[Aylwen Dreamsong]

Jolanna woke to the sound of creaking wooden boards and excited giggles. Jolanna rolled over in her bed and grumbled as she looked out of her window to see nothing but white. The mother groaned and cursed the snow that covered the ground; it was what woke her children up so early. But Jolanna knew the drill: her son Evrett and her daughter Aedre would come running into her room and jump on their mother’s bed screaming about the snow. This would wake their baby brother up from his crib next to Jolanna’s bed, and another snow day would begin like every other one before it.

Like clockwork, the sounds of footsteps loud as a heard of Oliphaunts coming down the stairs became like a roar in Jolanna’s ears. Counting the seconds, Jolanna closed her eyes at the exact moment when Aedre and Evrett came bursting into her room. And, like clockwork again, Aedre began jumping on her mother’s bed though she knew she was far too old for such a thing. Evrett began doing some sort of silly dance around the bed. The whoops and hollers of joy came at just the precise moment, and so did the cries of the six-month old baby next to Jolanna’s bed.

“Mama, mama, mama, mama!” Aedre sang out of tune as she stopped hopping on the bed. Jolanna sat up and smiled her sweetest smile to her children; after all, they wouldn’t stay children forever. Evrett stopped dancing as well, and both of Jolanna’s children enveloped her in a big hug. Jolanna smiled and kissed Aedre and Evrett on the cheek, and to Jolanna’s pleasant surprise the baby stopped wailing and proceeded to simply sniffle and gurgle happily in his crib.

“Now darlings,” Jolanna began, and Aedre put a sour look on her face and Evrett was obviously preparing himself for the lecture his mother was certainly about to give. “Aren’t you two a little old for this? Aedre, you’re fourteen, and even that scrawny little body of yours is getting too big for this old bed. Evrett, that energy you just spent dancing like a fool could have been better spent finding yourself a nice girl to bring home.”

It was clear that by the end of her speech Jolanna had lost the fourteen-year old girl and the almost seventeen-year-old boy to boredom. Jolanna sighed and smiled again, and decided not to bother since nothing she could say could change her children’s minds about the snow outside.

“Mama,” Aedre murmured, finally looking up at her mother and snapping out of her trance.

“Yes?”

“Your hair makes you look like a porky-pine,” Aedre pointed out, taking a strand of her mother’s gold-brown hair. Looking in the mirror stationed on the wall across from her bed, Jolanna laughed. Her usually neat and tidy hair was sticking strait up in the back and was tangled everywhere besides. Aedre was right, her mother looked just like a porcupine.

“You’re absolutely right,” Jolanna agreed as she stood from her bed and picked up her baby in her arms. She led Aedre and Evrett to the kitchen and cooked them a quick breakfast (it was supposed to keep them too stuffed to go outside, but as per usual this plan failed and they ate their food like machines) before going into the closet to help them get their snow clothes. As she helped her children, Jolanna sighed; they certainly took after their father. Aedre and Evrett both had his curly, dark brown hair and Aedre had his coal-black eyes while Evrett had inherited his stubborn chin. They were fine children; their father would have been proud.

Aedre protested to the scarf and hat made by her mother, but her brother insisted that he didn’t want his sister turning into a human icicle. Aedre gave in, and when both were covered from head to toe in warm jackets, mittens, scarves, hats, and special boots that were almost too small for Aedre’s growing feet, Jolanna deemed them ready for snow playing.

“Come back in if you get too cold, and come back in at noon time regardless!” Jolanna cried as her children ran out into the cold air. Neither of them acknowledged her words, and Jolanna put her hand on her hip. “Did you two hear me?”

“Ouch! Evrett, no throwing snowballs at the head!” Aedre shouted, and Jolanna rolled her eyes before closing the door and seeing to her baby boy.

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 12:01 AM December 15, 2003: Message edited by: Aylwen Dreamsong ]