White hell

Oklahoma blizzard, day 2.

A mountain of wet clothes sits disconsolately near the front door. Every pair of sweatpants in the closet lie there, along with mismatched sweatshirts, sodden socks, frozen mittens and soaked sneakers. Pools of icy mush litter the hallway. A couple of towels have been tossed aside with careless aplomb.

Pictionary Jr., Scrabble, Memory, Life, Battleship, and Operation have all been pulled off the shelf, played, and deemed "boring." The DVDs have been sorted, viewed, and tossed aside. The children are getting restless. Their 3-minute attention span can no longer be sated.

We already bundled up to take the dog for a walk at the pinnacle of the blizzard's high winds. An attempt was even made to build a snowman, despite the poor quality of the snow. Entertainment is at a low point. I'm getting desperate.

The boys have eaten every carbohydrate-laden snack in the house. We're down to a couple cans of soup and some stale bread. Even Bella's bacon treats are starting to look good. I'm beginning to feel like Tamsen Donner. Thank God SO doesn't have a hand injury or I'd have to start thinking of appetizing ways to serve him up for supper.

For a moment, I have a spark of hope. The library, it was rumored, would open at noon. I could make a break for it! But the phone call came, dashing my plans. Instead, SO is called into work due to a lack of employee turn-out.

I'm left staring into the hollow eyes of my children.

"What are we going to do now, Mom?"

I search my mind for something, anything. Reading? They wouldn't go for it. Old-fashioned ghost stories? They wouldn't last through the setting of the scene. Crafts? They'd only mock me.

Perhaps they sense my fear. Sport picks up a tiny soccer ball and bounces it up and down. LegoGuy, his eyes never leaving my face, pulls on his goalie gloves. It's time for a game of indoor football. If I never again hear the phrase, "Oh, what a beautiful goal from Steven Gerrard!" I will consider myself only moments away from nirvana.

Outside, the snow continues to fall. There's no escape from my white hell.

I didn't always dread snow days. In San Antonio, we had one about every 8 years. There's nothing more beautiful than snow on palm trees. My siblings and I once made a two-foot snowman by scraping our lawn with the lid of a trashcan. Sure, it was covered in St. Augustine turf, but it was beautiful nonetheless. In college, I was transfixed by falling snowflakes. During my first Oklahoma blizzard, we all got out and had a huge snowball fight. One of my friends, who'd grown up on the border of Texas and Mexico, convinced herself she'd gotten frostbite. We made fun of her relentlessly. Snow days are a blast when you've only got yourself to entertain.

But throw two kids into the mix, and it's impossible to spend hours reading by the fire, or cross-stitching quietly on the couch while listening to Christmas CDs. They want to be doing something constantly. If they aren't entertained, they're bored. And when they're bored, all hell breaks loose.

Oh God, what was that noise? Did they just knock down the trophy shelf? They did! Back in a little while...

...Later

I know, I know, I'll miss all of this when they are grown and gone. I believe you! I really do. LegoGuy is spending tonight at a friend's house. He's been gone for 6 hours now, and I miss him and his interminable, rambling soccer discussions. I miss the riotous laughter he and his brother share when they're up to something, or when we watch funny movies together like The Money Pit. I just hope it's six months before we get another Oklahoma blizzard.

I need the rest.