I was raised to prepare for hurricanes and tornadoes. Snow and cold, it turns out, isn't necessarily noted anywhere as a natural disaster - but it should be. I keep asking Ricardo, "Seriously, have you ever lived in a winter like this before? Or is it just me?"
He assures me that uh, Yes - I'm a big wuss. Still, this winter is one of the worst he's ever experienced.
It all started with a white Christmas. Snowed in on Christmas. And although we weren't able to drive to our family Christmas - we had one snuggly family Christmas at home. It was pretty and fun.
The fun stopped the day after Christmas.
Day one - shoveling snow. I can't really explain shoveling snow. There's a process, and yes sometimes people (smart people) shovel while it's still snowing. That is to lessen the load later. Snow, it turns out, is heavy, and sometimes packed down and icy. The more snow you shovel, the better your odds of being able to get up your inclined driveway after surviving unplowed roads. And you need to do that, and then re-shovel once the snow stops. Our personal preference is to shovel every 4" of snow.
We help our neighbors get their driveways cleared. They come over later with a Thank You Ham. This nice thing is working out nicely.
Day two - Where are the snow plows? I can drive on my driveway, but that's about it. The kids have made a full on snowboarding/sledding slope with two separate tracks, and a ramp for take off. If they get a good enough go at it, they end up three yards away. I can't tell them to stay out of the street because there's no street.
Day three, or maybe it's four, I've lost time - Stupid snow plows. They finally came through, but when they plow the street, they plow snow back into your driveway. Grab a shovel. We announce to the kids that we're going out to shovel and they are welcome to join us if they want. Thanks to Santa - they are simply too busy with their video games, new movies and board games to even possibly think to shovel. I hide all the lighters and knives and go to work.What. Is. This? Ricardo explains that it's icy packed snow. Duh. He breaks it up and pushes it up the driveway for me to shovel into the yard. We're having to find more creative places to put the snow. We are literally pushing snow up hill...both ways.
I dig out our mailbox, and the neighbor's too. We can get out and drive now. I suppose we could go to the gym and all. But I just got a workout shoveling and snow-blowing for two hours. TWO HOURS. That is 12 points on my Weight Watchers plan. Guess I can have that ham after all.
Week two: It snowed again. Really its not safe to drive because of the 6' snow plowed up every where. So, you pull up to an intersection, look to see if it's clear to turn, and are greeted with a snow pile salutation. You could stick the nose of your car out a little further, but oncoming traffic isn't really in the position to tap the breaks - seeing as how they are driving on snow and ice.
Week three - Yay the kids go back to school and I can focus back on my awesome teaching skillz and writing that book, and blogness. Woops. Nope. School is canceled due to more snow.
Well, there's always tomorrow. Wait. Nope, the next day it's canceled again. This time, school is canceled just because wait for it...wait for it...IT'S TOO COLD OUT.
A part of me thinks the school guy who makes this call is being a big baby. Someone doesn't have their lesson plans ready. The kids are having a blast at home. They are starting to think that this snow will never melt, only accumulate, and there will be no more school ever again. Me too.
But the truth of it, the school guy who is making this call is considering the parents who send their kids to the bus stop. Standing in snow up to their thighs, while getting frost bite - well, it's frowned upon. So, no school. Did I mention we don't have bus service for our school?
Why is my house such a mess? Because it's never been more lived in than it has been for the last 3 weeks. About ten days into it, I decided to just go with it and stop nagging. It's a fire hazard here, now. Nagging has it's benefits. Still, I opt to clean when they go back to school. Whenever that may be.
Having twins is a lot of fun in a situation like this. They are each other's best friend. But they are also siblings. They bicker and tattle and fuss. Phrases like "Let's play a game" or "Let's bake something" are now being replaced with "Stop talking" and "Separate" and "Make Mommy another totty". The problem is half the time they fight. The other half of the time, they get along, and that's a problem too. I think they've just united in force against me.
The weather guy says its -5 out but it feels like -27. Don't you tell me what to feel mister weather guy. Its colder here than Antarctica. I checked. I surf travel deals to the equator. Fine, maybe just Mexico. Fine Texas. Oh just forget it, I'm going to take hot bath number 4 for the day.
The kids' school keeps getting canceled, but the schools I teach at do not. Getting a sitter when you work for the first couple of days is fine - but I've tapped out all my friends that I'd like to keep and Ricardo can't work from home. He needs to go to work to rest...
On Friday, I decide to risk hypothermia and frostbite to get to the pizza fun place.
Its so cold out and there is so much snow everywhere, piles and piles and piles of it. While we're hustling in - to avoid frostbite - I notice snow in the air. I can't tell if it's actually snowing, or just blowing remnants from the roofs or what. And then I realize that I don't care. All this time, I've been underestimating the value of painted parking space lines. But with a 3" layer of snow all over, I see now how, uh - creative and free-form people can express themselves through parking.
I just paid almost $100 for a pizza buffet and unlimited fun rides. I realize I got robbed and that's the price of an insured therapy session - but they don't serve diet coke and pizza, nor a dessert bar at therapy. And therapy doesn't understand that money indeed can buy happiness - and sanity - in the form of skee-ball and indoor go-karts. I try to find a way to justify this into our budget though. "Kids, get comfy. We're staying for lunch, snack and dinner." And we do. Its not as crowded here as I thought it would be. I figured everyone would be here. But it's fairly empty. Was it THAT bad to get them outside even for less than a minute? I'm starting to question my parental responsibility of my decision on getting the kids out in this when I see a kid in sandals with heels. Okay, I'm good. I'm a better mom. For sure. Worse than the kid in sandals is the kid with frostbite on her nose.
We finally made it to today. I dropped the kids off without even checking to see if school was open. I'm assuming it was based solely on the traffic. Maybe everyone else was doing the same.
Today it's supposed to get up to 30 degrees. Tomorrow and Wednesday - it'll be in the high 30s. It's a beautiful muddy mess. I'm thinking about re-shoveling the driveway in my bikini. I mean, the snow is blinding already, my skin would just blend right in.
That's how I roll.
If, by chance, I forget what this past holiday was all about, I simply need to reread your blog. Thank you P.S. You are a much more fun mom... I took my kids to Target to run around and play all day... You took yours to pizza land.