Snow day

When NYC schools announced a snow day (for today) yesterday at noon, I thought they were making the call a little prematurely. I remember when I was a kid it would always be up in the air until 6am the day of... I figured the city just felt left out. Last week when we were supposed to get lots of snow we got nothing. So maybe they just wanted their snow day, come hell or high water.

I thought we'd get a light dusting - if that. Boy, was I wrong. It snowed and snowed and snowed all day. (It's still snowing now.) It was absolutely beautiful. And there was no way I could avoid taking Jemma out in it -she's been cooped up inside with a bad cold for 5 days- in spite of the fact that I seem to have caught whatever she had.

Scott still had to go to go to work, but his friend Rich (Jemma's godfather,) who's visiting from Paris came along for the adventure. When we got to Riverside park it looked like every kid in the city had turned up to play. In typical Upper West Side style, the hills had been organized with orange cones to section off areas for sledding. We found our own spot - a little out of the way, where a 3 year old wasn't as likely to get run over by crazy middle-schoolers.

We had a full day: sledding, making snow angels, throwing snowballs, and even making a snowlady. (She started off looking kind of 'womanly', so we just went with it.) My voice, which was failing yesterday, gave out entirely today. So I've been trying to communicate with hand gestures, whistles and claps - which is interesting (and has earned me more than a few strange looks from other moms... ) In spite of that, we had a wonderful time, and at one point Jemma, sweet thing that she is, patted my back and said, "Don't worry, Mommy. I don't mind your scraggley voice."