 

3. Snow started falling later that morning as promised, and several of the schools entered in the competition had either dropped out the day before on the strength of the forecast or decided that morning that they couldn't risk the trip. I was hurriedly showering and getting ready to drive over there to watch Emma's group sing when she texted me that the competition had been canceled and they would be heading back to our school at 11:00 a.m. I was concerned about the safety of her riding in a school bus on snowy roads back to Joplin, especially when you consider a school bus is just a big ol' tin can on wheels with no seatbelts, but they made it back safely (thank you, bus drivers!).

4. Tuesday marked the third anniversary of my breast cancer diagnosis. Only two years of treatments left - yay!

5. The highlight of the preschool year was scheduled for this week: Big Wheel Day. We set up the gym to look like a town, with a road circling it and centers set up to be things like a jewelry store, a beauty salon, a grocery store, a fitness center, a dress up shop, etc., and they can stop at any of them any time and participate in activities there. It's tons of fun, and the kids ride around on their big wheels or tricycles for three hours and leave absolutely exhausted (as do we). It's a hugely popular event, so much so that kids that are now in high school and college will STILL tell you that Big Wheel Day was the best thing EVER and they wish they could come back and do it again. That's a long time to carry a memory from when you were 4 years old, and it feels pretty special that those former students still remember it.

6. Problem: it snowed on Big Wheel Day. And sleeted. And freezing rained (YOU figure out how to word that better and I'll change it). The pre-k classes were supposed to go to the college on Friday to see a children's play, but do those grown up former preschool students list going to see a play at the college as a favorite preschool memory? No, they do not. Plan B went into effect: move Big Wheel Day from Wednesday to Friday for the MWF preschool classes. Completely doable. Problem solved.

Officially done with winter. I took all the
snowman decorations down and put them away

7. Another problem: there was enough snow and freezing rain and sleet to close school on Thursday, too. That means the T-Th classes would not have Big Wheel Day, and that was unacceptable. (No, it wasn't a viable option to postpone their day until next week. The gym is used on Sunday for the church's contemporary service, so everything had to be taken down before then. And the gym was already scheduled to be in use the next week. Also, it takes us about 7 hours to set up.) Plan B(1): Invite the T-Th kids to come to school on Friday and have everyone there on the same day. Second problem solved. 

This big guy, all fluffed up against the cold
and snow, sat patiently on the back fence,
looking for something to eat.

8. Friday was Big Wheel Day - wheeee! My kids arrived and were WOUND UP. The hallway outside the preschool classrooms were lined with tricycles and big wheels, each with a personalized "license plate." At 9:30, we were off, riding down the hallway to the gym. The kids had a fantastic morning, pedaling around the gym, stopping at the various centers, visiting the "drive in" movie, having ice cream, eating McDonald's "hamburgers" (vanilla wafer buns, oreo burgers, frosting ketchup with shoestring potatoes for french fries), ending with a lunch of hot dogs, chips and soda. A good day was had by all!

9.  My College Boy is home for spring break! My husband brought him home this afternoon (with laundry basket in tow). Shortly after, Emma got home from school, and we were all in our bedroom (where I had just had a nice nap - Big Wheel Day is EXHAUSTING), along with all three cats. There was much laughter and teasing and chattering (Emma) and tormenting of cats (Kyle, by holding them against their will), and Robert Browning's "God is in His Heaven/all's right with the world" went through my mind. There are ups and there are downs, but life is certainly good.

10. Seasonable weather has returned, and it should be 60 degrees by tomorrow afternoon. HELLO, SPRING! Emma has her last show choir competition tomorrow and has to be at the bus by 5:45 a.m. again, AND BOTH MY HUSBAND AND KYLE have offered to drive her to the high school to meet the bus. (My husband is just being kind; my son is offering just so she can't drive herself there and leave him without a car all day, but hey, it's still an offer regardless of ulterior motives.)

Find your thankfuls. They're everywhere, if you just look.

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