It was a mistake to assume that because my daughter was gifted with a heap of consecutive snow days off of school, that the school itself would be closed and I could tutor her.
Ha. We teachers worked full days through the winter, cleaning classrooms, creating study plans, sharing ideas, and more while the children stayed warm and snug in their homes.
In the case of my Eden, I felt rather guilty leaving her alone in the days with nothing but her toys to keep her company.
And then returning at night, only to have to make up for her lost school days, with no relaxing time to spend as mother and daughter at all.
To her credit, Eden is very self sufficient and has a miraculous imagination. She has found ways to entertain herself, even while cooped up through her entire childhood, unable to work on her designated supermax like I did.
In an effort to break up the monotony, we attempted to throw a gift giving party for Snowflake Day. Unfortunately, I suspect the front gate caused it to glitch. There was a party in the end, but sadly, no gifts.
Instead, we made sure our big present to Eden was waiting in her room for to be discovered when she went upstairs for the night.
She was thrilled and spent most of the evening up there playing with her gumballs. She may have made herself sick in her enthusiasm. Downstairs, it was standard party trope. Grim made his customary appearance.
We don't know who she was, but she was accepting of her fate.
Emmett, having given up on trying to get any particular use out of his supernatural friend, was relaxing with her during the holiday before they began the process of attempting to free her.
Hiram and I stole away whenever possible for a few moments of quality time.
Ophelia badgered Mom about her new pumpkin pie recipe, requiring seven or eight different taste tests until Mom was about to burst.
And Sherlock practiced escapism.
The next morning, we all woke late, groggy and relaxed from a wonderful Snowflake Day. Eden must have gotten up early and taken off someplace. None of us were quite sure where she'd gone.
After a rather romantic Snowflake Day evening with my husband, he and I were less inclined to worry and assumed our little girl was out having another imagination-fuelled adventure on her own, though he did call and leave her a message to let us know where she was and when she'd be home.
Emmett had gone off to free his plump genie friend. He was successful, if not a bit charred by the incident.
He came home soon after to bathe away the soot. When we finally heard from Eden, we found out she had been distracted by her play in the snow when she stumbled upon a tiny, brightly colored bird. Eden says it's a lilac-breasted something or other. She begged to keep it.
Having no friends her own age to play with, we could hardly say no, but we did make her promise to keep very close attention to its food and water and to play with him and let him out every now and then. She named him Lancelot.
True to her word, Eden took very good care of Lancelot in the days that passed, even though the snow continued to fall too thick to allow her to go to school. Before long they were best friends.
She thinks I don't know where she really was that day, whether she stumbled onto Lancelot afterward or not. I spotted the vial on her desk right away. Her mother isn't a genius for nothing.
It's witch's brew. I have no idea how she got her hands on it, as I'm fairly sure the elixir shop doesn't sell to children. Now, being a supernatural fan myself and knowing that witchiness would not derail our dynasty, it hasn't caused quite the panic it might have to some other mothers. I haven't told anyone else in the family and Eden is sure it's her little secret. I have decided to let her make her own decision on the matter, though every day when I go and check, the vial is still there. Full.
I do wonder what the rest of the family would think. But they are all so very busy so much of the time, I can't imagine adding to their mental burdens.
Gran, for example, in addition to learning as much about cooking from Ophelia as possible, spends every spare moment with Sherlock. I'm so glad that we decided to get a pet to keep her company.
And of course there are the general woes of day to day life in the Classic household. Like Emmett dying.
Grim doesn't even bother with the speech anymore. He just looks around, realizes who he's here for, sighs, and restores the poor guy.
We think he's pretty exhausted with the whole thing. He ended up taking a nap on the floor.
But that could be because Emmett had the last rocking chair.
Eden will be a teen soon, and hopefully with the warmth of spring, she will start school and make friends like a normal girl. Soon the days of dollhouses and teddy bears and princess fantasies about a white knight with golden shoulder tassels (she's pretty fixated on that one) will all diffuse in favor of real boys and prom and maybe an after school club or two.
For now, I'm glad she's enjoying the time she has left in childhood. And I'm glad she has at least one friend that's all her own.
