Snow Days

Snow days are such an important event in a child’s life. In the past 3 years, I have had fun enjoying them through Firstborn’s eyes. I don’t remember much the details of my own snow days. I vaguely remember listening to the radio to hear the school district listed on the school closings and getting really angry if someone would happen to talk as the announcer was reading the Ss. Of course then I would have to wait all the way through the alphabet for the Ss to come back around again. Sometimes it would be a 10 minute wait between readings. It seemed like an hour.

So, when Firstborn started first grade, we began a new tradition. He would come into the bedroom with me and we would watch the school closings together. In first grade I would read them important ones to him. Teaching him what our bordering town names were so that he could learn when to get excited. Ooh! Billerica is closed, that means we might be too! He often lost interest and I would have to shout out, Firstborn, they’re up to the Ss. You had better get in here so you don’t miss it! And then when our town was called, we’d cheer and do a happy dance. Big plans would be made for the day off and the TV in the living room would be switched on for a marathon viewing session.

Now that he is in 3rd grade and his reading is quite good, Firstborn likes to read the school closings himself. Only, he does them out loud. And he tries to read every school district listed. Those readers out there who are locals know that being a good reader does not necessarily mean you can read the names of Massachusetts towns. Phonics does not help.

First you have your old English names. Worchester, Leominster, etc.

Then you have your 20 syllable Native American Names, Tantasqua, Quinsigamond, Mattapoisett, etc

And then you have the law of conservation of Rs. You know, for every syllable from which you drop an R, you must randomly stick another R at the end of a word that ends in a vowel. Leaving the above mentioned Billerica to be pronounced Bill-ricker, not the pretty Bil-air-ic-a I had mistakenly called it 20 years ago when I first settled here.

Add to these perverse pronunciations, Firstborns remaining speech anomaly, the audible breath, and you can imagine how I just want to muzzle him on these mornings.

He has learned that Leominster is pronounced leminster. We don’t teach the alternative leminstah in our house. He seems unable to get over the Mattapoisett (think French). Thankfully, Quinsigamond comes after the Ts, so we don’t struggle through that one. Tantasqua seems to be the real difficulty to him. It always comes out as Taaaannnntaaaaa… Oh well. Tewksbury!!! Yay Tewksbury!!!! We’re closed! Then he does his happy dance and runs through the house letting Lastborn and his dad know of the good news. Frankly, I’m not even sure how Tantasqua is pronounced.

Invariably, Lastborn will come into my room at this point and ask, “Mom? Do I have school today?” I figure that by the time Lastborn figures out that they go to the same school and therefore have the same snow days, Firstborn will have moved on to the upper elementary and the rules won’t always apply.

Of course, today had to throw him yet another curve. We were 90 minutes delayed. Firstborn didn’t look that closely though. He only noticed that Tewksbury was on the list. But instead of watching through the whole list again (it was very long today), he went downstairs and checked out whdh.com.


Ahh, the new millennium. What a great time in which to live.