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"The school bus was stuck in a ditch. My kids and I were waiting for it at our Snow Routes bus stop, the one we drive to when the roads are too slick for the bus to ride up the mountain. So, the parents with four-wheel drive vehicles decided to trek across town to drop their kids off at school, while the rest of us went home instead. It was the start of a long day that would end with a much-deserved ice cream cake and pats on the back all around.  I barely made it back up the mountain to our house. A neighbor driving past us in a Trailblazer gave us a wide berth when she saw us slipping on the ice, hazard lights flashing with an expression that said, &amp;quot;Please don&amp;#039;t let us slide into the neighbor&amp;#039;s pool!&amp;quot;   When we got home, my kids started campaigning to go to school. One had a movie party, complete with popcorn, pizza and pajamas, that day. The other had two tests he didn&amp;#039;t want to have to make up the next week. And I had 100 pages of my book left to edit, due, oh, at 3 o&amp;#039;clock that afternoon.  I spent much of the first hour after starring in &amp;quot;Moms on Ice&amp;quot; on the phone. Reports came in about mini-vans like mine spinning out en route to the school, and children wiping out, backpacks first, at school bus stops throughout the neighborhood. I decided to negotiate with my neighbor, Anthony, who was also trying to work from home with kids underfoot.  &amp;quot;Later on, I&amp;#039;ll take your kids for two hours if you&amp;#039;ll take mine,&amp;quot; I offered, editing my book while we talked. He agreed, and I hung up the phone, praying that my kids, who were running around overhead, wouldn&amp;#039;t fall through my ceiling and onto my computer.  I edited just two pages when one son asked, &amp;quot;How do you spell &amp;#039;especially&amp;#039;?&amp;quot; I wrote it down for him, and he left. I edited another sentence when my other son dropped by to play his handheld video game on the floor by my desk. &amp;quot;Pling! Pow! Duh-do-duh-do!&amp;quot; sang his game. I was about to kick him out of my office when the phone rang again.  &amp;quot;Have you seen the road?&amp;quot; Anthony asked. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s sheer ice.&amp;quot; I went upstairs and confirmed the road was, indeed, covered in ice.  &amp;quot;Mom, come look at this!&amp;quot; my son announced. I hung up the phone and went to check out what he&amp;#039;d created on the computer. My other son asked, &amp;quot;Are we going to school?&amp;quot;  I called my husband at work. &amp;quot;How are the roads?&amp;quot; He seemed perplexed as to why I&amp;#039;d ask such a silly question.  &amp;quot;Fine,&amp;quot; he answered. &amp;quot;Why?&amp;quot;  I told him about the bus in the ditch and my car sliding practically sideways up the mountain and the kids at home and how to spell &amp;quot;especially&amp;quot; and the &amp;quot;Pling! Pow!&amp;quot; and Anthony and the 98 pages I had left to edit by my deadline that very day.   Turns out, the icing had started after he left for work and was pretty much limited to a two-mile radius from our house. You know, between here and the school.   I hung up, and the phone rang again. It was the cavalry: My neighbor, Ken, offered to drive my kids and Anthony&amp;#039;s to school, even though he&amp;#039;d already made that trip with his son two hours earlier. The kids scrambled to get ready, and I opened the garage door to find my hero, not on a white horse, but in a white Pacifica with four-wheel drive.   That afternoon, I finished my book, and the kids brought home good report cards. We decided to celebrate by buying an ice cream cake. The roads had finally cleared.  &amp;quot;What should we have written on it?&amp;quot; I asked my son.  &amp;quot;Way to go, us,&amp;quot; he replied.  For dessert that night, we ate big slices of our cake in honor of our big accomplishments. But really, we were celebrating something smaller \u2013 making it through a day that had started with the school bus in a ditch, a mini-van on ice and a whole lot to do ahead of us. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a2314/good-grief-021208/?src=shelter_footer>