Eric Brady | The Roanoke Times

Ruth Davis-Leonard, 18, takes care of her grandmother Shirley Wood during snow days when Roanoke Valley Christian School closes. Wood normally goes to an adult day care center when Ruth and her family go to school and work, but bad weather closes the center as well as the schools.

Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

Siliaga Leomiti (left), Michelle Arnise Ashley Duncan, Symone Kirkland, Brittany Nychelle Carter, Kristen Murphy and Latavia Jones sing in the Teen Center Community Room at the Kirk Family YMCA in Roanoke to pass the time on a day that many schools closed under the threat of bad weather.

Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

Kids race the length of a basketball court during a game of "poop deck" at the Kirk Family YMCA in Roanoke. The YMCA expands its after-school program when the schools are closed.

Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

Grayson Counts, 6, from Highland Park Elementary, spends his snow day Tuesday swimming at the Kirk Family YMCA in Roanoke. The YMCA hosts "Magic Days" when weather closes the schools.

A school snow day still puts fear into the heart of Natalie Leonard -- even though her youngest daughter is a high school senior.

Instead of wondering who will take care of her children, Leonard needs someone to take care of her 71-year-old mother, who lives with her and can't stay home alone.

It's a scenario that parents and caregivers of all kinds juggled on Tuesday as freezing rain -- or rather, the fear of it -- closed most schools in the Roanoke and New River valleys.

"I was biting bullets this morning," said Leonard, a Roanoke nurse, when she heard that the Adult Care Center of Roanoke Valley was closed because of weather.

Because her daughter's school was also closed, 18-year-old Ruth Davis-Leonard was available to stay with her insulin-dependent grandmother, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease.

It reminded Leonard of the old days, back when her daughters were young and she was newly widowed. With no relatives in town, she was often forced to take her daughters to work with her on snow days. Sitting around a conference table at Blue Ridge Behavioral Healthcare, they watched videos and played with fellow staffers on break.

"They thought it was the greatest thing in the world on snow days to get in the car and go to work with Mom," Leonard recalled.

Not all workplaces welcome young children, of course. Rita Brandon, a service banker for Wells Fargo & Co. (formerly Wachovia Corp.), took a paid-time-off day Tuesday in order to make sure her three youngest children were covered.

Her oldest, a 17-year-old, could have watched the younger ones, but she still had classes to attend via her dual-enrollment program at Jefferson College of Health Sciences.

"I used to have a lot of PTO [paid time off] when it was just Wachovia, but since the merger with Wells Fargo, it's different," leaving her with a reduced pool of hours dedicated to both sick time and PTO, she said.

"I really didn't want to have to take the day off -- not for rain, especially," Brandon said.

But that's a strategy that most parents employ for weather-related school closings, said Jackie Grant, associate director of the YMCA of Roanoke Valley. Magic Place, the Y's after-school program, expanded its hours Tuesday for enrolled children whose parents couldn't take the day off -- an event the Y refers to as Magic Days.

On Monday, a Roanoke City Public Schools teacher workday, the program looked after 160 children, ages 4 to 12. But with the uncertainty of Tuesday's forecast, about 100 used the Magic Days option.

"Because they were anticipating freezing rain later in the day, I think most parents who could just took the day off work," Grant said.

Or, if they could, worked at home. Others were lucky enough to call a grandparent or neighbor for help.

Like most parents, Julie and Mitch Wheeler have tried it all -- including taking their two children to work with them. "This is the first time our kids have actually stayed at home by themselves on a snow day," said Mitch Wheeler, who runs Wheeler's Fast Service Laundry & Cleaning and had just returned from a half-hour run to the family's nearby house to check on the kids.

His wife had left 10-year-old Mason and 9-year-old Vince a detailed list of things they had to accomplish before they could play video or computer games -- including homework and practicing the violin (Mason) and cello (Vince).

As an employer, Wheeler allows employees to bring their children to work with them if they can't find an alternate arrangement.

"You want to be flexible with good employees; a lot of these people, they can't afford to miss a day, especially in this economy," he said. "By the same token, you don't want to get backed up to where you can't get all the work done ... or have a whole lot of kids running around."

Although no one brought their kids to work at Wheeler's on Tuesday, Wheeler said a few employees did "mysteriously" call in sick.

"Some of them live in surrounding areas and I guess they were afraid to come in," he said. "I'd rather them not come in than risk it and get hurt."

It's a delicate balancing act, made all the more frustrating because of Tuesday's decided lack of snow or even freezing rain in Roanoke.

"Kids are out of school for no apparent reason," one Roanoke mother ranted on her Facebook page. To which another responded: "Snow days are more fun with snow!"

Sue Nutter, who runs the Adult Care Center, said she sympathized with school administrators who have to make pre-dawn decisions based on anticipated weather. "I was up at 5 o'clock today; I dread having to make that call," she said.

"We all know people have to work, but yet we don't want anybody to be hurt."