Friday, January 25, 2013

More winter goodness

It is frigid here in Maryland, the kind of cold that makes you not want to leave your house.  The kind of cold that causes your heat to run all day long.  The kind of cold that seeps in from the crack under the front door, a crack so big I'm starting to think that's where all those birds flew in from, and freezes my brain to the point where I can't possibly function anymore.  The good news is we're getting a new front door soon.  Oh, and the other good news is that the cold brought along some snow, with more to come this evening!

Girlfriend loves the snow! She likes to walk around in her boots just in case I happen to leave a door open.
Yup, all Wednesday my phone was going haywire with "severe winter weather" alerts.  All was calm when we went to bed that night, but we woke up Thursday morning to a whopping two inches outside!!  The world was chaos, Jack's school was delayed, Jon went into work late and it took him four times as long to get there since he had to steer around all the accidents.  The plow never came to our road so now we have two inches of snow that's packed down and refrozen.  Unfortunately, my new momivan doesn't have 4WD, but it does have this handy-dandy light that comes on when the roads are slippery.  You know, in case you're not aware that your car is careening to the right, swerving to the left, sliding despite the brakes ... well, the car will tell you.  Personally, I think they should have made such an alert system outside the car - flashing lights, a siren, and loudspeaker saying "Outta control, outta control!"  But sadly I never pursued my passion of auto design.  I digress.

This is what happens when we can't go outside.
 Meanwhile the severe weather alerts have started back up again and we're hunkering down this evening in preparation for ... wait for it, 1-3 inches!!!  All I know is I better run to the grocery store this afternoon with the rest of the population to stock up on bread and milk.

I think this couch is on it's last winter, every week I have to shove my hand into one of its many holes to retrieve a pile of food and Legos...
Oh Pennsylvania, how I miss thee!  Your roads may be bad but your snow removal efforts are not!

Life has, in a good way, been fairly uneventful this week.  I will share one exciting moment - I changed the sheets on the boys' bed.  But not just any sheets. I dug out the Thomas the Train set that came with the bunk bed when we got it at a yard sale.  I was a little behind on laundry and wanted to go ahead and make the bed, so I slapped those babies on Jack's bunk without considering the drama that could ensue.  Namely that Jude just kinda loves Thomas right now.  I mean, the kid was ecstatic about "Thomas sheets." Unfortunately, his bed is a double so they wouldn't have fit anyway.  But then I made the mistake of letting him take a nap in Jack's bed that day since his sheets weren't dry yet.  Now Jude seems to think he has the right to sleep in Jack's bed any time he wants to.  The sheets are cool and all, but it's the pillow case that's the real kicker.  A huge Thomas the Train face that you can rest your tired little head on.  Of course, Jude's crazy about it.  Every night he tries to bargain with Jack to trade him pillows.  This usually results in an after-hours slinging back and forth of pillows that has very little to do with who gets Thomas and much more to do with who can knock the other guy out with his pillow.  Argh, bedtime has taken on a new twist.

It may look like he's really concentrating, but actually he's just watching advertisements and game trailers.  If I hear one more commercial for Kids Bop 20 I'll scream.
It's actually gotten more difficult lately to put the boys to bed.  And by boys I really mean Jude.  Jack is ready for bed at 7pm on the dot.  Oh he'll throw a fit the whole way there, but once he's snuggled under his sheets and blankets (yes, there are multiples and yes he has a specific order that he likes them to be placed on himself) he can barely keep his eyes open.  If Jude would stay quiet for a hot second Jack would fall asleep in the blink of an eye.  But that's usually not the case, since Jude still takes an excellent afternoon nap and is just gearing up for the evening about the time we're ready for him to go to bed.  We're still not sure how we're going to do room situations once the new baby gets here, but my thought of putting Julia in with the boys is looking a little less appealing.

This looks much worse than it was.

See totally fine, she's laughing.  ... I told Jack not to try it again.
Anyway, once Jack does manage to fall asleep Jude is still going strong.  He's got a whole bag of tricks that he regularly uses to get out of bed.  The most impressive is his ability to poop on demand.  He knows that having to go pee-pee won't work, since we make them both go before bed.  But if he insists he has to poop - that's a ticket to freedom.  And he usually can, it takes a lot of work and grunting but his efforts typically earn him an extra 10 minutes of wake-time.  Of course, there's the old "I need a drink of water" trick, or he'll complain about the night light - he wants it on, he wants it off, he wants a different light on ..., he'll say he wants to sleep in our bed instead, he'll say his pillow is wet, and his newest attempt - "Mommmyyyy, there's a hole in my bed!!"  We're on our third night of this one.  It's true, there is a hole in his bed.  In fact there's about 30 of them.  It's where the screws go, kid.

Helping me make brownies.

She looks so big in these photos, I can almost picture us having another baby ... Oh wait, we are.
And in one last burst of exciting news, I got a shower today.  Okay, just kidding, that's not news at all.  And I know the "Mommy never has a chance to get a shower" joke is over done.  It's just that, when I think about how difficult I found personal hygiene - brushing my teeth, washing my face, taking a shower, dude even just trying to put on lotion this time of year!! - when I just had Jack ... well with three little ones things have gone to a whole different level.  For the past 4.5 years my main goal in life has been to wake up before my kids.  This usually goes well for a while and then my littlest starts teething or going through some other early-morning stage, or I get pregnant and need more sleep, or I have a newborn and need more sleep, or I get sick and need more sleep ... you get the idea.  The fact of the matter is, everything goes more smoothly when Mama is up and around first.

Totally in to tooth-brushing right now.
Today that didn't happen and I got tired of waiting for my late-riser to get around so I could turn on the TV and score a quick shower.  Eventually I gave up on Jack, left him to figure out things on his own and led Julia into the bathroom where she typically empties all the drawers and plays with whatever she can find in the trash can while I nab a shower ... at least I can keep an eye on her there.  Anyway about halfway through   washing my hair Jack comes running into the bathroom half-naked and starts yelling something along the lines of "Mom, I just had a BIG, BIG POOPS. And it was so big I needed a lot of toilet paper to wipe the BIG POOPS and I put it in the toilet and now (eyes wide, jazz hands by his ears, jumping up and down) IT'S CLOGGED!!!" I'm still trying to make sense of this all through the fogged glass shower door and by the time I yell "No, stop I'll take care of it!" he's already run out of ear shot, dragging the plunger behind him.  It wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't immediately see Julia's ears perk up as she toddled off after him. I could just picture him next door, plunging away at the BIG, BIG POOPS while Sister jumped in with both her "helping hands" to get the job done.  It was enough to make me skip shaving my legs and head right on over to the kids bathroom.  By the time I got there toilet plunging had already lost its luster for Jack, and Julia, although sitting and staring at the toilet, appeared to still be dry.  And so, since it's a Friday and the family member who typically takes care of toilet issues was at work, I had to take care of it.  Still in a towel, hair dripping a puddle around me, plunging away at Jack's BIG, BIG POOPS and overcompensated amounts of toilet paper.  Which of course did wonders for my morning nausea.  I immediately rewarded myself with a second breakfast so as to not risk losing the first.

Well, I think that's enough excitement for now.  It's Friday, the sky is threatening snow, I've got a pile of towels shoved in the crack under my front door, Jude's fast asleep in his "holey" bed, the couch cushions are all in their proper place and will stay there until after naptime, and my handsome plumber will be around the entire weekend should any further toilet mishaps occur.  Life looks good!

1 comment:

Offshorecpa said...

Hysterical post!!! I even laughed at the toilet humor, which is unusual for me.

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