Odds and Ends

Monkey1 is a princess. I learned this fact from a five-year-old who was simultaneously declaring that his sisters were NOT princesses.

A zucchini is a two-piece bathing suit. Monkey1 wants one. She insists that when she turns five, in a month and a half, her current suit will be too small, and she needs a zucchini.

Monkey1's swim teacher wants her to try the next level swimming class, the one without a parent in the pool. Will she give up being a "Seahorse" for being a "Frog"? Will she be brave enough to try it? Will she give up what has previously been some one-on-one pool time with Dad?

Monkey2 wore underpants successfully all day except for the couple hours she put on a diaper in order to play "baby and big sister" with her older sister. Even then, it stayed dry.

Monkey2 is "in" at her sister's preschool, and meanwhile I've filled out several application forms for Monkey1 for kindergarten, and I'm still "supposed" to register her at the public school too, just in case. I looked up the required documentation, decided it was worse than dealing with the Department of Motor Vehicles, and I am ignoring that option right now.

Cleaning out and shredding old papers, I found a note from my grandfather (who died a year and a half years ago), and a note from a family friend with an update on her husband's health (he died a few days ago). My children are still including one of my cousins, who died last summer, in their nightly prayers.

I gave up Facebook for Lent, but after the snow storm stay-at-home and constant FB-ing, I'm still thinking that way. It's like writing postcards. I can't get a long thought together.

Under the Snow

"Mommy, the snowman's melted!"

The Monkeys had climbed up into the bay window for their morning inspection of our street, or what could be seen of it considering the mountain of snow in our tiny yard and the even bigger mountain of snow in the curb parking spot in front of our house. We are the only household on the street with one car, which fits in our driveway, so everyone had used the "empty" spot as the snow spot as they dug out.

Both mountains have been shrinking in the past few days, and today the ground -- muddy under grass -- was visible. So was a bright orange carrot and several sticks. I had forgotten that before the two big snow storms we had had two little snowmen in our yard.

A Week Indeed

On Sunday the car overheated, even though it was full of coolant.

On Monday the car's water pump was replaced.

On Tuesday school was cancelled again, for the seventh day in a row.

On Wednesday evening the oven would not turn on.

On Thursday the igniter in the oven was replaced.

On Friday I hung laundry all over the basement because the dryer was not working.

On Saturday the thermostat in the dryer was replaced.

On Sunday my husband rebuilt the venting system for the dryer.

On Monday...

The Blur of Days

What day is it?

Seriously.

We had a giant snow storm, where we chose to be away from home. We dug out, came home, and dug out again.

Then there was a blizzard snow storm. We dug out, grocery shopped and went to church -- saw and talked to people -- and returned to the in-laws' house and dug that out again.

Then flurries came out of the sky. Now school is delayed, no, canceled for tomorrow. The bus stops are still under mountains of snow and the sidewalks not cleared. Not that that matters for my little Monkey getting to school, but it matters to those who make the decisions.

Another day at home? With two little Monkeys that need running around while I need to keep my aching ear warm? I think I need How to Hibernate for Dummies.

Valentine's Day

"Ma-mee!"

I opened one eye, squinted glasses-less at my clock, and yup, Monkey1 was right on time.

"Wake up!" she whispered again.

Some time ago I plugged the Monkeys' night light into a timer, so it turns on at bedtime and turns off at "wake-up time." At the beginning I had to remind the Monkeys, "Is the nightlight off? Go look. It's not day time yet." Now, Monkey1 is very patient and punctual about waiting for the light to turn off and to wake me up.

It was Valentine's Day.

I had forgotten to put out the Monkeys' gifts the night before, but even with Monkey1 underfoot, I got them on the table without her noticing. When she did notice the heart-shaped bowl, the tiny blank notebook, and the pink toothbrush (Barbie on her toothbrush handle, Dora on the one for Monkey2), she was delighted.

A toothbrush? Yes, a toothbrush. After all, if anyone else gave my Monkeys something for Valentine's Day, chances are it probably would involve chocolate, in which case they certainly needed something exciting for their teeth.

Today, we had another driveway to clear. On the way there, my car's coolant function started acting up, so once there, we dug out the extra car too.

The driver's side door was in a four-foot drift, and as I cleared the passenger side door, I recalled this had a habit of sticking, particularly on days when I was really dressed up and then had to figure out how to climb over the stick shift. Today, I ended up climbing in through the backseat.

I started the car, the windshield wipers started flailing, and I could not turn them off. One blade came off while my husband waved and shouted, but I couldn't hear him. He finally yanked open a door, "Turn off the car!" I did.

As he tried to reattach the wiper, I noticed that as I breathed, I could see my breath. I noticed that even after several breaths, I continued to see my breath, unlike when I'm outside on a cold day, when after a few breaths, it can't be seen anymore. H'm. What made the space inside of the car so much colder? Unable to think of any scientific reason, I turned my thoughts to all the movies where the hero must do some task racing against time, like water filling the car, to rescue the heroine. The inside rearview mirror fogged up. The passenger windows fogged up. The windshield fogged up. I decided my hero was not winning this race and I had better find something else to amuse myself.

He snapped the windshield wiper back on. Ah, the hero triumphed.

Turns out, there was no chocolate on Valentine's Day -- fortunately, because I had forgotten the Monkeys' special toothbrushes at home.

Snowmageddon

(Not sure who came up with the term "snowmageddon" but President Obama used the term to describe the winter storm of the first weekend of February.)

Thursday

I went to the grocery store, not with blizzard stocking-up in mind, and was astonished how crowded it was for mid-week and mid-day.

As the day went on, I heard rumors of 20 inches of snow to come. Really? Really? Everything started closing down and school closed for Friday. I was skeptical. I could well recall forecasts for the blizzard of the century to hit NY while we were out on Long Island, and it didn't hit there, it shifted direction and clobbered Vermont instead. I remembered a radio announcer complaining that his son hadn't done his homework because of the forecasts, and now was in trouble. Maybe growing up in Vermont, where sometimes it snowed and sometimes it didn't, left me a little more cautious about not doing the homework in expectation of a Snow Day school cancellation.

That night my husband said, "If we're going to get snowed in, let's go up to Oma and Opa's house. At least there the kids will have hills for sledding."

Friday

10 a.m. on the dot, as the forecast had predicted, it started to snow.

We packed a laundry basket of clothes, a pile of toys, and a cooler plus three grocery bags of food into the Golf and set off.

The snow took a long time to start sticking. My husband pulled the snowblower out of the shed, went to Sears for a broken part, and parked the machine right next to the kitchen door under a tarp.

Oma and Opa were away in Florida, so the fridge was empty of real food, but 80% full due to the variety of jarred mustards, sauces, dips, and pickled items. I put the cooler with some of our food outside on the kitchen step.

Saturday

Snow. Real Snow. Lots and lots and lots of it!

I had trouble opening the kitchen door and decided that putting the cooler outside had not been such a great idea. Our supplies were refrigerated but not accessible, since snow was packed up against the door, plus there was the mound covering the cooler. I got the Monkeys to stand against the glass door to the deck for pictures, to illustrate the depth of the snow relative to their height (pictures here).

Around 11 a.m. we went outside for a bit, measuring 26 to 30 inches of snow.

I quickly realized that there was too much snow for my Monkeys to have fun in it. While it was interesting that each of us would sink to knee-high snow at each step -- Monkey2's knee-high is a lot different from my knee-high -- that was really hard walking for them. Also, within five minutes Monkey1 had fallen into the snow up to her hip and lost a boot. Monkey2 tripped at every step, and then sat crying on a sled I couldn't pull because I couldn't walk without falling over either.

The snow stopped late afternoon, and my husband started up the snowblower, carving out a good section of the driveway before the sun went down, sky bright blue.

Sunday

"When can I start?" my husband asked me, looking out at the deep deep snow. "Eight o'clock? Is that too early to be making noise?" Snowblowing continued, and then shoveling at the end of the driveway where the street plows had piled it up higher than Monkey2's head, too deep for the snowblower.

Monkey1 discovered she could walk on top of the snow along the sides of the driveway, where the snowblower had blown and packed the snow removed from the driveway. "Dad, I'm as tall as you are! No, Dad, I'm taller than you!" She still managed to find a soft spot, fall in up to her waist, and lose a boot somewhere way down, which I had to find and empty of snow.

Monkey2, able to stand and walk on the cleared driveway, happily stabbed away at the snow walls with a trowel.

I pulled out the sleds again, dragging the Monkeys around, running and then letting go of the sled string so they could speed along on the flat slightly snow covered driveway. I really wanted to set up the empty trash cans and aim the sled at them for some driveway bowling, but knew this would not be well received by my Monkeys, so I refrained.

By 10:45, there was a gap in the snow wall at the end of the driveway, and soon we were connected to the street again. (pictures of the morning dig)

In the afternoon, Monkey1 and I walked down the street and around to the cul-de-sac where the good sliding hill started. There were sled tracks already, but not many. The snow was powder, deep. We got to the bottom, well, sort of close to the bottom, and Monkey1 wanted to go home. I was able to plead a few more runs by pulling her up the hill on the sled, but it was going to take a lot of work to get the hill in good shape the way we'd enjoyed it before Christmas. But we couldn't stay; we had another house to dig out.

Monday

We headed back home, the highways clear, but the city streets a mighty mess. We stopped the car half in a neighbor's driveway while my husband and I worked on clearing some of our driveway. I was really surprised how much less snow there was some 50 miles south. "Was there really not that much? Or did it settle and melt?" I asked my husband. With shovels, the two of us cleared the driveway, our bit of sidewalk, and the walk to our front door in about an hour. (pictures here)

Later, the mailman asked if he could park his mailvan "just one half hour!" in part of our driveway as he made his deliveries.

"Go ahead! It's fine!" I encouraged him. Everything else was under a State of Emergency, and he's still out delivering the mail door to door.

Tuesday

Forecast for another 10-20 inches, starting in the afternoon, later reduced to 7-14 inches of snow. School canceled for Wednesday and Thursday. Since Monkey1 doesn't go to school on Fridays... a whole week of no school!

One of my friends up in New England commented, "You must feel like you're back in Vermont." Actually no. I remember enough snowless winters, and lived a few other places, so where I am is just a place under snow.

Flashback

Yesterday I was in the grocery store, getting needed items, amid the crowds stocking up in fear of the snow storm coming this weekend. Some shelves I just know, and as I scanned along, I suddenly noticed different shapes and colors. This happened in the vitamin area, where next to the protein powder (used for making power bars, and great for adding to pancakes or waffles) I noticed a large jug with a familiar logo. I stared at it...

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away called Long Island... I had a landlord who wore that logo on the T-shirts that stretched tightly across his overly muscled chest. His arms were so muscled that it was truly comical to see him on his cell phone, because he couldn't really bend enough to get it up to his ear, so he shouted a lot. One of his gigs was as an athlete for a supplement company. His stunt was lifting weights, with the big race car tires on the ends of the barbells. Sometimes the bar would bend.

My little Monkey in the grocery cart called me back to the present. She wanted to try the sample cookies set out next to the apples and bananas.

A Near Cut

Monkey2 had the play scissors, part of a beauty kit, and was industriously sawing on the toys, the sofa, and loose fabric that caught her eye.

"Would you like the real scissors and paper?" I asked, amused.

"Yes!" and she scurried to the dining table. We have a rule that she has to be sitting at the table in order to use scissors. She happily snipped away at construction paper, making a nice pile of confetti, and I sat beside her, drinking my tea.

Then she grabbed a large chunk of her hair on one side of her head, raised the scissors, blades open, and looked right at me.

"No," I said.

"Daddy will be happy," she countered.

"Daddy will NOT be happy if you cut your hair," I answered. He had been unhappy when I had cut her hair into bangs so she could see, so I was sure he'd be unhappy if any of the golden locks that cute up into ponytails came off. "Daddy will be sad if you cut your hair."

"Daddy will be happy," she insisted.

"No... should we call him?" I asked.

So we did, with the receiver on Speaker Phone, set in the middle of the table between us. Poor Dad got a garble of something about happy, so I translated. "She wants to know if you'd be happy if she cut her hair."

"No, you don't want to cut your hair," he coaxed. "I'd be sad if you cut your beautiful hair," he said.

Monkey2's eyes welled up in tears, she burst into howls, I removed the scissors from her hands, and I yelled at the phone, "Thanks for the backup! Talk to you later!"

Saved the tresses for another day.

Pink

I have pink shoes.

I can never remember having pink shoes before. I've had brown shoes and lots of black shoes, white and off-white, grey or silver, sneakers in purple, orange with green laces, red-white&blue, Doc Martens in red, and riding boots in black leather, but never in my memory PINK.

We were in the Crocs store over the weekend, and Monkey1 helped me find the right color. She also found some pretty jibbitz to decorate the black Crocs I was wearing. Now with a pink flower and a purple flower, the black looks downright feminine.