There is magic in the first snowfall.

Our neighborhood is friendly but it’s still an urban neighborhood.  We know a handful of the families closest to us but beyond that we hardly even exchange waves.  After a large snowstorm like this one, though, people all come out to start the clean up process the next morning and it’s almost like a block party.

Duhdee and his two friends from next door spent the morning clearing out our two houses as well as the houses of two of our older neighbors.  While they were doing that I pulled Monkey up and down the street in his sled.  Everyone we passed spoke to us with smiles even as they labored to clear the 10 inches of snow from their driveways.  The other kids in the neighborhood were running up and down the street with sleds of their own and staging snowball fights.  It was like a movie set of New England in the winter.

Monkey and I took a break to warm up and had hot chocolate.  He normally won’t drink anything warm but he really enjoyed it.  He also enjoyed the bit of Fluff I put in it, lol.  No marshmellows!  A bit later I looked out and saw that Cupcake was now outside playing as well.  We quickly suited back up and joined her.  She and Monkey shared a sled ride up the street and back.  Cupcake was so excited by the snow she just couldn’t contain herself.  She would laugh and shake her head wildly from side to side.  I jumped up and down clapping which she found very funny.  She tried to copy me but the best she could manage was stomping one foot.  She’s just such a doll.

The afternoon found Monkey drifting off to sleep on the livingroom floor.  He was cuddled with his blankies and a pillow while watching the slide show of pictures on our television.  Duhdee and I took advantage of the time to just sit and watch the pictures ourselves.  We chatted about all sorts of things.  The stress of special needs parenting, how lucky we feel to have such an amazing kid, how exciting all the latest developments with him are, how relieved we are to have a good educational setting for him through May 2010, how much we want another little one and exactly what we think we can handle in that regard.  It was the sort of conversation we had before we were parents actually, back in the days when we could devote hours to talking only to each other.

Sure, we’re no closer to being ready for Christmas that we were yesterday and I should probably be concerned about that but it was just the sort of magical, peaceful day we all needed.