Oh, S'No!

It would have been nice to wake up to a little bit of this on my doorstep this morning:

Spring!

But instead, I woke up to the collective groan of the good people of Buffalo, New York who had just discovered upon clearing the sleep from their eyes that it snowed. Again. It's old news. But, I'm not going to complain. I just wish that I had the jaunty optimism, the rosy outlook, the song in my heart to embrace it. I  wish I could be Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen on the train to Vermont in White Christmas nuzzling the images of snow with their song. 

                          

Sadly for the lovely, little traveling quartet, there was nary a snowflake on the ground when they arrived in Vermont. If only their train had been diverted to Buffalo. In March.

Mountains Out of Snow Hills

This is an old picture from an old storm. We were supposed to get 2 feet of snow on Tuesday night. We felt like a kids on Christmas Eve, waiting for the storm of the century to arrive- bringing with it an epic blast of snow. Staying awake listening for the tinkling of snowflakes on the rooftop. But all we got was a 2 am wake up to the tune of the most annoying hail pelting our window. And, this has officially ended what little love I have for winter.

When we arrive at this point in winter- when the snow no longer holds its White Christmas charms, I tend to fall into a state of complacency. I hibernate. And because I am not expending energy outside of my home- involved in activities in my community, I tend to become impossibly absorbed in my everyday routine and make mountains out of little snow hills when my groove is disrupted.

It is Murphy’s Law that on Monday nights while The Mr. and First Born Son are at soccer training anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Here is a snapshot from a this past Monday:

My cupboards actually look much worse than that.

It is near bedtime for The Baby. On one hip, I am holding a her- cranky from having been freshly injected with her one year old vaccines. I am trying with my one free hand to prepare an awkwardly shaped sippy cup with a split formula, whole milk blend (because we are transitioning to cow’s milk). I open the cupboard to return the formula canister to the shelf only to find that magically it no longer has a spot. The lid is loose because, in my haste, my free hand has not pressed the seal securely. I feel the overwhelming need, despite The Baby’s protests and impatience from being kept from her cup of milk, to organize (again, with one hand) the cans, boxes of rice and pasta, drinking glasses, water bottles and measuring utensils which co-inhabit the three shelves. I curse aloud at Monday nights and the temporary, but immediate, feeling of abandonment. The children who are “exercising” on the Wii Fit in the other room ignore my call for back up as I can sense the contents of the shelf start to shift and take on life. As I move the colorful plastic wine glasses (remnants of my Nana’s kitchen), they fall apart at the base and I fling them about on the counter. They knock over the can of formula making it spill across the stove top. An avalanche of canned goods begins to roll toward us. A can of pears falls from the second shelf and lands somewhere on the first shelf knocking a drinking glass onto the ceramic tiled counter. The glass shatters into a million tiny bits. I demand that H come and retrieve the baby so I can vacuum up the invisible pieces of glass. As I am maneuvering the hose around the little containers on the countertop which hold miscellaneous items, I suck up two vials of homeopathic remedies. I dig them out from the dusty, hairy, glass ridden trap with my fingers. Cursing all the way. 

In my storm of frustration, I pull out my cell phone and call The Mr. and whimper and complain like a brat about how much I hate Mondays (and bedtime). And, in the middle of my melt down, the home phone rings. I can’t get out of the tangle of the vacuum cord, so the answering machine picks up. Although I can not make out the words- I recognize the voice, my friend, A, who lives in Connecticut. I stand still and hold my breath, reading her tone. It is cheery, upbeat. A good sign. Princess Commando brings me the phone and I play back the message. It is news that puts me in my place and slaps the grumbling out of me. She had her lumpectomy today. Everything went well. All clear. No. More. Cancer. My friend, a mother of three boys, has had every reason to curse and whine and feel troubled over every day from Monday through Sunday. But, she has, instead, chosen to remain positive and appreciative since the moment she was diagnosed.

It is so easy to get lost in the immediacy of a disordered moment-to lose perspective- to place too much importance on unimportant things. It is necessary for me to be shaken into awareness every so often in winter- to be reminded of the world outside this insulated cave. A news story, or a post from a fellow blogger alerting to some unfortunate accident or illness, a phone call with good news -affirming health and life- will light a fire under my fiercest emotions of love and compassion, enlivening the spirit of holding the ones I hold dear even nearer to my heart. And, as the first buds of green that I have been so longing for appear in Spring, I will emerge from the cave with a refreshed sense of consciousness and gratitude.

Only, I Didn't Say Fudge

Ain't No Half Steppin on My Snow!

I have not been able to write in a while because I cannot get my thoughts together. Visions of sugar plums keep occupying the small space left in my brain that isn’t observed by holiday anxiety, the maintenance of children’s schedules and fulfillment of their needs, the lists of things to do and the list of things that won’t get done for a very long time. So, the best I can offer is randomness.

We live in Buffalo, NY. We have a negative reputation for miserable, snow burdened winters. Really, it’s not that bad. Aside from the frigid snowstorm in the middle of the night while we dashed off to the hospital to birth The Baby on January 28th- there hasn’t been a notable snowfall around the metro area for years. We did have a freak snowstorm in October 2006- which was dubbed Arborgeddon because of its widespread destruction of trees in the city and surrounding suburbs. The two “snow days” we’ve had thus far this school year held nary a flake to the ground in North Buffalo. Our south towns got hammered (we draw a large portion of our students from South Buffalo; so, the school closings were due to transportation issues for that area). This week we were finally awarded what I consider our first real snowfall of the season. Beautiful, fluffy flakes marched down in bands, blanketing the sheet of ice on the streets- making a gorgeous but treacherous scene.  But, I have no motivation to escape the confines of my home to partake in the wonders outdoors.

I have a hopeless need to hibernate this time of year. I am happy to enjoy the view from inside. Fortunately, the children- who adore winter weather- are old enough to not need my looming supervision. I can superintend from the front windows-occasionally admonishing them when they venture too close to the street or pelt each other too enthusiastically with snow balls.  Anyway, the gloomier the weather, the heavier the snow, the icier the streets, it is all the better for the guilt that nags at me for not participating in the season’s hibernal offerings. I have very little faith in our weatherman (my hair is more adept at predicting changes in the weather than he is). But, when he drolly says, “It’s a cold one. If you don’t need to go out, stay indoors!” I follow his advice.

My moments of bad conscience stir again when I realize that the baby has been trapped indoors with me for days without a spark of new, external stimulation. But, I think being sequestered in our home hasn’t done too much damage because she has used the time to develop a new skill- taking drunken unassisted steps. She can run agilely along the furniture and walls with just a fingertip’s contact for support. When she is impelled to let go, she continues to run a few steps until she crashes into furniture or the Christmas tree. She’s not content to walk, she needs to run. Ain’t no half steppin for my kid (I realized today that she takes just enough steps to tap out that gem of a lyric from Heatwave. Now the song is stuck in my head). And, soon enough, she will be like the Gingerbread baby, taunting, “Run, run as fast as you can…” And, by that point, she may have worn me down just enough that I will let her keep running over the river and through the woods until that sly fox comes into view. Then I’ll intervene.

And speaking of intervening and more guilt, H in a last ditch effort to defend himself against First Born Son’s obnoxious, relentless teasing at dinner last night, told his brother to “Fudge off!” Only he, of course, didn’t say fudge. I am the worst offender of the F bomb. I grew up in a no swearing household. I was always respectful with my tone and my choice of words- even in moments of excruciating pain or anger. Something happened when I had children. In order to quell the moments of overwhelming anxiety or deep frustration in parenting, I would let loose an expletive or three. It was a release that kept me feeling grounded so that I would not lose my mind in those moments. I realize that it is terribly wrong. I’ve tried- I’ve really, really tried to stop- to exchange the unsavory words for others. But, nothing feels as good to say. And nothing feels so awful to hear coming out of your 11 year old’s mouth. My dinner literally turned in my stomach. But, I did not react. The Mr. took care of that. The gentle, mild mannered, non-cussing Mr. snapped, “That is not acceptable! It is not ok even if your mother does it.” I lowered my head in shame. If I had any money to my name, I would certainly put a quarter in a jar each time I unleashed an ugly word. I could create a healthy college savings fund for the children by my cussing alone. But, alas, my piggy bank is bare, so, I must settle for a New Year’s Resolution- to will myself to bury those words and set a good example. The Baby is absorbing things at a rapid rate. If the F bomb sounds disgusting coming from an 11 year old, it can only kill innocent kittens and puppies if it passes a baby’s lips. 

And, one final note relating to fudge, I will be up to my elbows in cookie baking and, yes, fudge making next week preparing for a little Christmas party I promised Princess Commando we would host for the neighborhood kids next Thursday after school. It’s too bad I don’t have a clue how to set up our video camera. If I did you would be able to watch live streaming video of true three o’clock craziness.