Snow Day

Today is our second snow day. I have to admit that snow days are not as exciting as when I was a kid, because now I know that we have to make them up at the end of the year. So although the days with the boys are nice now, I would much rather have them at the park in June. Plus I am supposed to be having a test review today and a test tomorrow so I can start a new unit next week, but obviously THAT isn't happening.

But last night, as I was going to bed, I couldn't help but think about the last time we had snow days in February. Three years ago. I was nine months pregnant, ready to start my maternity leave on February 15th (my due date), except that I ended up starting it sooner than anticipated because the 13th and 14th were snow days. Knowing that I was hugely pregnant (no, really. I looked nothing like I did at 40 weeks with Tommy), we received so many phone calls of neighbors offering to loan us 4WD vehicles should I go into labor during the snow or people encouraging us to please call an ambulance if labor started instead of trying to drive. I remember laughing both off, saying that I would happily deliver the baby myself in a snow drift. But of course, Luke was four days overdue, the roads were clear, and in typical Erin fashion, no one thought to worry about me making it to the hospital in time in JULY. Anyway, because I'm old school, I wrote on Live Journal back then, so I journeyed back to February 13th and saw that I'd written this with regard to everyone being worried about the snow and labor:
"This is all a non-issue, really, because I do not think I'm going into labor tonight. I also think that if I did, we'd make it to the hospital somehow. And if we didn't, we'd have one of those neat stories about Shane delivering the baby in the back of my car. So you see, it's a win-win situation."
Aww, if this were a story about my life, we could call that DRAMATIC IRONY.

At that time, Shane and I were on the cusp of parenthood, just waiting. Those two days were so good for us. We played Yahtzee for hours. We giggled and made fun of each other and ate chili cheese dogs and root beer floats for dinner. We did our best to induce labor and had fun trying. When we could finally leave the house, we went to the mall to walk and when some woman asked if I was having twins, Shane told me that she must be blind (she wasn't--I had a nine pound baby and extra fluid). So then we came home and I forced Shane to walk through knee high snow with me. I took a photo of our footprints.

It was the last time we'd make that walk just the two of us. My water broke the next day and that day stretched into night and then morning and then into the afternoon when, suddenly, we were three.

Snow days now are different. Although I wouldn't trade them for the world, I am so thankful we had those two snow days three years ago, those two last days to celebrate being ourselves, before we had the best celebration of all.