Foster Mom Adventures

Today was one of those special and rare days when it snowed in Austin, Texas!  Given my most recent experience with snow, I wasn’t quite as excited as everyone else at work when the flakes started to fall.  I had already done my happy snow day dance when this evening’s meeting was canceled due to the weather forecast and I no longer had to make arrangements for someone else to care for Samuel while I worked late (yet again).

But somehow an excited 11 year-old boy made snow fun for me again.

Samuel’s school dismissed about an hour early today, and given the extreme cold, I drove down to the bus stop to give him a ride so he wouldn’t have to walk home in the snow. As it turned out, I didn’t give him a ride, but boy did I get to see the show. Samuel didn’t realize I was waiting for him or watching when he got off the bus and started pelting the bus with snowballs as it drove away. He didn’t know that I was watching as he got into a major snowball fight with his friends. I drove home without him and let him have his fun.

Once he arrived home, we had a blast playing in the winter wonderland. Samuel made a snowman (with a Mohawk) complete with a carrot nose and raisin eyes and mouth. There were lots more snowball fights, sledding down the hill (on the lid from his laundry hamper), and snow angels to be made.

Every once and a while, I convinced Samuel to come inside to change/dry his clothes and drink a cup of hot chocolate. He was always ready to go back out again, and fortunately the flakes kept falling to replenish his supply.

Right now he is hard at work with some boys in the neighborhood building a “fort” in our front yard. There isn’t much snow left to build with at this point, but judging from all the activity, I believe it will help Samuel to sleep very well tonight.