Ice Is Slippery

Even for kids.

Our driveway has a large sheet of ice on it.  It’s the logical outcome of all the snow we’ve had.  I couldn’t remove it all with the snow thrower, so the snow that is left behind gets crushed and compacted by the cars.  Throw in a couple warm spells with some rain and everything is there to turn the snow pack into ice.

The state is, literally, out of salt.  I’ve tried several hardware stores on multiple occasions and they have none and further, they don’t know when more is arriving.  So the only option at this stage is sand, which I finally did after an infuriatingly embarassing spectacle I made of myself while trying to get our car up the driveway earlier this week.

It snowed a bit last night.  Not much- a good coating is all.  But that amount of snow on top of ice is like throwing ball bearings down on a marble floor.

I’ve told the kids not to run down the driveway on the ice so many times now that I don’t bother anymore.  So when we were walking down from the bus dropping them off after school, their usual shenanigans barely registered.  The lass paused for a moment and the boy and I continued towards the house.

I heard the lass start to sing a happy little jingle as she started to skip.

Then I heard the unmistakable sound of a food slipping, followed by the thud of the lass hitting the ground.  I have to admit, I was a little surprised.

I turned and there she was, on her side.  A little whimper popped out of her as the pain from the impact began to register.  She had fallen on her hip.  Not badly though, as when she got up to clean herself off, there were no holes in her stockings and there were also no blood stains from nicks or scrapes.

Nonetheless, she continued to whimper.

I consider it an “I told you so” moment but did’t say anything other than to ask if she was going to make it.  She answered by nodding while continuing to whimper.

We made it to the house and she went to her room to change and assess her injuries.  She came downstairs and showed me a slightly dinged knee, followed by telling me that she had all these scrapes on the side of her leg.  I asked her if they were bleeding and she replied “No, but they are all red.”  I told her if they weren’t bleeding then they didn’t count.  The look on her face was enough to let me know she wasn’t buying that.

But if nothing else, she knows now that ice is slippery.