I made a mistake.
On Friday evening, I told the boy it was supposed to snow the next day, which now is yesterday- Saturday. Not only did I tell him but I foolishly parroted more or less the exact forecast down to the start time and amounts. I may as well have told him that a second Christmas had been scheduled.
He spent the rest of that evening double checking that it was still going to snow. It was as if he’d decided that he needed to maintain vigilance on the matter, lest the foretold events not come to pass. He double checked the snowfall amounts, the start time, the end time. He was particularly fascinated by the end time, confirming on multiple occasions that the snow would end Sunday morning at 7, rather than Saturday morning at 7 (even though the start time wasn’t supposed to be until Saturday morning at 11).
When he woke up on yesterday, he wanted to look at a weather map and ensure that it was still supposed to snow. Perhaps he was concerned that his 10 hour slumber had allowed the probability fields to shift such that no snow was coming, or not as much, or- worst of all- that it would fall as rain.
It finally started in the mid-afternoon hours. I happened to look out and the first sporadic flakes were falling. Big, fluffy cotton balls from the sky that disintegrated on contact with the ground. I pointed outside and made a face like the people from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Both kids laughed, but then the boy rushed to look at the thermometer, wanting to make sure it would not turn to rain.
The start of the snow was the end of the worrying. The boy was noticeably more relaxed as the snowfall proceeded through the afternoon. His vigilance and wishing was paying off. It was now only a question of “How much?” not “Will it?” But the “How much?” question is more pleasant to fret over. It’s like momentum- once getting things moving, they tend to want to stay that way. Now that the snow was falling and the hard part was over.
By the time they went to bed, there was about 6 inches on the ground. The boy had been monitoring the situation and was keenly aware the amount now exceeded the prediction I’d given him the day before. Even better- the snow continued to fall without any sign of letting up. He went to bed easily, dreaming of snowmen, snowballs and sledding.
Here’s what he awoke to:
All pictures courtesy of the Wife and her Canon EOS60D.
