I'm sure that as soon as I admit this, there will be a great swell from the interwebs and an uprising will begin, but I actually love winter and snow and everything that goes along with it.  I might feel differently if I lived somewhere else where winter lasts longer, or if I'd ever seen snow growing up, but even the worst snowstorm we get here is almost always is followed by a quick thaw and clear roads quickly thereafter so I can still allow myself the luxury of getting excited like a kid whenever I hear snow is in the forecast.  Even when it means it brings the entire city to its knees.

This morning, I woke up and opened the back door to survey the new fallen snow over my back yard to see this:
 

The entire inside of the storm door was completely iced over.  And you know what?  Even that was beautiful.  But I think I need some new weatherstripping.

What I'm not too excited about is spending day six with The Shortlings out of school and inside the house.  It's not all due to the snow.  Friday was a teacher planning day.  Monday was a holiday.  Tuesday, school was legitimately closed; it was actually snowing. Today was cold, but sunny and beautiful, but it was the requisite we're still closing even though there's no good reason for it day.  So I can't really blame it all on winter.  More on winter's poor planning. 

Yesterday, while the snow was still falling, the cats spied this guy sitting on the telephone wire outside the window and tried to claw the glass out to get to him.


 I opened the door a crack and he perked up a little, but wasn't really worried.

Basically, both the cats and the kids operate in the same fashion: clamor and whine for hours begging to go out and play in the snow, then when the door is finally opened and they are tossed outside, walk five steps into the white stuff, freeze, and gingerly turn around to come back inside, stepping exactly in the center of each of the five footprints.  

I timed The Shortlings' "snow time" today: four minutes.

 My kids are wussies.

 So are my cats.