Pitching In

We got walloped by another snow storm today. The children have missed several days of school this past month for these winter weather conditions and although the novelty of seeing their school district's number pop up on the cancellations list has not worn off, they realize that although they may indeed have time off now, these days at home in January will lead to more days in school come June. Still, knowing we do not have any control over that fact, we might as well make the most of these surprise days off.

Snow days at our home are spent together. That's one bonus of being teachers; my husband and I can most often spend these days with our children when our district follows theirs in canceling school. We all enjoy sleeping in and then our day begins. The kids get up and enjoy television or the wii while getting bowls of cereal. I prepare myself a couple of eggs and some toast, a luxury breakfast I like when I have time. Today I spent an hour or so balancing the checkbook and paying bills. I put the kids on dish duty and my husband headed outside to do some initial shoveling.

By noontime we were donning our snowpants, hats, and gloves. With weekly storms as of late our family room roof needed shoveling. Four of us made the climb up the ladder and got in a wintry 90 minute workout which ended with a few jumps off the roof into the big snow piles. When the fifth member of our family got out of bed, we put her on duty cleaning the kids' bathroom and assigned her the job of shoveling out the front steps.

The afternoon brought us all to the family room couch for a movie. And by the time that had ended we all knew it was time to face the reality of heading back to school come morning. After doing a few more dishes and another batch of laundry, we headed back to our school work for a few hours before we'd once again meet to watch a show on tv before bedtime.

Tomorrow will bring us back to our separate school lives. But for several hours today we were together. We did some laundry, some dishes, some shoveling, and some cleaning but we also slowed our pace a bit and enjoyed one another's company. There is always work to be done when you own a house and/or have a family. The nice thing is, if you raise your children to understand that being part of a family means pitching in when there's work to be done, a house becomes a home, a home that is as nice and as warm as snuggling under a blanket together to watch a movie on a stormy winter day.