Surprise magic

Day 12 of 31 at TWT!

Clatter! Bam! Rustle. 

I'm about to groggily tell Rainbow Girl to stop messing with our blinds when she screeches, "SNOW!!!"

"What?" I force my eyes open. She's pulled our honeycomb blinds above her head and her whole body is pressed against the window. 

"CAN WE PLAY IN IT?!" Her voice rises to a squeal.

"I don't know if there's enough to play in..." I remember seeing a chance of snow overnight, but I figured it would just be a few flurries.

"THERE IS! IT'S ALL WHITE!!!" Sweetie scampers over to join her at the window. 

I reluctantly break my cocoon of flannel sheets and raise myself up on an elbow. My view is blurry without my glasses, but the porch roof does appear to be covered in a significant amount of white. I love snow, but I really wanted to sleep in today. "Is the grass covered?" 

"YEAH! It's poking up a little, but it's mostly covered!!!" Sweetie declares triumphantly.

I sit up farther and start to pull myself out of bed. The street is black, but otherwise, the world is dusted in fluffy white powder. This is only our 3rd snow this year, and while the last one stayed for more than a week of building huge snow forts and snowmen, it was way back in early January. "Ok, let's eat breakfast, so we can play!"

"YAY!!!!" The girls peel themselves off the window and dart down the hall. 

By the time we finally get going, get all our layers on, and get outside, the gentle layer of snow is aready melting fast. But it's there! 

We scurry up our small hill and fly down on Sleddy and Sir Sleddy (as our orange and green sleds have been christened this winter, respectively). 

I love when Sis helps her get started on Sleddy!

We scoop up snowballs and lob them at each other. The girls use Sleddy and Sir Sleddy to fortify the swing set for a proper snowball fight.

They fling themselves on the ground and flail their arms to make very wet, rather green snow angels. 

"Who wants to help me make a tiny, melty snowman?" I call. 

They scamper over, and we roll three very globby balls to stick together. 

"He needs arms!" Sweetie squeals, and they race up the hill towards the woods to grab sticks, nearly sliding back down on the slippery, mushy snow. They gently place the sticks in his body, and Sweetie pushes two rocks on his face for eyes. 

"What should we name him?" I ask. 

"Cutey!!!" Rainbow Girl declares. 

"Aw, Cutey is a nice name!"

She trots off to the deck, where the snow is not as melty, and begins patting down a slab. "I'm gonna make him a bed!" She gets slightly upset when she tries to pick up the bed and can't, but I'm able to get my mittens mostly under it, breaking it only a little, and smash it back together. I hand it to her, and she carries it over to him, setting it gently beside him. 

"Ooh, he'll love sleeping in that!" 

"Yeah!" Sweetie declares. "He's magic!" She firmly believes that the book Snowmen at Night (given to us by one of her teachers a few years ago) is non-fiction, and that's fine with us. We're going to keep all the magic alive as long as we can. 

Rainbow Girl showing Cutey his "bed" before putting it down beside him. <3

Next, the girls make up a game where they smush snow-globs onto sticks to create imaginary roasted marshmallows. Rainbow Girl feeds her marshmallows to Sleddy, while Sweetie strives to create a marshmallow so giant that she has to get a second stick to hold it up. 

When we've enjoyed almost all the remaining snow-mush, we get ready to head inside for some hot chocolate and lunch. "Do you want to give Cutey a goodbye pat?" I ask Rainbow Girl. 

She pads over to him and tenderly pats him on the head with a pink mitten, then bends down and kisses the top of his head. 

There will be other mornings to sleep in. It's better to catch this magic while we can.