Snow Day Ritual

Keegan and Serena were very hopeful of having school canceled due to snow last night. Apparently, folk lore has been verbally passed through the public school system that a snow day ritual must be followed in order to actually have a snow day: children must wear their pajamas inside-out that night.

SIDE NOTE: Wearing clothes inside-out is in complete contradistinction from Keegan's term "inside-right," which means "right-side-out."

Back to snow days...like any verbal tradition, I believe the ritual has expanded from adult to child to other child to another adult and so forth. Keegan reported that children must also do the following:

1. Go home and play really hard out in the existing snow.
2. Do all of their homework. (I'm sure some teacher somewhere added this to the list.)
3. Get ready for bed with PJ's inside-out.
4. Flush two ice cubes down the toilet.
5. Pray for a snow day.

Serena, being the quick wit that she is, added, "...and you must sing the 'Happy Snow Day' song," which she proceeded to make up and sing for us.

Well, no one played outside yesterday. Their homework was done. Serena wore her PJ's inside-out because it was fun. I did not allow them to flush ice cubes down the toilet, and nobody at our house prayed for a snow day at bedtime.

After supper, there was a lot of singing of the new "Happy Snow Day" song as silliness once more overcame the house. This continued until too much rough housing occurred, Keegan was flung backwards by me just as Serena opened the dish washer to put away her dirty dish, and Keegan's back hit the corner of the dish washer. Keegan began to cry, so Jeff and I looked at his back. He'll have a good bruise there. I picked up all 56 pounds of him to try to comfort him, and we sat down on the couch in the living room.

Chester, our dog, did not realize the sudden mood swing from silliness to seriousness in the house, so he dropped his ball by my hip on the couch. I ignored Chester as Keegan began to settle down. Suddenly, Chester realized that we were no longer playing, and he came back to get his ball with his teeth, like he has often done. This time was different because he slightly pinched my hip between the ball and just one tooth. More startled than hurt, I jumped and loudly yelled, "OW!"

Jeff, realizing what transpired, erupted into laughter.

Keegan turned, rather alarmed, and questioned what was happening.

Serena, with her keen observation skills, looked from face to face and was trying to assess the entire situation as Jeff was laughing, Keegan was concerned, and I was on the verge of tears.

Jeff, the snot, began to try and stifle his laughter by covering his mouth. It wasn't helping any.

In response to Keegan's questions, I half humorously and half angrily shouted, "THE DOG JUST BIT ME IN THE BUTT!"

Then everyone exploded with laughter, even myself. Jeff soon rebutted to Keegan with, "God's just getting mom back for throwing you into the dishwasher."

All the events perhaps took two minutes worth of time, but we cackled about them for probably five minutes. After that, I had a good cry about being so startled by the dog.

The children do indeed have a snow day today. So all one really needs to do is sing the "Happy Snow Day" song, throw your eldest child into the dishwasher, and get bit by a dog in the butt in order to accomplish the cancelling of school.