Snow Day.

Even the happiest packs can feel confining.

My husband and I ran away from home for a few days last week.  I highly recommend it.  We drove to East Tennessee, with sacks of books and our cameras, for a two-night feast of reading, fireplace-gazing, sleeping in, and talking over very long dinners.

Our truancy was rewarded by a major ice storm the morning we were set to leave.  The road out was closed altogether.  No one could safely drive home that day. What else could we do?

More coffee, of course.  No day like a snow day.

That’s Not Helping.

This woman gave birth one month ago.

She’s stunning, of course.  But for merely mortal mothers, this is not helpful. Instead, I draw inspiration from the great moms of literature.  Like these:

Sal’s mother has a real J.Crew-meets-Etsy-Vintage vibe that works for most of us.  Note the chic choppy bob and her sheer cheek color, from her afternoon out rescuing Sal from blueberry-drunk bears.

Here, Olivia’s mother wears a day-to-evening sheath, which adds authority to her bedtime negotiations.  By day, she’ll out-shine the other moms (“Is she working again?”) on her urban school run and, perhaps, be photographed for a street-style blog.  She also knows how to get on with the business of wearing a bathing suit, even when she might rather not.  Similar sunglasses by The Row now available at Barneys New York and Net-A-Porter.

For dressing up, it’s hard to beat the mother of Iggy Peck, Architect.  She’s like Edie Sedgwick married to a banker instead of mooning after Warhol. Love how the haircut complements her look of constant consternation.  Now, that’s real mom style.

She also wins the prize for fully committing to date night.

Finally, a word about accessories.  One great statement piece can really make an outfit, define your personal style, and lift your spirits.  None better than this knockout necklace on Ferdinand’s mom:

Most covetable of all, that smile from knowing she’s “an understanding mother, even though she was a cow.”  I vote we all aspire to that.

Better Late.

I didn’t get Christmas all done on time.  About thirty cards are left unmailed. The new ornaments I bought for my boys’ collections spent the season in the wilderness under my desk and are now in the attic, still in their store wrapping. A few presents for friends and teachers sit undelivered on the dining room table.  And we never made the gingerbread house, despite plans to build it on the first day of the school holiday, then on Christmas Eve, then on the last day of the school holiday, then on Twelfth Night, last Saturday. We even pledged to make it yesterday, but wandered off to do homework instead.  The gingerbread house became one of those sad projects just shunted from one counter to another, too complicated to slide into the schedule but too seductive to throw away.

Until today.

On the way to school this morning, I fell into the heroic trap of promising my youngest son — my greatest gingerbread partisan — that today, yes, today would be the day.  We would build that house after school, even before he did his reading homework or practiced violin. We would build it before we ate dinner together.  We would build it, definitely.  Nothing would stand in our way.  Except that the boys had already eaten the original stash of candy I bought for the job last month.   Would Walgreen’s even stock that much red dye and high fructose corn syrup after New Year’s?

Lucky for us, they do.

Here, the finished product.

See that swedish fish installed over the imaginary fireplace?  My son says the second roof panel must open, so the viewer can see inside. My assignment is to rig a roof-hinging mechanism out of royal icing and gumdrops.  Maybe tomorrow.

Today, I’m just enjoying the taste of fun delayed.

Commit.

Ready or not, it’s time to dig back in to the ordinary, with passion.

The way my son hunts stink bugs.