Do You Wanna Kill a Snowman?

It snowed. Again. And I’m sorry.

I remember those days like they were yesterday. Stuck inside a two bedroom apartment with two rowdy preschool aged boys, it wasn’t a snow day. It was a hostage crisis and I was the hostage.

“Mom! We wanna go outside! Please, mom! Take us outside!” Their demands were simple: Spend 15 minutes pulling on snow pants, boots, hopefully a matching pair of mittens, and a coat. Go outside for 5 minutes in the actual snow, then come back inside and spend 15 minutes taking it all off again, followed by not too hot cocoa and their favorite cookies. No big deal, right?

Maybe not for a 16 year old who got to sleep in. Not for a woman who hasn’t had a good night’s sleep for 3,247 days.

I remember well. I remember thinking how snow days were supposed to look. How we’d build a snowman and take pictures for the scrapbook. How we would build snow forts and take pictures for the scrapbook. How we would fill spray bottles with water and food coloring to color the snow. Or make snow ice cream. So we could take pictures for the scrapbook.

For me, it was always about creating memories for a life I wanted to live, but didn’t actually have the time or energy to live.

My boys are teenagers now. Nobody asked if they can go outside to build a snowman. Today my help was not needed to pull on snow pants and gloves. Yes! Instead, they had to suit up to shovel the driveway and sidewalks. We’ve come a long way. And you know what? I don’t regret not having “better” pictures for our scrapbook. I regret not embracing the time for what it truly was: Loud, crazy, chaotic, exhausting, messy, crusty, unstructured, and truly the longest days of my life. But they were mine and it’s not too late to own them.

It’s not too late.

Today I choose to embrace the life we are living, and as I do, grace warms us like the sun.