Snow Day!

I remember one year in elementary school when my little hometown was struck by a series of snow/ice storms over about a two weeks span. If memory serves me correct, these storms hit directly after Christmas break that year.

School was cancelled for about two weeks.

At the time, it seemed to be nothing short of a miracle. No school, an abundance of Christmas toys to enjoy, and mounds of snow to stomp around in.

Now as I look back upon that time I simply mutter, "Bless my mother's heart." How did she keep her sanity with three kids (and various neighborhood children) underfoot in such weather?

Today is a snow day here at casa de phillips, albeit there is not any snow nor is there really any ice. But we have decided to follow local officials advisement and stay tucked inside today.

Such local officials don't spend much time indoors in the winter with small children when they advise such things, do they?

Typically Isaac attends preschool on Tuesday mornings, but Tobe and I made the decision to keep him home this morning due to the weather and to the fact that he is still recovering from bronchitis. We have to navigate a few highways to get Isaac to his school, which also happens to be situated atop a steep narrow driveway. I had images of our little car sliding backwards down that drive in the predicted ice or of having to park the car at the bottom of the hill and lug both kids to the top to simply drop Isaac off at school. Neither option sounded exciting, so preschool did not happen for Isaac this morning.

Considering he has been discussing Russia at the dinner table lately, I think missing one day won't hurt him terribly.

Originally I had planned on stopping by my doctor's office for some blood work after taking Isaac to school. I attempt to avoid taking children with me to the doctor whenever possible, but I had figured one child would be more manageable than the two together. Since preschool did not happen this morning, I brought both kids with me into the doctor's office, figuring we could all survive a 15 minute blood draw.

Let me first explain that before anyone ever piles out of our car upon arriving at a destination, some sort of "pep" talk is given. Tobe and I always explain what we are doing at said location, the behaviors that are expected out of every member of our family, and reminders of what may happen to those who choose not to show expected behaviors. So this morning, while parked in front of the doctor's office, the children and I went over the expected behaviors that needed to be exhibited while Mommy was having blood taken.

Such a talk apparently inspired a whole series of questions from my ever-curious son:

"Why are we here?"

"Who is your doctor?"

"What does she look like?"

"Why are there three doors?"

"Who is that lady?"

After attempting to explain that this was indeed my OBGYN (I used the term "baby doctor"), I then unexpectedly entered the dangerous territory of saying, "She was the one who helped you be born from Mommy's tummy at the hospital."

My ears are still ringing from the questions such a sentence brought on.

Isaac was still very much a baby (a few weeks older than E. currently is) when Evelyn was born, so the whole pregnancy/baby/ birthing thing is just now starting to stir some curiosity within his little brain. Such a interesting time.

Immediately upon entering the surprisingly full waiting room, both kids went a bit crazy, despite our car conference held just two minute prior. This particular doctor has a large aquarium and we just watched "Finding Nemo" over the weekend. Shouts of "Look there's Nemo!" or "Dor-eeeeeee!" were bouncing off the walls. The calm atmosphere of the waiting room was quickly disturbed by a particular little boy and little girl.

After quietly hissing instructions for everyone to be seated and passing out a light snack, the two seemed to calm down a bit. As I walked to the receptionist's desk, I managed to catch some glances from a couple seated quietly on the couch waiting for their appointment. The wife was obviously pregnant and both were staring at my children with looks of horror.

I am assuming this to be their first little blessing and they have yet to discover that one day they too will have children they must remove from public places in mid-tantrum or children who will pluck an abandoned french fry off the playscape at McDonald's and plop in in their mouths with glee.

Parenting is so glamorous.

We were fortunate enough only to wait for a few minutes (yet still enough time to share the storyline of "Finding Nemo" with the entire waiting room) before being ushered back to the lab. Evelyn immediately started crying upon entering the lab, until she finally realized this was my appointment and not hers. Isaac was quite curious as to what was going to take place and desperately wanted to touch several vials of various substances. He stood patiently in the doorway, greeting a variety of nurses and patients as the walked past. He did get quite the chuckle from others when right before my needle prick he shouted, "Don't be afraid, Mommy! Just be brave like me!"

He then felt the need to take a close inspection of my collected blood (sorry) and pronounced it to be "cool." I am nothing if not entertaining.

After collecting our things and scooping up piles of discarded cheerios and goldfish (I feel as if we leave a trail of such things in our wake at all times), we left the doctor's office and returned to the safety of our car.

We then carefully navigated the streets absent of predicted ice and arrived home.

And...the clock read 8:42am.

I don't know if it was the weather or the messed-up schedule or the cycle of the moon, but the kids were loopy today. Just plain loopy.

It was around 10:21am that I decided we could never live in a place that has ice/snow/sleet on a regular basis because I might lose my mind.

It was around 11:17am that I seriously considered investigating properties for sale in San Diego because they have perfect weather about 359 days out of the year.

We survived the day, with minimal battle wounds, and my sanity still appears to be in place. More ice is predicted for tomorrow.

Wonder if it is too late to book a flight to sunny California????

***

At some point this morning we did a Valentine's door craft. Can you tell E. lost interest and someone had to finish hers for her?

I know you are all jealous of the mad photography skills here. I forgot to snap pictures before we taped the tigers to the doors. Displaying her Arkansas rootsWe ate at the American Girl Doll store this past weekend courtesy of Papa (and Nana).

Tiger was Isaac's guest.

Evelyn with her Bitty Baby, Baby Kate