A Marshmallow World

Have you ever heard the song A Marshmallow World by Bing Crosby?

It's a marshmallow world in the winter

When the snow comes to cover the ground
It's the time for play, it's a whipped cream day
I wait for it the whole year round...

I love this song. It sums up exactly how I feel about the few precious snow days that we get each year. When I was a little girl, I adored the winter. When the weatherman predicted snow, I'd pray and pray that we'd have a blizzard. And, inevitably, each year we'd receive our few, coveted snow days. No matter what time of night the snow began, my mother would wake us up and let us know, "It's snowing!" The next morning, we'd bundle up tight in layers upon layers of clothes and go play. Our house had a very steep hill in the back yard. The hill went straight down, then leveled off, and there was a shallow ditch between my parent's house and the house behind them and a fence bordering the neighbor's yard. We'd dig the sled and the snow saucer out of the garage and sled down the hill. If you were lucky enough to be on the sled with my dad, then you could zip down the hill, hit the ditch, go airborne and plow into the neighbor's chain-link fence. It was thrilling!

I lived in the same house from the time I was born until I went to college, so this became my favorite family tradition. My parents still live in that house. My sister and her family made the trek out there this morning just so they could sled the old hill. No doubt my mother will make her traditional snowman too. One year, she made a big snowman, decked him out in sunglasses and a sun hat and put our beach umbrella and lounge chair by him. The neighbors loved it. Each year she tried to top herself. Her snowmen are legendary.

When I moved to Alabama, I would cry every winter when I'd see the weather map show white over Tennessee. I missed the snow so so much. Now that I'm back in Tennessee I have my winters back. I have my snow again! Now I'm bundling up little ones to go outside and play. It's no easy feat. I appreciate my my mother even more now because I know what a hassle it is to bundle up little ones. And though I still get amazingly frustrated with the fact that children cannot seem to understand the one-finger-per-finger-slot rule of gloves, I know that the stress of bundling up is well worth it. The warmer my kids are, the longer we can play outside in our marshmallow world.

Today we got about 3 inches of snow, and tonight they are predicting another few inches. I cannot wait!!