polka dot suitcase

‘Member that January campfire I was crowing about? Yeah, well…I remember it, too. Fondly. Wistfully, even. Because Mother Nature came along late Friday evening and dumped some snow on us here in the South. Then added a bit of ice for good measure. Everything ground to a halt.

Now, the kids are stoked, naturally. And so was Big Fish, who hails from south of the Mason Dixon line, too. They all spent a lot of time outside. Here’s the thing Northerners may not know: Kids in the South? Generally don’t have winter things sitting around like sleds, snowshoes…boots, gloves. We made a frantic dash to Kohl’s Friday afternoon, picked through their meager selection of end-of-season product, and scored some hats and gloves, thankfully. The kids used thick socks and Big Fish’s and my hiking boots.

We had to improvise on the playgear. Applying a little ingenuity, we scrounged up a variety of stuff to try out as sled material: a flexible, vinyl sewing cutting board, Rubbermaid lid tops, cardboard slipped into plastic trash bags. Sir Buffalo duct-taped some cardboard to his feet, furiously rubbed wax all over them, and shot down the hill on his “skis.” Then my favorite rednecks got really inspired: The kids sat in a big laundry tub tied to the back of my truck while Big Fish towed them around the snow-covered neighborhood streets (plows? our street has never seen a plow!).

Fun, right? Sure. But then what happens is this cycle of melt-refreeze-melt-refreeze that hangs around for days and days and…daze. And that’s the part of snow in the South that gets a bit old. Schools have been closed for two days and counting (my kids were outraged when they found out that homeschool wasn’t closed…even throwing down a couple ice cubes on the floor and saying “But it’s too icy to make it to school!” didn’t cut it). Big Fish’s work schedule has been thrown into a tailspin, although we’ve been happy to have him to ourselves for the extra time.

And me…I’m still dreaming about my January campfire. It wasn’t a dream, was it?