As the East Coast prepares for another version of Snowmageddon, we as parents are faced with the possibility of the dreaded snow day. The kids are going to bed after their snow dance, with their pajamas on inside-out and I am making sure that my car is as much under the carport as possible and the snow shovels are accessible. The forecasters are telling us it may be the most snow that the DMV has gotten in March in history, we are still skeptical since it was in the upper 70s last week.
A friend of mine is a new dad and reached out to social media for advice and insights. This got me thinking about the things that I take for granted being a “veteran parent”, not that any of us believe we are all-knowing. A snow day as an adult without kids is a lot of fun, it usually meant that we would sleep in, day drink and act like children in the snow. As a parent, life is so very different! As Russell Wilson famously said “The separation is in the preparation” and that is very true especially for new parents. The ongoing joke is that everyone runs to the store for milk, bread and eggs whenever there is snow in the forecast and that college students run to the beer store; new parents are seen at Costco stocking up on diapers, wipes and formula!
My family is on a different level of prepared having 2 kids and 4 animals. We have enough food for a week at any given time having a large chest freezer. We have milk and juice as well as peanut butter and frozen pizzas. The important things for me, it to ensure that my gas grill has propane and my Big Green Egg is stocked with charcoal so that I can cook even if we lose power. My wife is far more concerned with ensuring that the dog has food, the cats have wet and dry food (and medication recently), and then there is the bunny! That big @ss eats so much salad that we need to have 2 bags of baby carrots and two large containers of Spring Mix to make it through the week. We always have the essential supplies to help keep the tiny humans busy indoors for hours and even days at a time. One key pro tip is to make sure that all devices are fully charged and if there is a generator available, you better have fuel ready!
Last year was our first winter back in Maryland and we got crushed with one of the worst snowstorms in recent history. It started snowing on a Friday afternoon and didn’t stop until Sunday. We got a total of 36” of snow in our side yard and I wasn’t able to go to work until Wednesday and that was earlier than most ventured out. The cabin fever definitely started to set in as my wife also left on the Wednesday to take the kids to a bouncy house just to leave the house, and being in the house for 4 days, Starbucks stocks immediately plummeted! I went out every 3-4 hours to shovel the driveway so that I wasn’t killing myself when it was all said and done, and I needed to get out of the house! There was even too much snow to sled, the kids jumped on a sled and dropped 2 feet into the snow. The worst part of it was that it was all melted by the time I got back from work at the weekend, so I never got a chance to take the kids out to play.
Speaking of taking the kids out to play in the snow, this is such an important part of a snow day. The kids get so excited to go out and play (for about 15 minutes or so). Another pro tip here, no water for 30 minutes before going outside and make sure you change the diaper or use the bathroom before starting the process of making your child look like the kid from A Christmas Story. We luckily have a basement door that we use for the kids to come inside and I set it up so that when we step inside, we can strip down and there are beach towels there to dry off. Hot chocolate is always a plus on these days. It usually means that I can skip a workout on days that we go outside because it consists of a lot of picking up and throwing the tiny humans all around. I am very excited for this snow tomorrow, we get to try out the trampoline and hopefully get some mileage on our sleds.
Stay strong and stay warm out there dads!
All Good In The Fatherhood 
Leave a Reply