Snow Day(s) (Continued)

My thoughts are kinda all over the place.  Lets see if I can pull them all together. 

It has been an interesting week.

It is widely known that we get a lot of rain up here in these parts.  Lots and lots of rain.

It is a bit less well known that we don't handle snow very well.  Any amount of snow really knocks us off our stride.  Sure, we enjoy a snowfall-  we play, we take pictures, some people ski...  but the long and the short of it is that it messes us up.  School is cancelled, roads are closed, cars are abandoned, buses tip over, semi-trucks slide right off the road, tree branches break, trees fall onto homes, power is lost to the majority of the western side of the state, the Governor declares "state of emergency"...  seriously, some crazy stuff happens when it snows.

Here in our home, we lost power for one day and we couldn't move either vehicle for 3 days.  No biggie- we're fine.  Devon was able to return to work today, and it is raining again, so things will eventually return to normal.  And after a full week of cancelled school, I hope and pray that Joe will get on a school bus on Monday morning, because homeboy has cabin fever- we all do!

Anyway, last night before bed, I read about a mom who lost her son in a flood-related accident.  He was only 12, and he was gone in an instant- just gone.  Forever.  I should have stopped reading, because a mother's grief is a really tough thing to try to step into and understand.  It is a heavy weight, one that is nearly impossible to unload after you close the laptop and turn off the lights to go to bed.  Devon fell fast asleep while I kept my eyes wide open- my heart breaking for this mom- any mom- who has ever lost a child.  I imagined losing one of my own children.  Horrible idea.  I tried to be still and pray for each of my kids.  I tried to challenge myself to love them more, do more, hold them more, be more, as if any of that could ever protect them from dying and breaking my heart.  Needless to say, I didn't sleep.  Once Lucy made her way into our bedroom, as she does each night, my fear eased a tad.  I held her and kissed her and probably irritated her as she tried to sleep.  Soon after, I heard Max in the hallway, calling out, "Guys?  I wanna sweep wiff you guys!".  Ah yes, both babies in our bed felt even better (and if we'd had room for one more body, I might have tried to squeeze Joe in the bed too).  But I still couldn't sleep.  Rain was pounding on the windows, and the wind was rattling the house, and sheets of snow must have been falling from the rooftops and onto the ground, sounding an awful lot like the footsteps of a predator... 

Eventually, I must have grown weary of my worry and fear- I fell asleep in our crowded bed and awoke this morning with a new appreciation for, well, just about everything: the rain that is melting the ice so that the roads are safer and the trees branches are lighter, the electricity that warms our home, my kids, their quirks and annoyances, their heartbeats and soft skin and teenage know-it-all-isms, my husband's job.  The list goes on.

And then, this morning, I saw some Sundance pictures online.  Before I married Devon, I'd made a couple of trips to Park City, Utah, for the Sundance Film Festival.  What a blast!  Girlfriends, celebrities, hoopla- it was so much fun.  I have great memories.  Every year as the new photos are posted of this event, I relive the excitement of those trips and long for that freedom to just take off for a weekend- the way life was before my name changed to "mom".  Not because I wish that I was single or child-free, but rather just because sometimes I need a break and because sometimes I can't remember what "carefree" feels like.

But today, as I looked at those pictures of the celebs bundled up on the downtown strip of beautiful, snowy Park City, I felt pretty happy to be here- here in the rain/snow, with full electricity, with a completely empty fridge, with 3 energy-pent-up children.  Care-full feels better than carefree right now (though Taylor Swift is there this year, and it would be pretty cool to have a Taylor Swift sighting!).

So, to tie these ramblings together, I guess sometimes I need the snowstorm.  The 5 days stuck at home.  The candlelit evening without heat.  The discomfort of imagining a mother's grief.  It all has revived me somehow, and, hey, I'll take any revival I can get!

Here are some pics from our snow days:

Just for funsies, that was then-

and this is now!