The Hazards of Snow

All this last week, my oldest child has been limping, with her toes taped together. You see, it snowed last weekend, and that made things around here very treacherous.

When I first came to Utah, I was so excited to see snow. I grew up in Oregon, and while it rained a lot, it really rarely snowed. If it snowed an inch, it was an occasion to close the school. We would travel to the mountains in Oregon to VISIT snow, but it wasn't the same as being in it every day. The first snow was absolute magic for me. It was Thanksgiving weekend at BYU, and a huge snowball fight broke out at the apartments the night before Thanksgiving. Everyone was out there and it was so much fun. The next day was quiet, with most everyone gone, and Jay and I had the whole day to ourselves to get ready for dinner, and take walks through the wonderful snow. It was perfect.

Then the snow kept coming. And coming and coming. I learned that snow got gray and sludgy as it got old, and that I didn't like the cold at all, and that icy sidewalks got slippery and hazardous. It was my second winter in Utah that I slipped on a patch of ice in my lovely patent leather- completely treadless- church shoes. I broke my elbow in the fall, and spent the rest of the semester in a half-cast and arm-sling. I can't walk in snow anymore without keeping my eye on the ground looking for black ice. I take tiny tiny steps for fear of slipping. I am the only woman in church wearing a dress and mukluks when the snow is really bad.

And now my daughter is injured, and it's the snow's fault again. Did she slip? Well...no. She wanted to make the snow built up in the branches of a tree to fall off suddenly in a big pile. So she kicked the tree. She didn't even use the three years of martial arts lessons I paid for to have her kick it right. She just ploughed her toe into the trunk of a tree. The tree didn't even have the courtesy to dump the snow on her the way she wanted. So now her toe is injured- pretty sure it's not broken with the way the swelling has gone down quickly, but bad enough that she's limping through school.

Darn that snow.