Snow Day

It was supposed to snow between one-and-a-half and two feet yesterday, beginning in the middle of the day. School was pre-emptively cancelled and I decided to stay home too, not wishing to repeat last weekend's nightmare drive. It only ended up snowing about six inches (and then raining/sleeting on top of that), and they could easily have had school (at least half a day) and I could easily have gone to work, but I didn't miss it.

We had a much better day, overall, than last time I posted about a snow day. Maybe we've had so many I'm getting used to them. Maybe E and Z are easier now that they're older. Maybe my expectations are lower. The day was nicer...instead of gray and yucky, it was bright with fluffy white snow gently falling. We colored and painted and lounged in our jammies for a while in the morning. I considered taking on a major baking project and going on a big snow shoe trek around our trail, but let those go in favor of a loaf of bread, which I could monitor from the deck, and shoveling, sledding, playing around the house, while I monitored the bread.

For lunch I got out leftovers--lentil soup, macaroni and cheese (homemade) and spaghetti. E and Z who both refused to eat the mac and cheese the first two times it was served fought over who got to have it this time, and cried when it was gone. Later we did puzzles and played Candyland (is that game sponsored by the high fructose corn syrup council or the American Diabetic Association or what?), in a totally non-competitive manner, which involved letting M continue playing for about 20 rounds after the rest of us got to King Kandy because he had gotten sent back to the peanut right near the end. I remember this game always ending in tears when my younger brothers and sisters played, so I wanted to avoid it with my own kids, but they got it for Christmas. They got some other games (like Goodnight Moon and Max the Cat, a cooperative game) also that we play more often, but I guess it was just a Candyland kind of day.

In the afternoon we watched Pete's Dragon, which is whopping two hours and eight minutes, and we all (i.e. E and Z) emerged tired and cranky, like after a late afternoon nap. I think I need to wean us from the afternoon movie, especially considering how much TV they watch at daycare. For dinner I took the leftover lentil soup (which had already provided two dinners and two lunches), ran it through the blender with some oats (I was out of bread crumbs) and two eggs and baked it in the oven with some potatoes for about an hour. Unbelievably four out of five members of the L-C household ate it (E after crying for 10 minutes about dispensing his own ketchup finally ate all of his loaf and asked for more); M the picky ate it too. Only Z, who hasn't eaten dinner since last Friday when the boys all went out for pizza, refused. I was amazed (but personally not all that trilled with the results--a little mushy; reminiscent of the mushroom barley burgers they used to serve at my college cafeteria--next time will drain out more of the soup liquid.)