Surviving Snow Days
Sometimes you get a surprise snow day called in at 6:30 the morning of that you totally weren't expecting. Other times, you know a day or two ahead of time it's coming. Today was one of those days. It is cold today. Like maybe hell froze over or something. I'm not sure but we won't be leaving our house for a couple days so I definitely prepared.
Years ago I would just wing it on snow days. I'd throw together whatever I could find in the fridge. Feed the kids cereal and make them play Xbox all day to get through it. By the end of the day they were all driving me crazy and I just wanted to hide in my room. Not really fun for them or me. Memories aren't made playing Xbox and eating cereal. Snow days are special for a kid. They lay awake at night praying for them. The look of excitement in their eyes in the morning when they wake up and you tell them there's no school today and they run to the window to see the snow. It's like magic. Then I took the rest of their day and made it lame and so unremarkable.
A little forethought made it so much better for them and for me. I don't always keep a grand breakfast on hand but there is always pancake mix in the pantry. I do however keep a secret stash of really simple activities for us to do together now on snow days. Nothing expensive or fancy. I realized they really just enjoy spending time with me and making something together and those are the memories they will keep.
I bought a big box of popsicle sticks on amazon and a pack of different colored felt sheets at a craft store on one of my many trips to keep hidden until one of these such days. We spend hours building houses and forts and furniture and then make believe with lego people. I always have glue for my glue gun but I happened to pick up some colored glue the last time I was there, they thought that was so cool!
When we moved into our little house, I made our kids choose their very favorite things. I gave them each a tote to fill and that was all they were able to bring. The rest went into storage until we can get out barn cleared out to make room for the last of our stuff. I quickly realized, they don't miss any of that stuff. They never had a ton of toys