Wood County is well-populated with young families.
As of today, most of those families are parented by increasingly frantic moms and dads caught trying to
entertain snow-bound children who were already on the threshold of boredom days ago. After all, this
biggest of snowstorms in two decades, complete with unprecedented subpolar temperatures, struck right on
the tail-end of what was, for most, a two-week holiday break.
Children in many area school districts haven’t seen their classrooms since Dec. 20.
Pity Sarah Gerwin, a Bowling Green mother of three boys, ages 10, 8 and 4.
"In trying to prove (to the boys) that it’s not safe to be out in the snow," she has resorted
to a string of increasingly creative winter science experiments.
"We froze T-shirts last night."
Gerwin took T-shirts her sons had dampened with water, hung them outside and, sure enough, they froze
solid – "in approximately one minute, 18 seconds."
Which is a good thing because "I couldn’t stand to be out for two minutes in this cold."
By late morning Tuesday the lesson of Monday night had been forgotten and the boys were again begging to
go out into the minus-35 wind chill temperatures.
"To prove a point, I took boiling water and threw it up in the air. It basically evaporates" on
contact with the air "and looks like snow coming down."
Very impressive.
Unfortunately, 4-year-old Aaron still didn’t understand why mom could set foot outside and he couldn’t.

"I’m from the UK (United Kingdom) originally, and I don’t think my family and friends over there can
actually grasp 40-degrees-below, so we were actually videotaping the experiments and sending them by
Facebook. I think they have a better understanding now."
So, if playing in the yard is out of the question, just how have Aaron and his brothers Matthew and Ryan
been passing the time?

Gerwin said there have been lots of games of Mind Quest, plus "we have Kindles, and a great book we
got at Christmas that shows you all these ways to use your extra Legos pieces."
Her husband Scott works at the University of Toledo Medical Center and wasn’t able to get home at all
Monday night, so Gerwin has had solo parent duty.
"I’m about ready for a drink," she admitted.
Over at Steve and Terri Bateson’s home, there are three more boys looking for ways to pass the hours.
But in their case, both parents are at home.
"Normally, he’s very rarely home, so that’s been an adjustment in itself," Terri said of her
husband, a sales representative who spends a lot of time on the road.
"He’s getting to see a little bit of what I deal with."
Before the temperatures plummeted, the snow was actually a bonus for the Bateson boys, ages 12, 8, and
almost 5.
"They made a fort, they made a snow tunnel. They helped their dad shovel the driveway. But once the
bitterness set in, that’s when the chaos started."
"There’s lots of wrestling going on, they did a puzzle. We’re playing Go Fish right now."
Terri Bateson estimated "their attention span is 15 minutes, tops."
That’s also how long the boys can go before looking for something to eat.
It’s especially challenging keeping the kids happy together when they are such different ages, Bateson
noted.
"I had them make their own lunch today." The boys decided on mac-and-cheese.
Then she put on her no-nonsense hat.
"I made them clean their own bathroom."
Like Gerwin, Bateson has also channeled her inner scientist.
"A couple of people posted the recipe for snow ice cream on Facebook, so we did that."
Another experiment involved blowing bubbles outside and seeing them instantly crystallize.
"It takes just a few seconds. The only problem was, in Tuesday’s high wind "they were kind of
blowing away before we could really see them."
Grandparents can help pick up the slack, as in the Bateson family.
"For Christmas their grandparents got them an old-school Atari game," with its funny primitive
graphics from the Bateson parents’ era. It proved surprisingly entertaining.
Still, everyone agrees, they’re on borrowed time and the great thaw can’t come soon enough.