Why I’m Grateful to my Daughters For Creating Another Snow Day Miracle
The hardest part of having a teenager is helping her understand she’s still allowed to experience joy
My teenage daughter thinks she’s too old for sledding. But we finally have a snow day at the tail end of a brown and depressing winter. So, I rouse my girls and after shoveling the sidewalk we get the sled down from the rafters of the garage.
“Come on, it will be fun!”
“But, the zipper on my jacket is broken.”
What she really means is that she doesn’t want to go. But as a parent, again and again, I’ve seen her protest something only to relent and end up having a wonderful time. They fight me about going down the river, but from the moment their toes touch the water they’re giggling and laughing and playing like time has stopped and there is nothing in the universe but joy.
Still, I have to be mindful, because if I make her do something she doesn’t want, the activity can’t be fun. I have to coax her into doing it. I have to carefully thread the needle to get to the place where where happiness is possible.
It’s worth it.
“Here wear mom’s old jacket,” I say, and before she can protest I direct attention to the dog. “Look at how excited Kuzo is about this. He knows something is up. He loves going out for an adventure with his girls. Look at how much joy you’re bringing him!”
On cue, the dog slobbers and smiles and laughs. At the sight of that, my daughter can’t help but smile and a little bit of the thread goes through.
Always take advantage of the dog
When Kuzo gets really excited, he jumps up to thump me in the chest with both paws like he’s trying to stop my heart. He’s a 90 pound dog. He’s a good boy, and he knows better than to jump up on people, but sometimes joy overtakes him and he can’t help himself.
What am I going to do? Beat that out of him? No thank you. I can live with random acts of overflowing, uncontainable happiness. I need them.
My daughter relents and pulls on mom’s jacket. My other daughter has been champing at the bit this whole time. She loves sledding. We all do, secretly, even though you’re not allowed to express joy about anything when you’re 13. That’s a result of external pressure, our society has to change.
It’s late March, almost April, and this is the first time this winter that we woke up to new snow. In the 15 years we’ve lived in Wisconsin, we’ve always had a snow day in November, December, or January.
Snow days are fun days that come with their own perfect itinerary. You know what you’re going to do. You’re going sledding!
Reflections on snow days past
When my kids were very little, I’d bundle them up and put them in the sled. The sled has a rope on the front and I’d put this around my waist. I’d take my ski poles and ski hike out to the park with the hill. This was my workout. They’d sled to the bottom of the hill, and I’d run them back to the top.
Sledding without walking. No king ever had it better.
One winter morning, a woman in an SUV saw me, pulled over, and rolled down her window. Her face was beaming with joy as she leaned out and cried, “You’re such a good dad.”
My kids, content to sit in the sled and be pulled along, reached up and waved to her. I waved too. What fun it is to march to the park with your children giggling and laughing, all caught up in the belief that time has no meaning and the universe contains nothing but joy.
There was one time that I took them and we stayed too long. My girls were very small then, so small that they kept coming out of their boots when they rolled out of the sled. I remember my youngest daughter lying on her back, her little feet up in the air. I had to run over and find her boot and put it back on.
“Should we go home now?” I asked.
“No.”
“But you’re going to get cold and…”
“NO!”
So we stayed, too long, and by the time we started back home their hands and toes had begun to hurt. On the way back they cried, “Daddy, what’s wrong with our fingers?” It was only a 10 minute walk, but that seems like forever when you’re freezing.
I got them home and they were miserable, so I wiped away their tears and put them in a warm bath and changed their clothing and soon they felt better. But I felt terrible, and I knew I was going to have to answer to mom.
My wife is from Peru, so she is skeptical of the joys of the cold. She didn’t grow up with it you see, and that means she assumes cold exposure will have lifelong, detrimental consequences.
“But dear, I grew up in the cold.”
“I rest my case.”
But by the time my wife got home, my girls were resting all snug in their beds. They had rosy cheeks as beautiful and as perfect as anything you’ll ever see. Mom was delighted. Crisis averted.
“This isn’t going to work, the snow is too snowy”
Kuzo is so happy on the trail. He looks back at me from time to time with his enormous smile. His tongue hangs out from beneath his teeth. At 90 pounds, he can look pretty fearsome, but I never see anything but love in his eyes.
It’s a warm day despite the snow. The mercury hangs at around 40 degrees and it starts to rain. My eldest daughter seizes on yet another opportunity.
“This isn’t going to work, the snow is too sticky.”
I’m proud of her because I recognize she knows more about snow than most people. When you live in Wisconsin, you discover that there are many different types of snow. When it’s below zero, the snow is flaky and dry. It’s almost impossible to make a snowball because the flakes fall apart like sand.
But 30, 40 degrees is different. That’s packing snow. You can make a snowman. You can throw snowballs. You can construct an igloo.
What my daughter doesn’t understand is that we are going sledding. It’s happening. It can’t be stopped. In this, my spirit will not be denied.
“I think the first run down the hill will be slow,” I tell my daughter. “But once the snow is packed, it will be faster.”
She’s skeptical, but we continue on. I know she’s not going to deprive Kuzo of his joy. He’s infectious. Good boy!
Where are all the other kids?
There’s nobody at the snow hill when we arrive. My youngest climbs right into the sled. I climb in behind. “Do you want to come?” I ask my eldest.
“No,” she says.
Kuzo, in his excitement, jumps into the sled, then he thinks better of it and jumps back out. He prefers to run along beside. It makes me remember a time when he was a puppy. He was running beside the girls, tried to dart in front of them, and they rolled him over in a ridiculous crash.
Kuzo was fine, of course, but the girls swarmed him, cooing with concern, “Oh, are you okay baby?” It was comical that they threw their already high voices into an even higher register. Kuzo never minds the attention.
Then the miracle happens
I push on the wet snow, my glove is instantly soaked, but that’s okay, and we’re off. Down we go. My daughter giggling. Kuzo running along beside like he intends to pounce on something but he doesn’t know what.
It was faster than I thought. So we go again and again. The trail gets better. My eldest stays at the top throwing snowballs at trees. She throws snowballs for Kuzo to catch and he snaps at them like he’s hunting and she laughs.
But I still can’t get her to sled, and it’s starting to bring me down. But then then my little one goes ahead and makes a snow day miracle.
“Should we go like a penguin?” she asks and I’m hopeful because I recognize this has a chance.
“Okay,” my eldest says.
Okay, okay! She said okay!
My girls together, both of them sledding!
Then the two of them, without the sled, go down the hill on their bellies just like they used to, and now I know I have them. When they get back to the top, they wordlessly climb into the sled together, and Kuzo chases them, and I stand up at the top of the hill watching and I am content.
We sled for long enough and then it starts to rain. We walk back home in the rain. I tell the girls they have to take a bath and they don’t protest.
When we get in the house, the first thing we have to do is dry off Kuzo. He’s happy to be rubbed by the towel, then he climbs onto his bed. My girls put a blanket on him.
“He’s tired,” my youngest says.
“He is, he’s a tired boy, he ran up and down that hill as fast as he could over and over like a big old goof.”
The day becomes more normal after that, but it doesn’t matter what happens. I know everyone is tired. We had a good day. Every snow day is a sledding day. It’s a free activity. You don’t know when it will happen. Our streak was in peril, but I’m pleased that it has endured.
There are few things better than standing on a hill with your children and your dog. It makes you feel as if time doesn’t exist and the whole universe is filled with nothing but joy.
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You bring back memories of delightful snowy days. I grew up in the prairies of Alberta,, and without fail we spent many, many days engaged in ice skating, building snowmen and igloos, and sledding, later we called it tobogganing when the sled no longer had runners. I have pictures of me not yet able to walk but bundled in a snowsuit. My dad fixed a wooden box to a sled and this was my first of many experiences going downhill! He strapped a pair of ice skates to my snow boots when I was two. My birthday was in February so every birthday party I ever had was skating on the lake and having hot cocoa afterwards with my parents and sister. Thank you for bringing back my flood of memories with this wonderful story of you and your daughters and your dog going sledding. May they never be too old to enjoy the snow.
Beautiful story and a beautiful family.