Snow day.

Blizzard warning here in South Dakota. We've had the last two days off - everything is closed, even the mall.

You know it's serious if they close the mall.

Yesterday was Bean's first snow day. Bean's daycare closed early yesterday, but we kept him home the whole day since the roads were so awful. Even my own classes were cancelled, which NEVER happens, so you know this blizzard we've been hearing about is for real. Mr. Plainsfeminist's classes were not cancelled, initially, but he stayed home, anyway - the highways were too treacherous, and we knew from past experience that it was likely his classes would have been cancelled by the time he got there (which is exactly what happened).

I haven't had a snow day in a long time. When I was a kid, my elation at the news that school was closed was soon erased by my dad calling me to help shovel the walk and the driveway so that he could get to work. But snow days often meant hanging out with friends, or at the very least, lying on the couch and watching t.v. at home.

As a parent, it's been fun trying to make these snow days special. Since I can't work at home with Bean here, I've been released from the pressure to produce - and I have permission to have fun. My efforts to include Bean in baking (Gramma's butter cookies and apple cake) were not successful: he prefers to eat what I've baked. But we both had a blast taking a homemade sled (a cardboard box with a plastic bag taped around it) down the hill made by the snowplow. And he's gotten to watch far too much television, to his delight. I also took the mattress off his top bunk so that he could jump on it, which kept him busy for some time.

I think he's been having fun.

For my part, I've barely been out of my pajamas for the last day and a half. I've slept a lot - not entirely on purpose, as I had a bad headache last night - burned a few cds I've been meaning to burn, started downloading new stuff from eMusic, baked, done many loads of dishes, and talked on the phone for some time to friends and relatives I haven't seen in a while. In short, I did "Saturday things." These are the things that most people, who are not academics, do on the weekend, when I am usually running around doing work that didn't get done during the week.

I could get used to this.