Losing Spring Break because of The New Ice Age

February 16, 2010

Losing Spring Break because of The New Ice Age

The view out my front door as the snow came down last Tuesday had "doom" written all over it. By 6PM the Township had updated their facebook page to state that school was closed for Wednesday. Wednesday morning brought rain, that froze and turned to snow and then blizzard. Power flickered and trees went down. By dinner time, the facebook page for the Township indicated school was closed for Thursday as well. The natives became restless but the plows and salt trucks were doing the best job they can. Thursday afternoon came a robocall message stating that school would be on a 90 minute delay for Friday. But, once again the facebook page for the Township indicated that some schools were experiencing power issues. I knew in my gut that this meant one thing.

School could be closed on Friday.

And it was. The robocall came within the 5AM hour - school closed. No Valentines Parties for the kids, this year - well at least not until after they return back to school on Tuesday after Monday's day off for President's day.

Congratulations kids, you just earned yourself a six day weekend.

To say that the snow had made me feel trapped inside is an understatement. This was beginning to be reminiscent to Christmas week when the kids had three snow days in a row which gave them a total of two full weeks off from school for Holiday Recess not to mention missed holiday parties and activity after activity getting canceled. Thanks to being a procrastinator I wasn't one of the parents left wondering what to do with the dozens of party cupcakes and perishable teacher and bus driver gifts. The days off just gave me more time to get over to Dunkin Donuts for gift cards and Wawa for lottery scratch-off cards.

I remember as a child (in Upstate NY the land of snow) a snow closing was a rare thing and something to be celebrated. Here in New Jersey, my kids see snowflakes coming down and immediately presume No School Today. Nine out of ten times the kids are not wrong. A forecast of impending snow also means that the grocery stores practically run out of milk, bread, and toilet paper if you don't get there by noon. Also be sure to wear comfortable shoes because you could be parking across the street or in the next county because everyone is out filling their grocery carts and their pantries. Just where does one store all this extra milk, bread and toilet paper anyways?

I feel as if I might just lose my mind with the kids home one more day. The kids have missed so much school that the district has extended the school year as long as they possibly can late into June (I believe it is the 25th now, they end on). I guess that's one less week of summer camp I'll need to shell out for. And because they've extended it out as far as they can, beginning with Friday's snow day our kids will now start losing days from spring break. So far we've lost one day - how many more we'll lose will depend on if the Snowmageddon continues here at the Jersey Shore.

The forecast is projecting more snow for Monday, just in time for the kids to go back to school on Tuesday. Winter, I'm done with you.

New Jersey Moms Blog post by MaryTara. MT blogs her adventures in parenting two beautiful children on the Jersey Shore, life with autism & without it, the gluten & casein free diet, and vaccination choice issues at The Bon Bon Gazette and raising a child with amblyopia at Adventures in Amblyopia.