Everyone and their mother will be posting pictures of The Great Snowstorm tonight and who am I to buck the trend?

Here are the boys on their vintage flexible flyer (by vintage, we mean “it belonged to daddy” who is himself approaching vintage age). This not-so-great photo was taken by the puller of the sled, at about 10 oclock this morning. On 4th Avenue. Doesn’t look that snowy, does it?

Moi the mommy mule pulled those kids all the way down 4th avenue to KMart where we snagged the last pair of snow boots in perhaps all of Manhattan, over to Washington Square Park, and then all the way back across town to the faux-bucolic village of Stuyvesant Town (In honor of the snow, I will save my rant about Tishman Speyer for another day). 

The boys occasionally had to portage the sled across streets that didn’t have enough snow to support the sled runners, but mostly…I pulled. Like some sort of fortyish reindeer.  We made it to the countryside of Stuy Town, had ourselves a grand time slamming down a hill on the Flyer, and then walked home because the sled rope–also vintage–had frayed beyond any possibility of retying. There was much moaning and caterwauling at the injustice of having to walk (we’d been outside for a long time by this point) and perhaps some tempers were lost out there in the snowy reaches of Stuyvesant Square. Perhaps. But I’m not naming names.

Tempers fraying like our vintage sled rope, we made it home, for hot chocolate, followed by much strewing of bionicles across the floor, then a friend came over and all the boys bowed down before the great god wii, while the mommy mule realized that her back ain’t what it used to be.

And finally, lest you think that three hours in the snowy slush this morning wasn’t enough, the boys all went out onto our building’s terrace, on the 15th floor, where the wind had whipped the snow into humps and mounds, just right for forts, snowballs, and general mayhem.  Me? I stayed inside and tried to avoid stepping on sharp-edged bionicle pieces.

Was it really necessary? Was it really such a Huge Freakin Blizzard?  Were conditions truly so complicated that kids couldn’t have been at school? Nah, probably not.  Do King Julian and Maurice (aka Bloomberg and Klein) have egg on their face as a result of canceling school so early? Nah, probably not (dammit).  Did the boys have a grand old time in the snowy day? Yeah, they probably did. And yeah, their pink cheeks and shrieks of joy as they raced down that hill in Stuy Town were totally worth the price of a vintage sled rope and my aching back. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.