By March, the novelty of snow days has worn off (for me, at least - my kids are pretty much always on board for sleeping in). Whereas December and January snow days inspired me to whip up homemade pancakes and engineer elaborate art projects with the girls, in March you're more likely to find me huddled in a corner muttering profanities. Quietly, but with great fervor.We've hit the allotted number of snow days in our school district, meaning that any more days cancelled for snow are tacked on to the end of the school year. And that SUCKS. Schools in Maine are in session until around June 20th anyway, and there have been really snowy years where Maine kids are still in school until July. Frankly, I'd probably be likely to call them in "sick" and head to the beach. Maine summers are short. Use it or lose it.
This Monday was a snow day (as was last Monday!). We got a fresh foot of snow atop the two-ish feet we already had. See my kids trekking up the hill to sled? I was watching them out the window and thought, huh, that doesn't look as deep as I expected. I guess I'll take the camera and go out back with them.
Yeah, funny story here. You know how kids are lighter than adults? A smarter person than me would have realized that perhaps the kids weren't sinking down through all the layers of snow. Whereas I ..*cough*...am not as light as a kid. I sank all the way down past my knees. Making it kind of hard to lift my legs high enough to take a step without falling down. Especially when you're holding expensive camera equipment. And not wearing gloves.
I may or may not have fallen completely over onto my back and required the kids' help to extricate myself from the backyard snow-impersonating-as-quicksand. It wasn't my proudest moment. The children seemed to enjoy it, though.
This is me pretending to be happy that I get to fire up the tractor and snow-blow the driveway. Again. Sigh.
While I began the always-pleasant task of wrestling the tractor with its immense snow-blower attachment out of the garage, the girls migrated to the front yard and declared their intention to build a snow fort. Once I began the actual snow-blowing, though, they abandoned their fort idea for a new game of their invention. Running jerkily through the deep snow of the yard, they followed alongside me down the driveway, getting completely pelted with the snow thrown by the blower. This evolved into flinging themselves facedown in the cushiony drifts and waiting for deluge of snow, then running ahead again and flinging themselves down again. Repeat 126 times. Apparently, this is hilarious. Far funnier to me was when I finally put the tractor away and took a good look at Bear and Bug. I mean at The Snow Children of Maine. Even Bear's eyelashes were coated in snow a la The White Witch from the Narnia movies. "Don't shake it off!" I ordered and ran for the camera.
"My hood feels heavy," Bear complained, as she turned around to let me take a photo of the backs of their heads. Hmm. I wonder why that would be? Maybe because it's completely packed full of snow?? 
It was right around this point that Bear caught a glimpse of herself in the camera lens and her amusement with the whole situation started to turn to alarm. Her hands flew to her head, and she whispered, "My hair. It's totally frozen." Really? You think? How mysterious.
She began to try to pull the balls of snow and ice out of her horrifically tangled hair. It wasn't happening. I began to giggle at her consternation, as she kept looking over at me like Do something, you're the mom.
Bug was equally amused by her sister's distress and her mother's helpless wheezy laughter. 
Aren't snow days awesome?
We drove down to an old mill by the river. The sky was a rare thing for February in Maine: blue. It was so wonderful to be looking at something other than the typical monochromatic palette of leafless trees /gray sky /white snow, that we hung out and took quite a few shots despite the cold that left my fingers numb. I told Bug to hop in the van, so we could warm up while we drove to the next vista.
"Hang on!" she called urgently over one shoulder, "I need to get this shot." 
We headed down to the river to get some wintry shots of the Kennebec. By then the sun had gone behind the clouds, leaving behind a leaden gray sky. As I set up to shoot, I recalled that the thing about rivers in winter is that they're...gray...and about as interesting as a puddle of spit. We took a few shots, grimaced at the boring images on our LCD screens, and went shopping instead. 'Cause that's how we hard-core photographers roll.
The obligatory self-portrait. You will please to ignore my grown-out roots and faded hair color and focus instead on the sweet face of my daughter. I've had to postpone my hair appointment twice, but it's set for Friday. Pinky swear. And it's going to take Satan himself to make me postpone it again.
Bear had her last room re-do in April 2005. She chose a soft shade of blue for the walls with pale butter yellow trim and white ruffled curtains. It was a dreamy, girly haven with butterflies hanging from the ceiling and a throw-rug shaped like a daisy. Gradually, posters of pop stars began to find their ways onto the walls, and she started griping when I put the Disney princess pillowcases on her bed.
And, now, not quite four years later in her newly redone bedroom:
Here's a wide-angle shot from the doorway. It still takes me aback to walk into this not-a-little-girl's-room-anymore and see a lanky preteen sprawled on the bed talking on the phone. I mean, it doesn't seem that long ago that I was twelve (and if you're doing math in your heads, you can just knock it the hell off). 
I can only use "preteen" to describe her for one more year. And that is killing me.
