Indoor Snow Storm

The story you are about to hear is true. The names have not been changed to protect the innocent, because quite frankly, all the characters in it are guilty. It happened in the summer of 2006 and in April of 2007 I re-created some of the messier parts to accomodated a slide show presentation that I created for a talent-show program at my church using this story. (Picture is from that Slideshow)

Alexander was bored. At least that is what he told me. He was watching a DVD and playing with his “Thomas” Train. He looked pretty busy to me, but nevertheless, he insisted that he was bored. I asked him what would make him, “Not bored”. He said, “Do you have any flour, Gramma?” This question was prompted by the fact that a year or so earlier I had given him a small bag of flour which he dumped all over his wooden railroad to represent snow. It had been a horrendous pain to clean up, so I have conveniently NOT had any flour ever sense.

When I told him that I was sorry, I didn’t have any flour, he whined, “But, Gramma, I need some snow for the Island of Sodar.” (Now for those of you who have never been around five-year-old boys let me help you out a bit, the Island of Sodar is where Thomas the Tank Engine and his Friends live.)

“Well,” I replied, “The paper in my shredder looks kind of like snowflakes, you can use that if you want to.” He wanted to!

A few minutes later he asked me if I would help him drop the snow down on the tracks. I started to do so, but he got all upset and told me that I was, “Doing it all WRONG!” After several minutes of his berating me because I wasn’t simulating the snowfall, EXACTLY like he wanted, I had had enough. I tossed a handful of shredded paper at him and told him to do it himself, if he was going to be so picky about how it got done.

Well, that ticked him off. He picked up a great big handful of homemade snowflakes and flung it at me with all of his kindergarten might. So, I took another handful and set it on top of his head. He responded by telling me I was being “annoying” and hurled another handful my way.

About this time, his baby sister decided that she wanted a piece of the action, so she grabbed up a tiny handful of confetti and tried to throw it. All it did was drop onto her feet in front of her, but nevertheless, she squealed in delight like she had just thrown one out of the park.

The unbridled joy, our little toddler displayed in her bungling attempt at simulated snowball fighting, struck Alex and me as the funniest thing we had ever seen. We both laughed, which elicited another gleeful squeal from his charming sister.

After that the craziness really took off. Alexander put a handful of paper on my head, I put one on Elizabeth’s and pretty soon the three of us were tossing snow all over the place as we giggled in ecstasy.

This went on for half an hour or so, and then Alex decided that it would be fun to build a mountain. He and I started gathering up bunches of shredded paper and forming them into a pile. Just when it was starting to resemble a miniature replica of the Matterhorn, Elizabeth decided she was going to kick it down. She attempted to, missed completely, and fell flat on her diapered bottom. Once again, the three of us broke out in hysterics! Alex, who was in a rather precarious crouching position, laughed so hard that he lost his balance and fell forward, right into the middle of the confetti mountain.

I was sitting there, with tears running down my cheeks, wishing I had a camcorder, because what was going on in my living room was way more hilarious than stuff I have seen win the ten grand on America’s Funniest Videos.

By the time we ran out of steam, my house looked like the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. It took three hours to clean up the mess, and I’m not sure my Hoover is ever going to forgive me, but the sheer simple pleasure we derived by breaking out of the mold to do something wild and crazy together was so worth it! We had made a wonderful memory, and Alexander wasn’t bored anymore.