First of all, Doug is out of town. So that means that every morning at 7:30 I have to take all three kids to the bus stop...in the cold. (Normally I leave Timmy sleeping while Doug gets ready and he leaves when I get back). Anyway, I kept thinking that it would be nice to have a morning where we all could sleep in and not have to go to the bus stop. Bu I can't really rationalize my kids skipping school just because we're all tired...can I?
Well, last night around 11 PM/midnight, Thomas comes into the living room hacking and coughing worse than he has been for the past few days. "That's it!" I thought. 'That's my ticket to keeping him home tomorrow." And since it wouldn't do him any good to have to be taken to the bus stop at 7:30 AM in the freezing cold (what NOT to do when one is sick), I decided to call them both in sick.
After everyone slept in until about 9 AM, we all felt much better. We did some housework and some homework/writing activities. Then since we were all feeling better and all did work in the morning, we went to a friend's house who was having an activity for make sugar cookies. While we were there, it started to snow...a lot. For the next 5 hours non stop. The boys were having fun and I really enjoyed having people to talk to, so we stayed until the snow stopped. That was my mistake.
I knew that things would be bad out on the streets and I already knew there were bus problems. I had received a text on my phone about how the buses for the school were not really running and that parents needed to make arrangements to come get their children. I was very thankful at that moment that my kids were not at school.
However, I should have left to go home before ALL the buses (Paris public) stopped working. We left my friend's house and went to wait at the bus stop by her place. After 20 minutes the notifications came on saying that the buses were no longer running. So we had to walk home. 2.1 km. (1.3 miles) With 3 kids, using a stroller in the slush, mostly uphill, and both Matt and Thomas forgot their gloves.
After a little while of whining about cold hands, I gave each of them one of my gloves. So each of them had one glove on and one hand in the pocket. Timmy refuses to wear any gloves.
There were a lot of puddles of slushy snow/water at each curb and inevitably Matt and Thomas stepped in puddles, thus getting their tennis shoes all wet and getting their feet cold. Then the crying started about the cold feet. In fact Matt said, "My feet are frozen and will have to be cut off. They feel like they're exploding!" So I, being Mom, stopped at the next bus stop where I proceeded to share both of MY dry socks. Again, each boy got one dry sock and removed their wet one. So now I had no socks, and no gloves. But I wasn't really thinking of that. I was trying to think positive to keep up morale.
Because we had made sugar cookies earlier I was carrying a bag of cookies with me. So I would give them a cookie at each bus stop we passed by. There still was a lot of complaining until I realized that we were only 3 stops away from our house. Once I told the boys that, then their spirits were lifted. We talked about how there are challenges to overcome and we can do it step by step. Even though it seems as if we'll never make it through we just have to keep on going. And when we look backward we realize just how far we came.
When we were crossing a bigger busier street we saw a man with grocery bags tied around his ankles to keep his shoes dry. Thomas said, "I wish Daddy was here to help up jump over the puddles." It is at this point that Thomas tells me that he really has to go to the bathroom. I told him that he could wait until he gets home because it was too cold to go outside. Then I told him that if he peed his pants that his legs might be warm for a minute because pee is warm. He looked shocked that I said that and thought it was pretty funny.
By the time we got home Timmy had cried himself to sleep and everyone was cold and exhausted. Matt expressed some concern about crying a lot and asked me, "Is it bad to cry and loose liquid out of your eyes?". I got them all changed into warm PJ's, curled up in blankets in front of a cartoon. Then we had tomato soup for dinner.
After everyone was warm, I realized that my heels were stinging. I looked down and realized that my shoes had rubbed the back of my heels raw and both were bleeding and cut. I wondered why I didn't notice it before and I assume that it was the mommy adrenaline that had kicked in. I then thought about the pioneers and how they walked much much further than 1.3 miles in the snow and I'm sure their shoes were worse than mine. It certainly put things into better perspective for me and I am that much more thankful for what they went through.
I'm also really thankful that I kept the boys home from school. Some may say I was inspired, but whatever the case is I think that the fiasco of getting the boys would have been a little worse than walking home. During the rest of the night I continued to get emails from the school with updates of what was going on. Here are a couple I'll share from the head of the school:
"4:15 PM Allow me to update you. No buses have arrived to campus as of yet (4:10PM)t. The road in front of school is stopped with cars and (town) police have closed some roads in our area. We remain in contact with our bus service and will let you know when conditions allow travel away from our campus.
Everyone is fine– cozy in fact. Students and faculty are doing very well. Again, we are in the midst of preparing a dinner if needed""7:45 PM One bus has arrived, but was not able to drive on to campus due to traffic, so has parked several blocks away. I have no news on buses as of yet– and I am aware that some of the bus drivers are refusing to drive further because of safety conditions in our area. The snow has stopped and we expect conditions to improve.
I estimate that we have about 200 students with us. Dinner was chicken, fruit and french fries– a bit lacking in greens, but really...no one seemed to mind. The conversation was very good."
The last email came at 9:45 PM saying that finally all the students had left the campus and were on their way home. I am so grateful that I didn't have to deal with all that. We had our moment of trial and hopefully we have all learned from it.Like remember to take your gloves with you on a cold day and do not step in puddles.
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