January 7, 2009 2:42 PM
Where, oh where is OUR snow???
I am so mad!!! We have had NO SNOW here this year. Well, except two days which each had about 10 minutes of swirling snow that looked like someone had shaken a snowglobe.
This is beyond belief. While we have had some freezing days and also a lot of precipitation, the two never coincide. Last night we had an ice storm and the trees were beautiful this morning the kids still had school as by bus time it had turned to rain.
The forecast tomorrow:
The forecast Saturday:
Hey, those icons remind me of something about Jonny - my 16-year-old son with Down syndrome - I wrote in 2004 in Lord, Please Meet Me in the Laundry Room:
But the story of our move to Virginia is just a setup for the story I have to tell about an ecstatic-in-a-motherhood-sort-of-way experience I had a few months after moving here. Coming from California, my children had their first introduction to the four seasons. They'd grown up with only two: some rain for six months, no rain at all for six months. In Virginia, they made the acquaintance of humidity, spontaneous summer showers, hurricanes, fall color displays, and then the best: snow.We were looking forward to the snow, as most of my children had never seen it, but our neighbors warned us that it didn't really snow that much around here anymore - something to do with temperature changes as the Washington metropolitan area kept spreading out to places like the rural community in which we were now planted.
So my children prayed for snow.
And, did it ever snow! Like the Christmas song written by Christina Rosetti, "In the Bleak Midwinter"
Snow had fallen,
snow on snow,
snow on snow on snowIn the rural area where we live, snow plows hadn't even cleared the road before the next snow began. Records were broken by the snow that fell our first Virginia winter together - including the heaviest snow ever for a rare White Christmas, and 30" in late February.
For the children in the area, it was like a moveable feast - they'd go from one house to another - sledding at this one, hot chocolate at another, a movie here, a bonfire there. What a wonderful life it was! Every night I'd surf the internet to our favorite weather page, with nine-year-old Madeleine and ten-year-old Jonny eagerly looking over my shoulder for the forecast. If snow was on its way, Jonny would point to the snow icon and clap his hands gleefully. Madeleine would run through the house announcing it like a town crier - thus earning her nickname, The WeatherGirl. The next morning, if snow lay on the ground, we'd hit the School's Out website to see if school had been cancelled, which happened with alarming frequency - more than any local old-timers could remember.It got so bad, that at one point after four consecutive days of no school, a neighbor emailed me to say, "Alright, already, I think the Curtises need to stop praying for snow or winter will never end."
Well, the winter did end. Most people heaved a sigh of relief after a rough winter of shoveling snow, keeping generators going, and trying to find parking spaces in lots with mountains of snow so high and so wide there was little room left for cars. We had even spotted dump trucks by the highways being loaded with snow to carry off because it wasn't melting fast enough.
Our family, having enjoyed a four-month ecstatic experience, was somewhat sad, but our souls stood slightly ajar for the next one. And behold, it came as we experienced our first real spring, when everything went from gray to lush green and our neighbors' houses were once again hidden. Keep in mind California's very different meteorological year - two seasons, rain/no rain - plus not many deciduous trees. Not many leaves falling in the fall, not many to come back suddenly and splendidly in the spring.
And then, as if God hadn't blessed our family enough with ecstatic experience, he provided me with this personal exclamation point:
I was helping Madeleine find some information for a science report one day when we came across a website with the weather icons. Jonny, who was standing at my desk looking on, pointed excitedly to the snow icon, and began jumping up and down with joy, remembering the snow. Clasping his hands together in a pleading way, he sang, "Pease, oh Mommy, pease, can we get dat one?" - in the same way he points to cool things in toy catalogues and asks for them.
By now it was summer, but Jonny's abstract thinking skills hadn't grasped that some things just are not possible, and even though I said snow wouldn't come for a long time, he kept clasping his hands and pleading, "Pease, Mommy, pease?"
And then it hit me: my son thought I was responsible for the weather! Having seen me order things on the Internet - much more convenient for a megamom than a mall - he'd thought when we were checking the weather reports that winter that I was ordering the snow!
It doesn't get much better than that - when God can send you a greeting better than any Hallmark card through your children. Jonny's faith in his earthly mother - even though misguided - reminded me how okay it is to trust like a child in my Heavenly Father. And Jonny's jumping-up-and-down-for-joy reminded me how ecstatic my experience is when my faith is utter and complete.
Posted in Family, Loudoun County, Mothering, My life | Permalink
Comments
And everywhere else is having tons of snow! Wierd.
Posted by: Elissa | January 7, 2009 3:25 PM
Beautiful article! I have a similar story to you (although only 1/2 as long as I am not yet 30). I am a Filipino American, born a cradle Catholic, went away from the faith, and I am now a veil-wearing, Rosary-hugging, breastfeeding, homeschooling, attachment-parenting young mother. I have already purchased your montessori books! Thank you for being such an inspiration. Your children are beautiful and your husband is a good man just like St. Joseph. May the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary be with you always.
Posted by: Connie V | January 7, 2009 3:26 PM
Barbara,
I just had to write a quick note to you about snow. Here in the Pacific Northwest,specifically Portland,OR,we just experienced the most snow we've had in 50 years!-and the most snow on Christmas Day EVER! What a treat/blessing for the children of the Northwest who usually have a "green" Christmas! Hope you get yours (snow)soon.
Posted by: Cherie | January 7, 2009 3:35 PM
I love that picture of child like faith. :) Thank you for sharing.
I wish I could send you some of our snow. We have more than enough. I live in the UP of Michigan, where we get more than almost anywhere in the nation. Our average is around 250 inches...and we've already more than hit the half point...and it's only January.
Thanks again for your openness and your inspiring posts.
Hannah
Posted by: Hannah | January 7, 2009 3:52 PM
OH, I remember that year! My oldest was just 2 at the time, and on the smallish side. I had to shovel a path for her in the driveway to walk because the snow was higher than she was tall, she walked around a track I made with big snow walls on either side, and we didn't shovel out for days - no reason to go anywhere. Those were the days, thanks for sparking the memory. And yes, I too am yearning for a real hunker down and sit by the fire snow day.
Posted by: Danielle M. | January 7, 2009 4:14 PM
Would you like mine? Seattle has finally melted out and recovered from our Christmas storm. We aren't equipped for it at ALL, so it's only fun for most of us for a couple days.
Posted by: persimmon | January 7, 2009 4:30 PM
I clould send you some cold weather! It's -39F. How about 20 degrees colder? That way, up here it will only be -20F! Maybe the ice fog will leave.
Posted by: AK Anna | January 7, 2009 5:19 PM
I'm with you! I want some snow. Makes me miss Alaska something fierce!
Posted by: suzanne | January 7, 2009 7:20 PM
Hi Barbara, we got some of your snow this year. We live in south Louisiana and it snows about once every 8-10 years here. We got 5 in. one day last month. The kids loved it.
I was excited to have found your blog about 2 years ago. I had read an article you had written for American Life League and liked it so much, I tore it out and still have it today. It gave me a glimpse of the other side and I couldn't stop reading and didn't want it to end. That was probably about 8 years ago.
I visit often here even though I rarely leave a comment, but wanted you to know how much you mean to me. You and your family are in our thoughts and prayers.
Posted by: Lela | January 8, 2009 9:41 AM
