Snow Day=Snow Outing=Train Wreck

Yay! SNOW DAY!!

I prayed it here. I am quite certain. All me. My prayers. You're welcome.

The excitement in my house this morning was fever pitch. Every Slaughter kid was chomping at the bit to go outside. I knew it was a bad idea. I knew the outing would maybe last two, possibly three minutes. They are their mother's children. We don't do cold.

But Daddy came to their rescue, even with my warnings that, "This will not end well."

We bundled them up, a process that took approximately 35 minutes, opened the door, and out they went. Three steps later, two of them lay crying flat on their backs, having fallen on the ice. They recovered without much drama and ran into the yard.

Estella Dru got the brilliant idea to slide down the slide that was covered in snow and a little ice. I knew it wasn't wise, but before I could protest, she was being catapulted into the middle of the yard. It sort of reminded me of an old cartoon. Unbelievable, but happening before my very eyes. Though she was in tears, apparently it looked like so much fun that Jeb wanted to try. I barely caught him before he plunged to his death off an icy rung of the ladder leading up to the slide.

At this point, I called for Matt and told him this was his disaster. I was going in. I couldn't watch.

Less than a minute later, Jeb had a melt down. (No pun intended.) He was screaming and shaking and, for all intents and purposes, dying of pain. When I ran in to see what happened, bracing myself to see blood or a broken bone, Matt informed me he had taken off his gloves and touched the snow. Yes, I'm serious. Snow-touching took him down. Jeb was holding his little red hand out to me, screaming, "Mama, help! Pwease!"

Train. Wreck.

Matt rushes (yes, rushes) him into the tub to get warm when Estella Dru comes to the door crying. She was cold, too, and still reeling from her slide ordeal. I sent her to the tub. Belle wasn't far behind. 35 minutes of getting ready for maybe four minutes of unadulterated outside fun.

I let Matt deal with the snow drama, and went to gather up some snow of my own for snow ice cream. I'm sure there is some crazy delicious, sophisticated way to make snow ice cream, but around here we do it the was Grandma did it. Milk, sugar, and vanilla. No measuring. Just pouring until it looks right. And that's how I'll always do it.


Even with all the craziness, I love having them home with me for a 'surprise' snow day. Oh, and by the way, Jeb has recovered nicely and learned his lesson about the snow. When I handed him his snow ice cream, he told me, "I use spoon, Mama. Don't touch dat snow. It hurt."

Brilliant, Son. Yeah, use the spoon.