Snow Day - Minus the Snow

In the early hours of the morning, I lay sleeping on my couch upstairs with the sounds of "little bear" playing lightly in the background.  Claire is at my side and I am enjoying a few extra moments of sleep as my three older children file out of the girls' bedroom.  "Did it snow?!" Rachel exclaims as she runs toward the window.  "Audrey, Adam, come and look!  The forecast said that it was going to snow!"  As they all run toward the window I can see the confusion written all over their faces.  School was cancelled, after all, for snow. Kid are so trusting.  They fully expected to see snow this morning.  Rachel had anticipated that it would be up to her knee.  I can just hear the tall tales at school that evolved into this false expectation.

 "Why didn't it snow Mom?" Audrey asked, directing her question toward a lump under the blanket on the couch and fully expecting an answer.  "I don't know," I muttered.  "Why did everyone get up so early?" was the only question on my mind and I did not expect an answer.  We let the kids stay up late last night  to watch a movie as a family.  We felt it some kind of obligation to do something fun to celebrate this unwelcomed unexpected holiday. It was a fun night but I thought that the late night would ensure a late morning but not so.

There is no snow but there is cold!  Lots and lots of cold!  It feels like 17 degrees outside according to weather.com. I'm so glad that we have heat!  I'm donning James' fleece pants.  There is something about them being over sized that make them even warmer.  I have spent the entire morning making waffles and cleaning up breakfast.  It seems impossible to take three hours doing only that but somehow that is exactly what has happened.  The three older kids have been playing school together all morning.  Thankfully, Adam goes along with the girls and succumbs to their every whim.  The two girls "take turns" being "in charge," an activity that must be carried out with the precision of a person disarming a bomb.   For the most part, they have been enjoying the free space. 

Claire is on one.  She has been so grouchy lately.  I am not sure what is to blame.  I am navigating my expectations, they're up, they're down, they're up, they're down.  I think that is one of the trickiest things to manage as a Mother, my own expectations of myself.  I am not completely in control of what happens during the course of my day.  For example, I may plan to spend time working on mopping floors and then instead spend the day at the doctors office and the pharmacy.  Theoretically I should get used to the ebb and flow of expectations and roll with it but I haven't figured out how to temper my disappointment at not completing even a fraction of my to do list. 
Let me just say, however, that there are a lot of people around me going through an awful lot of awful.  I am so grateful for my life right now.  I feel it a privilege to be able to focus on the typical everyday expectations of a Mother.  So I guess if a "snow day" for the kids equals "no day" for me, that is okay too.  It has been fun to listen to their creative fantasy dialogue going on in the background.