Winter Surprise

There is nothing so sweet as the sound of the words snow day. From the time I was a little girl lying in the dark of my room waiting for the WNVA announcer to cancel Norton City Schools, those words have been the super star of winter. They're enough to make winter my favorite season, snow my favorite precipitation. 

This morning I awoke at 4:30 and peeked outside. Snow. Glistening white and still pouring down. The streets were covered, no signs of any tire marks, much less snow plows. I knew, but didn't actually know, that this would be a snow day.

And of course, I could not fall back to sleep. So I just lay there. 

     Waiting. 

           Waiting. 

                 Waiting.

It wasn't unlike being a kid and waiting for the local DJ to make his way through the alphabet to the Ns, in between relaying the sports scores and playing ads for Piggly Wiggly and The Swap Shop.

So I just lay there awake, knowing something was going to happen. An hour later I got the first text from the Hartford news station. Then my phone dinged again, a text from Trinity's Parent Alert system. Shortly afterward, the Parent Alert automated call. All confirmed we were closed today. 

But I still couldn't sleep. 

My husband texted from sunny Florida, where his work department is meeting this week. "Back to sleep?" 

I texted back, all thumbs and squinty-eyed in the brightness of my phone, "Not till all the texts and calls are done. Grrrrr."

I still had to wait for the call from the staff phone tree. I grew restless just lying there, fearful I wouldn't be able to fall back to sleep. Finally, I gave up, agitated that my morning off was being wasted with wakefulness. I jumped the tree and called my person, then rolled over to wait for the person ahead of me to call. They never did.

I did fall back into a blissful sleep. No dreams. I didn't wake till Camden tiptoed into my room. "Mom? Are we closed today?"

"Yup, we sure are," I told him. 

"Yesssssssssssss!" 

I wonder if that's what I used to say before rolling back over, my 13-year-old self satisfied with the gift of a winter surprise.