bringing dinner back

“I’m glad I was hear to see it.” — Sawyer, upon hearing that yesterday’s 12 1/2-inch snowfall was an all-time record in Dallas.

The 157th snowball fight of the day. Or thereabouts.

We had 24 hours of pure bliss.

It started Wednesday night, when I took Noah to one of his favorite restaurants (Freebirds) for dinner before hooking up with a few friends to see a rock climbing movie. This, I learned in that evening, is the way to deal with the snarky pre-teen — do exactly what he wants to do. Of course, as a parenting style this would be a disaster. But as an evening, it was perfection.

We go to sleep that night, hopeful for a snow day. But, like other Texans, realizing it was quite unlikely. Forecast said a couple of inches and the lovely white powder so rarely sticks here. I woke up at 6:45 am, looked outside. SNOW! I quickly got online to confirm we, indeed, were having a snow day.

I checked all the avenues our school suggested. Nothing. But there’s snow on the ground? We never have school when there’s snow on the ground. Maybe the school hasn’t yet sent out the email. Maybe they haven’t updated the web site. Maybe they didn’t contact the local TV stations. Or maybe, I shuddered to think, they were having school today?

I told the kids, who thought I was kidding. When he realized I wasn’t, Sawyer stormed into his room with all the venom a sweet, 9-year-old about to be deprived of a day in the snow could muster.

Sawyer had never seen this much snow in all his almost 10 years.

Of course, I told them, we could just take a snow day.

Joy returned to their faces. Within minutes, they were bundled up and out the door. As the day went on, snowmen were built, football was played, snowballs were hurtled. They tracked snow through the house, piled up clothes in front of the fireplace, warmed up, got new clothes and headed back out. An old friend stopped by and we caught up on the back porch, watching the kids and our German shepherd play, all seemingly oblivious to the temperature.

The day was even more magical because most of their friends were at school. A renegade snow day has an appeal like no other. By the time we ended the day with a family snowball fight, we were out of shoes that fit them, dry gloves and socks. There seemed to be more clothes in front of the fire than in their rooms.

We huddled around the fire in the living room and watched Earth, a gorgeous documentary about the earth, its seasons, its creatures. It was a perfect end to a day filled with how beautiful our planet can be.

Noah wasn't messing around with his snowball prep.

This morning, the spell had ended. Although I’d put 99 percent of the boys’ wet clothes into the dryer before going to bed, I’d missed the one pair of pants Noah wanted to wear, causing a barrage of eye-rolling and blame. The boys — who laughed endlessly with each other yesterday — started to bicker. The messy house was getting to me. I had work that needed to get done yesterday and, obviously, didn’t.

As the snow slowly starts to melt, normal life returns.

But the renegade snow day will be relived in stories and photos for years to come — the historic day Dallas had 12 1/2 inches of snow.