Once in a Childhood

I had such a great day today. As I was driving into work, it was sleeting. By the time school started, it was starting to snow and I went outside with my class.

My principal came by and watched us playing the snow and I mentioned that I was sad that I wasn't getting to share that experience with Sydney. So my principal said, "Why don't you have someone bring her up?"

I couldn't believe it. In so many ways this school year, I feel that I have had to make choices that put being a teacher ahead of being a mom. I gave up nursing Jack in part because of the stress of my class this year. I come home tired so many days and I have questioned whether I am giving up too much. But having a boss who would let me have my own little girl up at the school on this snowy day was beyond amazing to me. It felt like I could be a good teacher and a good mother and not have to trade the one for the other.

So by lunch, Sydney was at school with me and I spent my lunch break building a snowman with her!

(Thanks to Mrs. Hanzlik for seeing us out her window and coming out to be a photographer.) This was actually my second snowman of the day. The first was even smaller (having been made early in the day before it really started snowing hard). I had actually never made a snowman before today. The first one I made more or less like I would have done with sand, gathering a big pile and then shaping it. One of the other teachers asked me later if the snow packed and whether I had rolled the balls.

Rolled? Oh yeah, in the books, people are always rolling snowballs. I guess that's how people make a snowman.

So when we got home, I tried the snow rolling technique. What do you know? It worked.

Jeremy and Sydney also enjoyed a little snowball fight. Funnily, Sydney had internalized my snowball fight rules from school... you have to ask the person if you can hit them with a snowball and if (and only if) they say "yes," then you can throw the snowball. So she kept asking her dad, "Dad, can I hit you with the snowball?"

Jeremy did not play by these rules and got me several times. I cried foul to no avail.

This is the snowman we made in front of the house. I love that you can see the Texas flag in the background... a Texas snowman!

I have to say that this was one of the best days I have had in a long time. I had a great time as a teacher and a mother all in the same day. And I got to play in the biggest snowstorm I had ever experienced.

It was as Jeremy put it, not a once-in-a-lifetime thing, but perhaps a once-in-a-decade thing, to which I replied, which means once-in-a-childhood. And I got to be a part of that with not only my very favorite little girl, but with eighteen other special kids, not to mention my own inner child.