Last Week

Evan was sick.

Again.

She had the awful, fever-inducing, hacking-cough virus that's been spreading amongst the pre-school set like wildfire.

Poor kid stayed home all week.

Thus, so did I.

Yeah.

I must say it was a bit too quiet around here (except for all the coughing and nose-blowing, that is) until Wednesday -- when a blizzard pounded our city, dropping an ungodly amount of snow:


Mid-afternoon Wednesday-- the view looking up the street from my front window.


Late in the day, my next door neighbor shovels while the snow keeps coming...

Now, along with all that blowing and drifting snow came something else.

Something quite wonderful.

"It's a SNOW DAY!" Joseph shouted, leaping in the air upon hearing the news at 6 AM Wednesday morning.

"AWESOME!!"

A momentary pause.

A tilt of the head.

A smile.

And then:

"I'm goin' back to bed."

Funny how priorities change when you're in middle school.

But then, it's also funny how some things haven't changed at all:


My well-rested son puts the finishing touches on the fort's interior.


Joseph and his trusty assistant enjoying the fruits of their labor.


Even Tim couldn't resist the lure of a snow-day fort.

The four of us spent the rest of that morning and a good part of the afternoon lying inside the fort reading books by the likes of Patricia Polacco and Dick King-Smith.

Later, making up some stories of our own.