I awoke to the muffled scraping sound of snow plough and knew the forecast storm had arrived. Until the sun came up and we could get a good look at the damage, AJ and I watched the news. Schools all around us were closed, but ours weren�t listed. It was the kind of day we used to hate as kids, where it seems like every school but yours has a snow day.

In fact, it turned out not to be that bad out, although the snow is still falling steadily. Nevertheless, we didn�t manage to get the driveway shoveled out in time so I put on long underwear under my clothes, piled AJ in layers until he could no longer bend and plopped him on his little wooden sled.

The sled is a beautiful object, made of two-toned wood a gently curved back to lean on and smooth sides to grab onto. It was a gift from my brother for AJ�s first Christmas. He was nine months old and already taken with the biggest box under the tree. At the time we were living in a loft downtown. The sled sat in a corner by the big wall of windows and AJ liked to crawl into it and sit down, grinning.

Since then, the sled has gotten a lot of use. It�s too tippy for downhill use (we found out the hard way), but it�s perfect for treks to preschool when you can�t get the car out of the driveway. AJ hummed �Jingle Bells� most of the way to school. When he got tired of that, he and I played the game �I spy� where we always spied something white and the answer was always �snow!�

We got to school a little late, our cheeks flaming, our noses dripping. Most of the children were already sitting in their circle with Mrs. K, the head teacher. Mrs. S., her assistant met us at the door and assisted with the formidable process of extracting AJ from his snow pants. While I held his sodden boots to the floor, she picked him right up out of them and plopped him down on a table top so I could put dry shoes on his feet. I handed AJ his homework � a white object for the class color collage. He unfolded it in his hand, a delicate white paper snowflake we had made for the occasion, and held it up to the window to compare it to the snow falling behind it. Then he gave me a quick hug goodbye and ran off to talk about snow with his excited friends.

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