For the past few weeks, here in Icebox, Illinois we’ve been locked in a deep freeze, highs hovering just above zero, windchills of the -25 degrees F variety, and accumulated snow fall of around two feet.  When I run, I wear five layers on my top half, two pairs of gloves, polar tec leggings, three layers on my head, and Aquaphor on any exposed skin on my face.  It’s frickin’ cold.

Despite loathing the cold with every last organ, tendon, muscle, nerve, and cell of my being, under duress I will admit that it’s not all bad.  My kids and I have had lots of quality inside time together.

For example, it’s Sunday morning, and I see The Watsons Go to Birmingham–1963 in our stack of library books.  While the story is based on a tragic moment in American history, it begins humorously in Flint, Michigan in the middle of a deep freeze much like the one we’re experiencing right now.  I snuggle on the couch and my kids color while I read to them about a family bantering as they shiver, packed together under piles of blankets, in their apartment where the heating system can’t keep up with the cold.

I read about the mean tricks big brother Byron had played on the narrator, Kenny, a few days before.  We see how narcissistic and self-centered Byron is.  We hear about how Kenny is asked to go outside with his brother to scrape the thick ice off their car’s windows.  And then we witness the ultimate act of karma as Byron, fooling around, decides to kiss his reflection in the car’s side mirror…and gets his lips stuck to the freezing cold metal, the abused Kenny the only one who can save him.

Fast forward about four hours, two meltdowns, three fights, and one mommy mini-breakdown later, and I decide that -25 degree wind chills or not, my kids need to go outside.  Even if we only walk around the block.  So, we spend ten minutes bundling up, covering as much skin as we can, and fighting about whether L. really needs to wear socks inside his snow boots and whether B. really needs to put pants on over her underwear.  The dog, 50+ pounds of Husky/Lab, is leaping with joy after two days of being outside only to pee and poo.

Finally, we make it outside.  We walk down the street, straight into the wind.  It is bitterly cold.  L. and B. are whining, the dog is yanking my arm off going crazy in the snow, and I’m desperately trying to stay on my feet.  The kids disappear out of my field of vision while I watch the dog dig an impressively massive hole in a deep snowbank.  I finally entice the dog away from her masterpiece, and I see my kids down the block.  As I get close, I hear L. say, “Now I know what happens when I do that.”  I’m not paying much attention.  The dog is currently trying to dislocate my arm by leaping a four foot snow pile to dig another hole.

A minute later, L. stops and spits in the snow.  The spit is red.  “I’m bleeding,” he says in disbelief, touching his finger to his tongue. 

“Are you ok?!” I ask, hauling the dog away from a pile of poo on the sidewalk (pretty sure it’s not hers).  “What happened?”

“I touched my tongue to the stop sign post, and now my tongue is bleeding!” he says.  Tears would be flowing, but it’s too damn cold.

I close my eyes, tilt my face to the sky, and bite my lip.  When I’m certain I won’t laugh or scold, I kneel down on the sidewalk and look at my son’s tongue.  It’s definitely bleeding, and the entire tip area is an angry red.  I wipe away his frozen tears, briefly commiserate (-25 degree windchills, remember) and move us along on our walk.

As I fight with the snow and my dog and corral two kids along icy sidewalks, I think shallow, scattered thoughts about the purpose of literature.  Supposedly, we’re to learn from stories, read about others’ experiences without living them ourselves, and so forth and so on.  Right?

Apparently, L. is thinking about The Watsons Go to Birmingham, too.  About 200 feet from home, he says, “Thanks a lot for reading me that book, Mom,” stinging sarcasm dripping from his wounded tongue.

I snort.  “You can lead a horse to water, L., but you can’t make him drink,” I say.

He crosses his arms defensively.  “What does that mean?”

I grab him in a side hug while the dog lunges into yet another giant mound of snow.  “It means that people are responsible for their own actions, no matter what kind of chances they’re given.”

“Hmph,” he says, sounding exactly like a disgruntled book character.

He’s quite for a few steps, and then he says, “Mom?  Licking the stop sign was my fault.  Can we read more of the book when we get home?”

I smile.  Maybe a lesson was learned after all.