First Snow

By Susan Sisk

I love mother; she loves me (Children’s Songbook, page 198).

Every morning Zach looked outside to see if it had snowed. “Will it snow today, Mommy?” he asked.

“I’m afraid not—the first snow is late this year.” Mommy hugged him sympathetically. She knew that Zach wanted to play in the snow.

It hadn’t snowed in November or so far in December. A week before Christmas, Zach looked out the window and sighed. He wanted to build a snowman and run all over the backyard and leave his footprints in the snow before he went to bed. “But there still isn’t any snow,” he said sadly to himself.

Mommy heard him. She thought about the dishes in the sink and the ironing she had planned to do. Zach is more important, she decided. “Let’s pretend that there is snow and go out and play in the backyard,” she said. She got out their coats and boots and mittens.

Zach and Mommy stomped all over the backyard, pretending to make footprints in the snow. “What big feet you have!” Mommy exclaimed. That made Zach laugh.

They rolled invisible snowballs around the yard and put them together to make a make-believe snowman. Then they went inside to drink hot cocoa and admire their snowman through the kitchen window.

Just as Mommy asked, “Did you have fun today?” a snowflake drifted past the window. Soon there were lots and lots of snowflakes falling faster and faster.

Zach said, “It’s fun to pretend, but”—he gave Mommy a big smile—“it will be even more fun tomorrow, when we make a real snowman!”

Mommy looked at the dishes in the sink and the pile of ironing. Then she looked out the window at the snow and smiled back. “You know,” she said, “I think so too!”

Illustrated by Shauna Mooney Kawasaki