Waiting Patiently for Spring

This morning as I pulled my comforter closer to my chin I heard a child crying. I peeked under my window shad and watched the young mother across the street as she put her two little ones into their cold car seats and began scraping her windshield. They complained, with the language of babes, of being drug out of a warm bed in the middle of the winter.
My heart went out to all three of them and I thought of other working mothers who had to go through that process every morning.
When my children were little I was wealthy enough to stay at home with them. Wealthy enough to serve red beans and macaroni the last two days before payday, but we got by.
Winter drug on in Eastern Montana for months and by the time the children could be put in the fenced yard for an hour or two I was looking for employment in the classified sections.
Fifty years from now my grandchildren, who dash from their mother's warm car into the cozy school building for a warm breakfast before classes start will probably talk about the winter of "ought nine" when it was almost 20 below but there won't be any exaggerations of distances trekked across the frozen tundra in their twenty-first century stories.
I walked ten blocks to my school, not the legendary ten miles, but girls weren't allowed to wear jeans and we thought we were too old to wear long cotton stockings or snow suits so we dashed from one car dealer to the next, braving the wind chills that were not factored into the temperatures back then.
The elders say winters aren't what they used to be. They talk about the winter of 1954 when record breaking minus 70 was recorded on Roger's Pass as though it was typical. I do recall my transmission froze when the temperature dropped to minus 52 in 1957.
The milk, in glass bottles back then, was left on our porch each morning and as it froze it lifted the cardboard lids and the ice crystals of cream rose into the air. That was before clothes dryers and the sheets on the line froze stiff and then they were brought in to thaw by the stove. Kids who stuck their tongues on sleds knew better then to pull away from the metal and carried the sled home so someone could release them from their bondage with some warm water.
The winter of '78, 1978 that is, was brutal and my young son had an early morning paper route. I wish now that I had given him a ride around his route, but back then parents tried to raise their kids to be tough. I made hot chocolate to thaw him out before he walked to meet the school bus five blocks away.
Winter hangs heavy on the horizon these mornings. Ice crystals shimmer in the pink rays filtered through clouds tinted blue with sub-zero temperatures. These days I retreat behind the berms left by the faithful snowplow that terrorizes my cat. The squirrels that my husband feeds gather around the feeder and look toward the kitchen window where we sip our morning coffee.
We peer out into the world of white searching for the slightest signs of change. On clear days it is still daylight when the evening news begins. Valentine cards share space with St. Patrick's day in the greeting card section and some stores are even sporting pastel colors for kitchens and mothers.
The playground swings and slides are idle now, but will come to life with jump ropes and marbles in less than 60 days.