My Blog, My Soap box

Lets talk about slowing down and counting our blessings. Here in the deep south we have had a snow storm. For us getting 10 inches of snow is a once in every about 15 years, and this week it happened. Now I have always loved snow. I love that it is like a blanket of quite that comes over the world and forces us all to stop. I love that grown adults are tempted to run out and build snowmen and make snow angels. I love just about everything about snow.

When your days are filled with scenes like this..


And this.........

And those days that THIS is apart of my day to day life...........

Having a day where my whole family gets to stay in our PJ's , watch movies and make silly faces and giggle....Well I call that a good day. And I can honestly say that I can never get enough of those days

These are the memories that James will be left with...

This is the moment in time that we will say "Remember that snow of 2011 when we made that 7ft two headed snowman?"

These are moments the bond a family together with memories

We get to forget that our life isn't like a "normal" family. We just get to let our son eat snow!

Instead of taking our son to a doctor, therapist, or surgeons office..... We take him for a hike in the snow.

So I guess I look at snow days a little differently than most. Life will speed up soon enough, and of course I enjoy those moments when James is in school and I can breath for a second. But THESE moments don't come around very often. And they are some of the most important moments in a families life because they mean something. They create our families story and history. All activities in the world wont mean anything 50 years from now, but this will mean something. Taking the opportunity to bond as a family means that when life gets difficult we have these happy times to look back on.

When I think back on my childhood I don't think about the difficult times. Snow days are some of the first memories that come to my mind. I have to struggle to remember all the activities we were involved in but when a snow day comes around I can even remember the smell of snow cream. I remember teaching our Lab to pull us up the hill for one more sled. I remember my mom and I sitting and watching the birds and looking them up in her dad's bird book. I remember playing Battleship and Scrabble, and that my dad was one of the best scrabble players EVER. I remember those moments, and I know if I take a snow day with a smile on my face and teach James how to slow down and enjoy the little things in life, he will remember too. These too are teachable moments for our children. If we teach them that slowing down is boring and inconvenient, we are teaching them that family time is not as valuable.

Ok stepping down from my snow day soapbox with one last note. I understand that there are jobs and situations that mean a parent cant "take" and actual snow day. That is not the point of this post and if that is all you come away with then I encourage you to take a moment to re-read it and get the meaning behind my words.