It’s funny how things work out sometimes.  All last week I had planned to make snow flakes with the big kids, but they never showed up for it.  As soon as they woke up I would say, “I have something fun for us to do after breakfast.”

They would nod and run away outside, and I wouldn’t see them until lunchtime, because they ate breakfast at my mother’s table next door.  Ah, well, they’ve always scorned the usual home-grown omelet with fresh goat cheese and garden herbs.  Then it would be too late and I would be stuck outside chasing Clothilde so she could get some fresh air and exercise (she goes insane without it).

Surely, I thought to myself after this had happened several times in a row, I can pin them down.  WE WILL MAKE SNOWFLAKES!!!  But they are just so good at evading me.  Okay, I finally conceded.  No one wants to make the stupid snowflakes.  I was surprised at how sad and disappointing this realization was.  I had all along imagined us all sitting down and snipping white paper with craft scissors.  Because it was a fantasy, no one was fighting, and Clothilde didn’t even cut off most of her hair.

Instead I went outside again with Clo.  Heck, I realized, I didn’t even feel like making snowflakes.  I just wanted some peace to write in my journal, so I did.  I covered a whole page complaining about no one wanting to make snowflakes while Clothilde fed me sand pies she was baking in the sand box.  It was such a relief.

Then just that evening, somehow, with some holiday magic, the white paper came out.  The scissors started to snip.  They made snowflakes!  All on their own!  It was beautiful.