Walking to school in the -8 °F temperature on Monday morning made the long, relaxing weekend seem like the set up to the punchline of a cruel joke.  At least it’s a funny joke.  AND!  It builds character.  Kids who ride the bus have to stand at the bus stop in the cold and bus rides aren’t pleasant.  But once they make it from their home to the bus stop, they’ll get to school whether they like it or not.  Kids who walk to school take every step it takes to get them there.  I know that both girls have days when they’d rather just sit down wherever they are instead of taking one more step.  But, with just a little parental inspiration they keep going. 

Both girls have an extra pair of snow pants that they leave at school to wear when they go outside for recess.  So, unless it’s obvious to me that they need them, I let them decide if they want to wear snowpants on the walk to school or not.  If Audio is wearing them, we leave early enough to double our travel time whether Dee Dee wears them, or not.  Audio’s little legs move her a lot slower than Dee Dee’s do.  Dee Dee could likely crawl as fast as Audio can walk with her snowpants on.  So, Dee Dee tends to get ahead of us, eventually looking back to see how far behind her we are.  Then, she waits for Audio and me, mittens coupled in an over-under, hooked together fashion, to catch up to her.   

Our route to school takes us through an icy alley, pockmarked with holes made by spinning wheels of stuck cars and slippery ruts created by the cars once they got unstuck.  Due to the rough terrain, the alley takes about as long as the rest of the trip put together.  It’s in the alley that both girls (but mostly  

Dee Dee) want to tell me important things.  Things that I can’t hear because of the crunching snow, the hood over my ears, the balaclavas that cover each of the girls’ mouths, and the fact that they seem to prefer to face the other direction while talking to me.  I try to get everything I want to say out of the way before we get into the alley and then only open my mouth to warn the girls of rabbit poop in our path.  The rabbits seem to follow the same icy ruts by night that the girls choose to walk in by day.       

Another section of our hike to school is up a sidewalk that is on a steep incline.  It’s alongside a rental property, so it is rarely shoveled.  And, when it is, it’s such a bad job, that they might as well just have just left the snow there.  The sidewalk with its thin but dense layer of snow left behind by lazy shovels collects bootprints for a day and then turns itself into a slick, bumpy and sharp ice slide overnight.  The city used to leave a barrel of sand at the top of the hill during winter.  They didn’t do it this year.  Dee Dee usually goes ahead on her own and waits for Audio and me at the top of the hill.  

The last challenge we face before the end of our trek is the sidewalk at the school.  Snow that has fallen over night or over a weekend is rarely addressed until after the students have left at the end of the following day.  This gives each student two opportunities to pack down the snow before the school staff attempts to clear it away.  The concrete isn’t visible between December and March.  And the walking area that is cleared is only just about wide enough for an adult and child to walk next to each other.  When two adults meet each other, one must step into the snow to allow the other to pass.  On days when it warms up and some of the ice and snow melt, it’s even worse.  The sidewalk across the school yard is about 40 yards. Somedays, it seems much longer.  But, once we are at the end of it, we have arrived. 

Even with the familiar and unforeseen obstacles, we always make it to school on time.  Depending on how cold it is, there are anywhere between four and 40 other kids buzzing around the door, waiting for it to open.  The bus drivers are instructed to hold the riders on the bus until 9:00AM.  Sometimes they release them early and it’s a real mess of cold kids pushing their way towards the locked doors.  The doors open outward (every day).  Kids crowd around the closed doors, making it difficult and slow for staff to open them (every day).   After the initial rush has cleared, I send Dee Dee and Audio into the building.  I usually stand where I can watch them hover up the stairs and then disappear.  They both seem so small compared to the older kids.