About missemtoo

I'm a mom, piano player, substitute teacher, wife, and Starbucks addict living outside of Rochester, NY.

Throwback Thursday: Crazy Love

Posted on January 16, 2014 by missemtoo

Just tonight, the girls were singing some of their old, favorite songs (while also asking me to put new ones on an iPad playlist for them), and I remarked that I vividly remembered some videos of them singing old, favorite songs of yore.

Back in 2008, when Ella had just turned three, one of the songs on Nick’s and my frequent-flier list was Van Morrison’s “Crazy Love”. I suppose it was only natural, then, that Ella would grow to love it, too.

new years day pensive
Just-turned-three and really feeling the colors.
She’s probably not wearing tight pants*, either.

* as seen earlier today on Facebook…

Ella, surely you have other pants you could wear to school. Your entire closet and dresser are full.
“But they’re not all right, mom.”

What makes them right?

“Well, they have to be like jeggings. You know, tight.”

Tight pants?

“That’s what every girl in 3rd grade wears. Leggings or jeggings or something like that.”

What if they’re not comfortable? What if they’re all dirty?

“They are comfortable, and that’s what washing machines are for. I could even wash them myself.”

How kind of you.

“I’m basically a tween now mom. These clothes are part of my identity.”

I don’t even want to think about what you just said.

😐

Just-turned-one and also really feeling the colors.
I don’t know if she’s even wearing pants.

So anyway – here’s Ella singing “Crazy Love”. We really did own a hair brush, and I even used it from time to time, but apparently the maybe-you’re-wearing-a-toupee look was all the rage…

But, oh, the way her lips carefully form the word “love” each time. GAH!!
I cannot believe this girl is now nine. And finds her identity in tight pants.

All that glitters is a PAIN IN THE *$$

Posted on January 15, 2014 by missemtoo

You never want to assume that your children are lying to you. I mean, when their toothbrushes aren’t wet and their breath could melt a refrigerator, yet they insist that they brushed their teeth, it’s pretty obvious that some fibbing is going on… But still, you’d like to think that your kid is the kind of kid who wants to tell you the truth, whose answers you can trust, rather than always jumping to the conclusion that everything out of their mouths is bullsh*t.

Well, there’s having faith in your kid – which can be a beautiful thing – and then there’s just plain stupidity. Our own girls fall somewhere in the middle of the lying continuum: telling the truth most of the time, but certainly not all; being just conscientious enough to spill the beans but cunning enough to practice some tale-telling; being afraid of the consequences of being caught in a lie but also being scared as hell to get in trouble for the original infraction. Aw, man, I love parenthood.

So, when I found a pile of glitter on one of my darling daughters’ bedroom floors (I shall refrain from naming her to afford her some modicum of privacy, but really, there are only two of them so your imagination can totally run wild), my first assumption was that it had been dumped there. I mean, this isn’t a strip club; glitter is not usually peppering our floors, except after art projects and the wearing of particularly “fancy” dress-up clothes, so it had to come from somewhere – namely, my little Darling.

Upon questioning, however, she insisted – absolutely insisted – that she had no idea how the glitter found its way onto her floor. Maybe a dog had knocked it over? Perhaps it had spilled out of a craft bag? Could it be that the tooth fairy left some behind? No matter how many times I tried to poke holes in my Darling’s reasoning, her denial remained ironclad: she did not put that glitter on her floor. No ma’am. No how.

Seeing that I was getting nowhere and I had no actual evidence that she’d been the glitter dumper, I decided to let it go. Maybe, in all of our post-Christmas comings and goings, the glitter really had just fallen to the floor somehow. And maybe, also, I shouldn’t be so quick to assume the worst of my Darling, but should instead take her at her word. No more Judgey McJudgerson. In fact, perhaps, in the past, she has felt compelled to lie because I have automatically found her guilty before trying her of the crime. New year, new leaf: I will believe in my children. Teach them well, and let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty they possess inside. Or something.

Monday was one heckuva day – nothing bad, really, just one of those days when your calendar is like a Jenga board, with all of the appointments and To-Dos fitting just so, lest the tower topple. It was in the fifteen minutes between my final piano lesson and Ella heading to swim practice that I first noticed the glitter in the living room. It didn’t seem like much – a small trail in the middle of the room – but it caught my eye, so I asked my Darling about it, the one whose floor still bore a pile of glitter (vacuuming her room was not amongst my Jenga pieces, thank you very much).

And I received the same response: Nope. Not her. She had no idea how the glitter had gotten on the living room floor. Was she sure? Yes, she was sure, damn it (except that she didn’t really say “damn it” because then this story would have a far different ending). And so I again began to doubt my parenting, again chastising myself for assuming the worse of my Darling – after all, the puppy had recently been upstairs. Maybe she’d gone into my Darling’s room and had brought a trail of glitter with her into the living room. I should blow it off, anyway – you know, and let the children’s laughter remind me how I used to be. A bit of glitter? How charming!

After swimming (which was really after two swimmings, because Ella forgot something vital at the pool and we had to go back again to retrieve it after dinner; those top Jenga pieces were tottering, let me tell you), as the kids were on their way upstairs to get ready for bed, I passed through the living room and noticed that there seemed to be more than just “a small trail” of glitter. At that moment, however, I didn’t have time to stop and examine it, much less clean it up, because of bedtime and lunch-packing and teeth-brush-monitoring (see above: saying teeth are clean when they are not) and reading and tucking in and laundry putting-away.

It was not until after the girls were snuggled into their beds and my laundry basket had been emptied and the lunches had been packed that I realized just how damn much glitter was in the living room. It was everywhere: spread across both rugs, on the coffee table, on the reclining chair, wrapped up in a blanket (which I didn’t know contained glitter until I picked it up to refold it and flung microscopic shimmer across the couch). It was as though a unicorn had thrown up violently all over the room. An angry, particularly sparkle-tastic unicorn.

Because the dogs had been stuck in the kitchen for most of the day (see above: Jenga-busy), I had wanted to let them out and have the run of the living room for the rest of the evening, but there was no way I could do that with the amount of glitter on the floor. Indeed, there was so much glitter, I couldn’t walk across the floor without dragging pieces of it with me. There was absolutely no choice: I’d have to vacuum.

Jenga tower: down.

As I ran the vacuum over… and over… and over every square inch of the living room, I contemplated my Darling’s insistence that she had nothing to do with this mess. On the one hand, it seemed absolutely impossible that the glitter found its way into every corner of the living room without some kind of divine intervention. And yet… She had looked me in the eye — more than once — and stated in the strongest possible terms that she was not responsible for the explosion. Could she really lie that deliberately? MY Darling?

After a good twenty minutes or so of vacuuming, I was satisfied that I’d picked up the vast majority of the glitter. Crossing the room to unplug the machine, however, I was nearly blinded by the light reflecting off the floor: glitter – still! – everywhere.

And then I saw what was happening: the pieces of glitter were so small, they were not being adequately picked up by the vacuum. Compounding the problem was the fact that what makes glitter, well, glittery is that it shimmers only some of the time, depending on how the light hits it. So, while vacuuming, the floor looked like this:

Clean. Shimmer-free. Lovely.

But when the light hit the floor from another angle, it looked like this:

UNICORN VOMIT EVERYWHERE.
And this is AFTER twenty minutes of vacuuming.

After twenty more minutes, I was through. Yes, it still looks like a Pride parade went through, but we’re pretty strong gay marriage supporters in this house, so I guess that comes with the territory. After putting my Jenga tower back together and completing the rest of my 493 To-Do items, I crashed, not giving the sparkle a second thought.

In the morning, there was the usual mad rush to get off to school, so I didn’t have the opportunity to ask my Darling if, perhaps, there was anything more she’d like to tell me about the abundance of glitter in the living room – if, perhaps, her memory had failed her just the teensiest of bits. It wasn’t until the kids were due home from school that I was tidying up another area of the living room – one that was seemingly untouched by the shimmer explosion – that I found them: the caps to two vials of glitter.

Exhibit C: the evidence. Shiny, impossible-to-vacuum evidence.

My friends, Jambi may be an awesome service dog-in-training, but I can assure you that none of us has ever taught her how to pry open the lids of glitter bottles, toss the contents all over the living room, and then leave the caps lying on a table that’s taller than she is. No, this had to have been done by a human, and the most likely suspect was the aforementioned, I-swear-it-wasn’t-me Darling. And to think I’d spent all that time cleaning… It seems they can take away my dignity, damn it, Whitney.

At bedtime, I sat her down, prepared to have a really difficult conversation about the glitter, fully prepared for her to push back with all her might and continue to insist she had nothing to do with it. Or, as Nick put it, to do what it took to “break her.” I opened by asking her if she had anything more to tell me about the glitter in the living room. Before she could even answer, I decided to pull out the big guns: I told her that I’d found the caps, and would she care to change her story?

Well, little Miss may have been able to lie straight to my face when I had nothing tying her to the crime, but when faced with cold, hard facts, she crumbled faster than my Jenga tower. After ‘fessing up and apologizing for lying (I’ll take my therapy money back, thanks), she still seemed unsure as to why flinging glitter around the living room was such a big deal. My spending the better portion of an hour cleaning it up didn’t seem to bother her, nor did the fact that we’ll be discovering glitter in our food for the next two months. Actually, that may have made the whole episode seem more appealing. Explaining to her that it was bad for the dogs – dangerous, even – to have that much glitter around also did not seem to move her.

And so I did what any noble parent would do: I lied.

You know why else it’s a problem?

“Why?”

Because if you continue spilling glitter all over the floor, magicians won’t have any left for their acts.

*long pause, followed by a statement made in a wide-eyed whisper*
“I’ve never seen a magician use glitter.”

That’s probably because you and your friends are using it all up.

*solemn nodding* “You’re right. I won’t ever do that again.”

I’m glad we can agree on this.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, may truly be the greatest love of all.
On second thought, maybe I shouldn’t throw away the therapy money just yet.

The Real Housewives of Rochester

Posted on January 10, 2014 by missemtoo

Okay, I’ll just put it out there: I’ve never seen a single Real Housewives episode. In fact, I’ve never even seen a moment of an episode, not from Atlanta, nor Orange County, nor Miami, nor wherever else these so-called “housewives” live. I have, however, read People magazine (and the occasional Us Weekly) enough to know that these ladies are Just Like Us! except there’s a lot more plastic surgery involved. And cat fights. And heels that make me topple over just by looking at them.

When I was at the Y the other day, a group of moms and I were chatting about how our winter breaks had gone, about our ever-so-darling children, and about what was on our collective to-do lists for the week. We were amused to discover – despite the our kids’ differing ages and genders – just how similar our experiences had been. One of them joked that we’d make for a wild reality show – The Real Housewives* of (Suburban) Rochester.

* the majority of my local mom friends, like myself, do have jobs outside the home, and if you actually called any of us a “housewife,” we’d deck you with a shovel. But this is art, people. Work with me.

While I may not have seen an actual Real Housewives episode, I have watched my fair share of reality television (especially cooking shows), and I’ve seen more than a handful of episodes of Melrose Place and Desperate Housewives, so I’m confident that I have an excellent idea of what it takes to produce a successful show of this nature.

Real Housewives of (Suburban) Rochester.
We’ll call ourselves the Real HORz. It will be fantastic.

——————

RHOR: Episode One

The opening credits are a delightful montage of local families – just like us! – enjoying the highlights of the region. The kids go for a spin on the Strong Museum carousel and giggle with awe as a butterfly lands on their fingers in the Butterfly Garden. Parents cheer their offspring on from the sidelines at Little League, lacrosse, and soccer games, and the audience chortles at how many layers the parents are wearing for these scrimmages on a thirty-degree October Saturday. People rocket down a sledding hill (snow!), followed by a quick cut to everyone cuddling together, steaming mugs of hot chocolate in their hands. Spectators beam from their seats while watching a performance by the Philharmonic, or perhaps Disney on Ice.

The music swells as fans cheer on a hit at a Red Wings game (while the camera zooms in to avoid showing that the stadium is only 25% full), and then pans to a crash! as players bump into one another during a hockey game on the Erie Canal (snow!). The seasons change, and now families walk (hand in hand, naturally) and bike and tote gorgeously groomed dogs along the canal path; fireworks burst overhead for a Fourth of July celebration. Children jump into a lake as parents watch adoringly from the dock. Next, cut to apple picking and going for a hayride… which morphs into a sleigh ride (snow!) through a powder-white field. People smile as they haggle over prices at the Public Market, and women clink their glasses together on a visit to a local winery. (Note: despite the wineries and Niagara Falls being equidistant from Rochester, there will be no Falls coverage in our montage; that’s Buffalo. We don’t do Buffalo.) The opening credits will, of course, end with a panoramic shot of Wegmans.

As our Real HORz day begins, Real HOR1’s kids are really in a tizzy: her oldest has left a mitten at school and her middle child accidentally wore a classmate’s boots home. Will there be outdoor recess today?? A quick check of the local weather shows that the wind chills will be in the single digits – well above zero! – and it’s not supposed to snow today, so yes, of course there will be outdoor recess. The Littles help themselves to breakfast (Wegmans cereal) while Real HOR1 dons yoga pants and boots to help her husband shovel the driveway before he leaves for work; his commute will take him approximately 12 minutes and he doesn’t want to be late. Real HOR1 drops off her youngest at the coop preschool around the corner, then takes off for the Y in her minivan.

The scene changes; Real HOR2 has successfully seen her kids off to school in their North Face jackets and is making breakfast out of their leftover toast. She takes a conference call in the kitchen, sliding a towel around the tiles with her feet in order to “clean up” the mud and melted snow. Satisfied that the floor is at least mostly dry, Real HOR2 finishes her call and jumps in her car (minivan!) to head to the Y. After the workout, she and the other Real HORz stand in the lobby and change out of their sneakers and back into their boots, discussing how nice it was when the sun came out yesterday for fifteen straight minutes.

We follow Real HOR3 as she returns to her car (minivan!) and brushes off the snow, then heads back home to let the dogs out and take a shower. She slops up the kitchen floor with a towel, then gets cleaned up and gets dressed, putting on fresh boots. She finds some Rainbow Loom bracelets to match her outfit, then realizes that she needs to grab some snacks for the Boy Scout meeting later that week, so she hightails it to Wegmans. The employees in the produce department know her by name (after all, she was just here two days ago); she laments how frequently she’s been to the store this week to Real HOR4, whom she’s bumped into by the canned goods. They bond over purchasing ice melt and organic juice boxes (lest the other Boy Scout parents doubt their dedication to keeping their kids healthy).

A friend has suggested that she and Real HOR4 meet for lunch, but there’s a road crew repairing the potholes – which causes delays – so it takes a godforsaken twenty minutes to get there in her Suburban. (Insert several frames of footage of drivers in the left lane refusing to turn left even though they have plenty of room, and other drivers refusing to go around them on the right. Viewers in NYC and Boston are warned that they may suffer coronaries while watching this ten-second segment.) Once seated, they discuss how many times their kids have listened to the Frozen soundtrack in the past thirty-six hours, administer a stern admonishment of Common Core, and grouse about how long it took to help their children with their math homework last night. Real HOR4 confesses that, even though she’s trying to shed pounds from the holidays, she couldn’t resist Abbott’s custard yesterday; her friend murmurs her support – an Abbotts craving is impossible to ignore. As they’re finishing up, the friend looks outside and notices that it’s snowing quite heavily (the audience will already have known this because the clever, baiting producers will have cut away to footage of the snow coming down during lunch, with the friends blissfully unaware – the drama!); Real HOR4 remarks that she didn’t think it was supposed to snow today.

Real HOR1 brushes the snow off the van and stops by the ad agency to go through her emails, then picks up her youngest from the coop and makes it home just in time to wipe up the kitchen floor before the bus drops the older kids off from school. There are hugs and how was your day?s and arguments as the children disagree about who actually left the Old Navy jacket and one snow boot in the middle of the front hall. The madness continues during snack (an organic apple and Cheez Its, because no one is perfect, for God’s sake) and Real HOR1 decides that they need to blow off steam outside, but the children whine that a) it’s not good packing snow, b) they’ve already gone sledding in the neighbors’ yard three times this week, and c) their snow clothes are still wet from recess. Real HOR1 reminds them that they have extra snow pants in their closet – this is Rochester, after all.

In a house around the corner, we meet Real HOR3’s children, one of whom is in tears because he forgot it was Team Spirit day at school, so he was the only classmate not in a Buffalo Bills or Syracuse Orange jersey. In a moment of temporary insanity, Real HOR3 offers to take him and his sister to an indoor play place, and there is an animated discussion over which of the 836 ~~overcrowded~~ ~~sweaty~~ ~~bacteria-infested~~ super fun options will be best. The conclusion has just been reached and they are just about to stuff themselves into the car when Real HOR3 realizes that it’s snowed enough in the past 90 minutes to need to shovel the driveway again. Donning her parka (second-hand from a local shop; people give away fabulous things here) and boots, she grabs the damn shovel as the kids are just about to begin wrestling the dogs… when one of them fires up Let it Go on the iPad, and suddenly they’re racing around the front yard – no hats or gloves, L.L. Bean coats unzipped – screeching about how the cold never bothered them anyway. The cameraman eggs them on, and the scene ends with a plop of snow thrown directly at the lens.

Post-commercial (likely for a car dealership or a personal injury attorney), we see that the salt crews have already been out, so the roads aren’t too bad, but it seems that half of the Rochester population has had the same idea because the jump club is packed. No worries, though – the kids race off to bounce themselves into sweat-covered oblivion as Real HOR3 finds Real HOR2 amongst several other parents in the sitting area, and they open the bottles of water they’d brought for their kids while squatting at a table to wait it out until their darlings have exhausted themselves or someone is bleeding. They lean conspiratorially into the table as one of the other parents shows off a new starburst bracelet – she made it herself last night after the kids went to bed, and if they knew she’d used their Loom, they’d be furious! Another parent asks if anyone knew it was supposed to snow today, and Real HOR2’s daughter emerges, a sweaty mess, and asks for a sip from her water bottle. Real HOR2 looks sheepishly at her child as she hands over the (now empty) bottle.

We cut to Real HOR4, who has just dropped off her daughter at gymnastics and is now taking her son to swim lessons. He moans that he’s hungry, and she fishes out some Oreos from an old package in the driver’s side of the van to tide him over until they can dig into the pulled pork that’s been cooking in the crock pot all day (thanks, Pinterest!). After her son’s lesson, his hair is still wet as they head to the car and it freezes slightly to his head; the camera zooms in to show us the ice crystals just as the commercial begins.

Real HOR1’s preschooler squeals with displeasure after he shrugs off his Target jacket and then steps — sock-footed — into a pile of snow by the front door. Real HOR1 mops up the mess with a towel, then fields a call from her husband, who informs her that he needs to pick up a prescription at Wegmans, and should he grab dinner? Real HOR1 is visibly relieved, shouting, OMG, YES, anything from the prepared foods section, and then sits down to help her middle child with her math homework. They are still at it forty-five minutes later when her husband comes home, rotisserie chicken and mashed potatoes in hand, and they hiss about why can’t kids just learn their damn times tables the old-fashioned way anymore.

Her husband enjoys it, but Real HOR4’s children aren’t crazy about the pulled pork – her son requests a Zweigle’s hot dog instead – and she explains that this isn’t a restaurant; they get what they get and they don’t get upset. Thirty minutes before bed, Real HOR4’s daughter remembers that the Family Snowman – a project that they’ve had two weeks to work on and will require glue and scraps of fabric and maybe some dried pasta – is due tomorrow. The scene ends with Real HOR4 pouring herself a glass of wine as her husband opens some Elmer’s.

We officially meet Real HOR2’s children after they’ve emerged from the shower (to wipe off the grime they accumulated while bouncing). Her youngest pretends to be Olaf, the snowman from Frozen, and melts into a puddle, draping her towel around her, while her sister drops blue Rainbow Loom rubber bands on her from above — it’s summer, Mom, so it’s raining! Once they’ve cleaned up the bands and hung their towels, it’s time to pack their snow gear into a reusable Wegmans bag to take it to school tomorrow. Real HOR2’s oldest daughter reminds her mom that the school secretary said “snow clothes look alike; they need to be labeled!” and Real HOR2 sighs as she finds a Sharpie and writes her daughter’s initials inside her boots.

The show ends with Real HOR3 sipping a glass of Pinot and checking out her profile on Match.com. She tugs the Rainbow Loom bracelets off her wrist as she opens the email from the Boy Scout troop leader — there’s been a mix-up, and Real HOR3 needs to bring drinks for twelve boys, not just eight. She lets the dogs out one last time – it’s snowing again? Was it supposed to snow today? – and scootches a towel along the kitchen floor to clean up the mud. She takes off her boots before climbing the stairs, nearly tripping over her son’s hockey stick. One of her kids has let the toilet paper run out without replacing the roll, and Real HOR3 is dismayed to discover that there is only one extra roll.

But wait, that’s okay… She needs to go to Wegman’s tomorrow for more juice boxes anyway.

End credits.

——————-

The rest of season 1 is basically a repeat of the first episode, but it takes us through two more months of winter, mud season, and spring (will Real HOR1’s preschooler enjoy his first trip to the Lilac Festival??), before culminating in a riveting finale that features the Real HORz debating the merits of the Garbage Plate while attending book club.

Although I’ve never envisioned myself as good reality material, I think I may have been wrong. Real Housewives of (Suburban) Rochester is gritty and, well, real, but also exceedingly family-friendly. There’s very little Botox (boring) and lots of shoveling (also boring, but as-yet-unseen on other Real Housewives episodes). We could absolutely rule the airwaves, probably taking over the primetime slots in several key markets.

If anybody knows an agent, please pass my info along. Thanks.

You just never know; count them

Posted on January 9, 2014 by missemtoo

My phone vibrates with the receipt of a new text; I receive an email and a phone call as well. A member of our school community has died unexpectedly – a man who is only forty years old, who is our high school’s Cross Country coach, a teacher, and the father of three little girls, two of whom attend our daughters’ school. I pause momentarily to take this in, and then realize that I know his wife. We have only met a few times, and casually, sure, but I know her. Ella and Annie know their oldest daughter, who is in second grade, sandwiched between them.

It seems surreal. Forty years old and otherwise healthy? The father of young children? The husband of a woman I know, a woman who lives just down the street from us, and whose life has now been forever upended? I am crushed for her, for her daughters.

And I am terrified, too: it could be us. It could be any of us.

We receive word the following day that the second-grade teacher did a wonderful job of shepherding the class through a discussion about their classmate who had just lost her father. I read the email in the bathroom, and I cry – big, huge sobs. Eight year-olds shouldn’t even know that it’s possible to lose a parent just like that, much less have to navigate their way through grief and fear and questions with unknown answers. None of our children should. It breaks my heart.

We tell our girls that if they can absolutely speak to this second-grader who has lost her father, to not be afraid to talk to her, to just say “hi” and let her know they see that she’s there, she’s not invisible. But also that if they don’t want to talk about it, it’s okay, too. We don’t have to dwell on it: what’s most important is that we be so grateful right now for what we have, and that includes each other.

And so we are. So, so tremendously grateful.

But I am dwelling on it. Not consciously; I can’t seem to help it. It invades my thoughts. Just like that. How can it be? Is everything we know really as fragile as that?

I join the Lotsa Helping Hands community that’s immediately been established for this family, and sign up to bring snacks for the little girls. It’s such a little thing, but it somehow makes me feel better, knowing that at least no one has to worry that they’re out of Goldfish. Maybe they don’t like Goldfish. I don’t really even know them.

But I simply cannot imagine… I don’t want to imagine. But if I do allow myself to imagine, even for a moment, before the horror of it comes washing over me, I realize that it would probably feel good to have the support of our neighbors, even if they didn’t really know me. And so I will bring Goldfish and Cheddar Bunnies and granola bars.

And I will continue to try to count my blessings, to give my girls an extra hug. Annie is obviously feeling under the weather and doesn’t want dinner; in fact, she’s crying because she thinks she’s going to throw up, and she just keeps saying, “Mommy, MOMMY! Help me! PLEASE HELP ME!” And I cannot help her, I cannot make the pain in her stomach or the nausea go away… But I can sit with her and rub her back, and so I do, and I don’t look at my phone or do anything else but be with her for a solid hour on the couch, just us two, until she falls asleep with her head on the coffee table.

We tuck her in night, grateful that she has yet to vomit, that she doesn’t have a fever, and say a small prayer that sleep helps her to feel better. It’s such a little thing in the scheme of it all, a child with a potential tummy bug, but still I cross my fingers and offer up a prayer – please, let her stay healthy.

I cannot fall asleep, even though I’m exhausted, even though I have a cold and I desperately need the rest. At long last, I drift off, but I’m up at least eight times in the night, and each time, my first thought is of this family, even though I hardly know them – of how inconceivable their lives are right now. Nick is snoring; I nudge him.

Wouldn’t this other woman give anything to have her husband snoring next to her again? I’m being selfish. So he snores. So I’m awake. At least he’s still here. Blessings; count them.

It’s early morning when it dawns on me: perhaps that’s why I keep waking up. The snoring. Or maybe it’s just my own stuffed-up nose. Either way, I can’t sleep.

Should I move to the guest room?
And leave my husband alone in the bed? The husband I am so very lucky and grateful to have?

At last, exhaustion takes over: Yes. I’m moving. I can be grateful but still need my sleep. I move to the guest room bed.

On my way, Annie meets me in the hall. “Mommy! It’s morning!” I inform her that although it may, technically, be morning, I am still sleeping. “No, you’re not! You’re in the bathroom!” I let her know that, despite appearances to the contrary, I am, in fact, still sleeping… But that I am so glad she’s feeling well this morning.

Thank you.

I am tired, my cold is raging, but Ella has a rough morning and needs some extra attention. Usually, there is no time for this. Today, there is. She uses my scarf to dry her tears and then holds my hand as I walk her all the way into the school building, despite saying – back at the house – that she wanted to be alone.

I’m glad I didn’t listen to her.

I’m glad for all of it, every last damn thing.

But I’m still dwelling. I can’t help it.

It’s beautiful today. The sun is shining (finally), the temperatures are rising (finally). Blessings; count them.

* this post is unread and un-edited. Apologies for glaring errors or run-on sentences.

Found it!

Posted on January 8, 2014 by missemtoo

So, yeah. It’s winter here. Same for you, too?

Rochester is known for its snow, and its lack of sunshine for, oh,49 months of the year, but it’s not really known for being absolutely frigid. We get loads of the white stuff but almost never a true Snow Day (where the kids are home from school due to, you know, snow preventing them from attending). Last year, when Hurricane/Superstorm/ Generally Badass Sandy came roaring up the east coast, school was called for a totally random Hurricane Day, but that’s one of very few weather-related delays or cancellations I can remember.

Until today.

They didn’t even call it a Snow Day – no, school was cancelled due to “extreme temperatures,” which basically meant that they were worried that the wind chills would cause everyone to freeze to death if they attempted to enter the school buildings. While that seemed a bit nutty, I will say that, as I walked the girls to school yesterday morning when the temperatures were in the single digits, I promised that if they had school today, I’d drive them… but then I realized that our beloved crossing guard, Mrs. H, would still be at the corner, no matter what the weather. Death by Polar Vortex seems like a really poor way to go, so I’m awfully glad that Mrs. H didn’t have to brave the elements today.

Plus also, if school had been in session today, you know there’d have been those yahoos who would have pulled the fire alarm, just ~~’cause they think it’s funny~~ to be asshats.

So, anyway, no school today. I won’t go on about the cold – half of you can hardly read this anyway because you’re shaking uncontrollably in an effort to generate a little body heat and keep your blood flowing. You get it. I know.

Nick was supposed to be on a business trip all week, but after spending seven hours at the Rochester airport yesterday (given that there is not enough to do in the Rochester airport to entertain oneself for even thirty minutes, Nick deserves a medal for surviving seven hours), he was unable to board a plane to anywhere. Today proved just as difficult, so his trip was cancelled, and as such, he volunteered to take the girls to the office with him this morning. At first, I was hesitant – oddly enough, after several discussions last night of the fun ways we’d attempt to fill a no-one-is-sick-but-we-can’t-go-outside-because-we’ll-freeze-to-death day, I’d sort of looked forward to having the kids home with me, and thought that their being gone for several hours might screw up the plans.

I can hear you laughing from here.
I’ll wait.

When Annie and Ella jumped at the chance to join Daddy at work (it’s hard to beat lots of iPad time, unlimited Post-Its, free multicolored folders, and food from the vending machines), I reasoned that I could spend the time while they were gone crossing a few items off of my To-Do book. Specifically, I thought I’d change all of our sheets, wash our towels, take down the Christmas tree and put it outside (the ornaments had been taken off yesterday; all that remained were the lights), exercise, answer some emails, and finish putting away the Christmas decorations. And then I’d figure out how to fill the third hour, because, naturally, all of the above would take only 90 minutes or so.

Again with the laughing.
I’ll still wait.

See, here’s the thing about the ADHD mind: you always think that you can accomplish way more than is actually possible within a given period of time. I know this about myself, and yet it’s still very difficult to accurately gauge what’s realistic and what’s not. Assuming that it would take, oh, thirty minutes to take the lights off of the tree, wrap ’em up, jauntily remove the tree from its base, and cart it outside (in frigid temperatures) to the curb was a grave error on my part. The base was still entirely full of water, meaning that if the tree tipped to the side, the water would slosh over the floor (bad), so that meant I’d need to lift the tree straight up into the air… but that meant that I’d need to unscrew the bolt-like-thingies that were holding the tree in place in the stand, and unscrewing the bolts meant that the tree would be, um, tippy… So it was a whole exercise in physics and geometry and towels and gating the dogs in the kitchen and swearing out loud to myself.

And that was just removing the lights.

Plus also it was, like, cold out, and, given that I was doing this alone, I had to prop open the front door to drag the tree through it. In reality, de-lighting the tree and getting it to the street probably took twenty minutes or so… but cleaning up the detritus took another forty-five. I don’t even know how the tree on the corner still looks like a Douglas Fir, because I’m certain that it dropped at least half of its needles between our living room and front hall. It was like Hansel and Gretel leaving entire loaves of bread with every step, this shedding tree, and the sheer effort it took to sweep and vacuum and corral the needles off of every surface in the house was nothing short of Herculean. Zero to hero, baby.

So, the tree-removal underestimate was my own fault. Changing the sheets, however, should have been predictable; it’s not like today was the first time I’ve done it. I’ve got it down to a science, and even though it sucks every time (because the girls each have a bunk bed that’s pushed up against the wall, making it difficult to access the sheets; also, they are very specific about how they like to sleep, and one wrong move can spell a meltdown later in the day), I know what to expect.

Except… Annie.

Annie is – how do I say it? – a hoarder. There is nothing, and I do mean nothing, that she feels is unworthy of holding onto, especially if it is an actual item that might have been used by someone at some time. I know this about her… but I didn’t know that, over the past couple of weeks, she’d decided to hoard everything on and in her bed.

As I pulled off the comforter, I found a few stray pencils between it and the duvet. Between the duvet and the top sheet, a couple of stuffed animals and a pair of underwear. But it was in the space between the bed and the wall and in the actual sheets – you know, the area where she sleeps – that I found the motherlode.

Normally, when I make the girls’ beds, I just toss back the pillows and stuffed animals and allow Ella and Annie to do the dirty work of actually putting them away. Today, however, it became apparent that Annie would require yet another Cold Day off of school to accomplish such a feat, so I decided to put things into logical piles for her.

Plenty of room for a seven year-old to squeeze in, don’t you think?

In case you can’t quite make it out, the above photo contains the things that were found on and IN Annie’s bed, including (but certainly not limited to):

1 pair of pants
3 pairs of pajama pants
1 sweater
2 shirts
3 pull-ups
4 pairs of underwear
9 socks (only four of which matched one another)
4 blankets
1 box of Amber Brown books
3 library books
11 of her own books
3 journals/drawing pads
5 pens and pencils
1 eraser
1 new package of colored pencils
1 wooden letter E
1 poofy Candy Corn Fairy wand from Halloween
1 construction paper Nimbus 2000 Harry Potter broom
1 orange beaded bracelet
8 doll outfits/shoes/accoutrements
19 stuffed animals
2 stuffed animal pillows
4 decorative pillows
and 1 American Girl doll

In other words, Annie’s bed could singlehandedly have outfitted a small coop preschool; maybe she’s found her calling.

Which meant that a simple, predictable changing-of-the-sheets suddenly turned into a 90-minute re-stocking, which meant that my morning to “get things done” disappeared in an instant – and this part had to do with my ADHD, thank you very much. By the time I’d managed to disentangle everything and pick up the Christmas tree needles, it was time to meet Nick and the girls for lunch.

In case you’re keeping track, the exercising and email-answering never were accomplished. I did manage to wash the towels, however, and damn, do we ever have nice clean sheets to sleep on tonight.

Tomorrow, the temperatures are on their way back to normal, which means the girls will be back in school – and none too soon; I need a day to recover from this Cold Day. I wonder how much I can accomplish in the two hours before my first appointment of the morning? Not sure, but if I can’t find my To-Do book, at least I know where to look: inside Annie’s bed.

If the shoe (doesn’t) fit…

Posted on January 3, 2014 by missemtoo

For Christmas, Nick (and the girls, but really it was Nick because he spent all of the time fighting crowds and searching the web and putting things in his “shopping basket” and pressing “order” and having the boxes delivered to our house) gave me two pairs of Merrells, something I’d been coveting for a long while but hadn’t wanted to pony up and purchase for myself. I loved my old Merrells, which were easily slip-on-able and paired perfectly with an array of outfits, from substitute teacher (a tidy top – perhaps a well-fitted sweater – and khakis or slacks; yes, I said slacks) to piano instructor (a clean shirt that’s not a t-shirt and pants that aren’t jeans) to school volunteer (a mostly clean shirt and probably jeans) to errand-runner/dog walker/ chore-doer (anything that doesn’t smell from five inches away). So much did I love them, in fact, they were worn through — and so new Merrells appeared on my Christmas wish list.

The first pair I opened were similar to clogs, except more stylish, so that when covered by the hem of my pants, they resemble attractive boots. Very good. The second pair was different than any Merrell style I’d seen before – a low-cut boot – but they also seemed good. I immediately removed the inner padding from the left shoe (in this case, wadded up brown paper and a cardboard insert that matched the mold of the toe of the boot), slid it on, and remarked that they were fab. Hooray for husbands who a) remember what I asked for for Christmas and b) chose wisely. Happy me.

These be the ones

On Christmas, I bummed around in my indoor/outdoor slippers (I call them this because they have a really thick, rubber sole with a wicked tread, enabling them to easily make a trip to the mailbox… or, say, into the third grade classroom to help out with Math Facts. What? These? Yep, my slippers. Forgot I even had ’em on! Super comfy, though), so it wasn’t until the 26th that I officially christened my Merrells. I wore the clogs in the morning to run errands and then decided that the boots might be a better choice for the afternoon, as my feet were getting chilly.

I popped those babies right on and began to walk around, but was slightly discouraged to discover that the right shoe (the one I had not tried previously) felt a little tight. This is not an uncommon occurrence; I broke my left leg thirty years ago, so my left foot has been smaller than my right since then. Also – not to be graphic, but this is important to the story – it seems that I’m developing a bunion on my right big toe. Aside from being unsightly, this bump is mostly frustrating because it can make certain shoes uncomfortable — like, apparently, my new boots.

As I went about my business, putting away the previous day’s bounty, packing for our trip to visit my mom and stepdad, and getting the house ready for our dog sitter, the discomfort in my right foot gave way to outright pain. Still, I pressed on, thinking that perhaps if I wore the shoes for an extended period of time, I’d stretch the right one out and it would fit better. Also – and I realize that this makes no sense – I kind of got pissed. Like, seriously, this stupid bunion is effing up my new shoes?? This bunion is ruining my awesome Christmas gift? I WILL SHOW IT WHO’S BOSS.

I’ve never claimed to be the world’s most rational person.

The hours wore on, and the pain in my right foot became more and more pronounced, and I became more and more upset. By this time – many hours later – I was practically limping, and was sure that, when I removed the shoe, the aching would be so severe, I’d be hobbling around for the rest of the night, and maybe the following day as well. Nick asked how I liked the shoes, and I said that I liked them fine, but that the right one was just a wee bit tight – it must be my stupid bunion. He felt terrible for giving me shoes that didn’t fit properly and asked if I was planning to bring them with us on our trip. When I told him that I’d love to, but I didn’t think it was possible because I didn’t want to lose half of my toes due to lack of circulation, he suggested that we put a tennis ball in the right toe to stretch it out while we were gone. This seemed like a good idea, but I wasn’t about to start now — I was still showing my bunion who was boss.

I’ve never been a very good boss, however, so I’d also begun to panic a bit (who, me?). Hadn’t the podiatrist said that I was fine so long as my foot wasn’t in pain, but if the bump started hurting consistently, I’d need surgery? This must be it – I’d reached the end; there was no hope. Could he get me in as soon as we got back from our trip? When would the surgery be scheduled? How long would it take to recover? BUT I DON’T WANT TO DIE.

Again, rationality is not my strong suit.

Just as I was about to vacuum, Nick noticed me Tiny Timming my way around the living room and told me that enough was enough: take off the damn shoe right now, and he’d stuff a tennis ball inside. He even offered to do the vacuuming while I located and put on my indoor/outdoor slippers (sold!). I gingerly took off my right shoe, breathing an enormous sigh of relief as soon as my foot was released, and handed it to Nick, who turned around to go find one of the dogs’ tennis balls (an un-chewed one, I assume, although at that point I didn’t really care). Before he’d even left the room, however, Nick turned back to me with a quizzical look on his face.

“Uhhh, Em?”

Yes?

“You said that this shoe was the only one that was tight?”

Yes.

“Just in the toe area?”

(exasperated sigh) YES. Because of the bunion. The bunion that will need immediate surgery as soon as we return. How many days do you think you can take off of work?

“Ummm… Just wondering, but do you think that this might have anything to do with it?”

And from the shoe Nick withdrew the cardboard insert that matched the mold of the toe of the boot… the insert that I had already removed from the left shoe, but which I had completely forgotten was even in the right one.

Huh. Look at that.

“Maybe it will fit better now?”

Could be. I can certainly try it on.
(shifts vacuum from one hand to the other as I slip on the boot)
Well, hot damn!

“It fits?”

Yes! Yes it does!

“Does it feel okay?”

It feels great!

“There’s no pressure or anything?”

Nope! There’s plenty of room! WHO KNEW THESE WERE SO COMFORTABLE??

“Thank God. I was really worried that I’d given you a gift that didn’t fit.”

And I was really worried about writing a living will.

“What?”

THESE ARE AWESOME BOOTS. I am so wearing them on our trip.

“So… I’ll skip the tennis ball thing…”

Yes, please.

“Glad we got that solved.”

And I’m really glad I married a man who is not only an excellent gift-giver, but also a genius. Or, at least, a little bit more rational than I.
But, man, let me tell you – I vacuum like a champ.

Auld Lang Syne

Posted on December 31, 2013 by missemtoo

There’s so much I could write tonight – stories of our trip (both fantastic and disastrous), of the girls’ escapades, of how (just yesterday!) we were standing in the middle of Times Square where the tens of thousands of revelers have gathered tonight, or thoughts on the passing of another year and the beginning of a new one…

But, right now, I just want to savor what’s right in front of me, while still remembering New Year’s Eves past.

In 2010, we celebrated December 31st with Grandpa Bill and GranMary. The girls made their own hats.

We do so like to be thrifty.

We laughed and clowned around.
Another tickle game? Must be so.

We watched videos of previous ball-droppings in order to ring in the New Year several hours early.
Bill’s face, as he delights in his granddaughters’ shenanigans – complete with homemade crown atop his bald head – makes this photo awesome.

There was much merriment, believe you me.

As we ring in 2014, we are, again, with some of the girls’ grandparents, this time my mom and stepdad, Grandma and Pops. And again, there has been merriment and celebration and goofiness and laughter and laps-sat-upon and hugs abounding and noise-making and just pure joy.

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nye3

All the coolest grandfathers wear pointy hats on New Year’s Eve.

Excellently festive photo courtesy of Pops.

It is sad and bittersweet, this passage of time, but it is also just plain sweet. With family (and friends) and noisemakers and hats and crowns and these two girls and more love and blessings and generosity than we can possibly count, how can it not be?

I don’t know what 2014 will bring, but with these folks by my side, it’s bound to be damn good. Crazy… loud… maddening… exhausting… chocolate-filled (one certainly hopes)… and really, really damn fine.

Are We There Yet?

Posted on December 27, 2013 by missemtoo

Greetings from the highway.

Two days after our truly magical Christmas, we’re off to begin the second half of our holiday festivities, this time visiting my mom and stepdad in Westchester County outside of New York City, where we used to live before we moved to Rochester. And, due to the wonders of modern technology, I can actually write about it live – from my computer, not my phone. I know you’re thrilled.

Nick and I have a long history of road trips together, starting back in college when we thought it was no big deal to jump in a car and drive five or six hours just because, and continuing on our trips to Colorado and Minnesota, plus literally dozens of sojourns around the Northeastern USA. Many of them come off without a hitch and fade into a blurry mesh; others are much more… memorable.

There was the time, as college students, when Nick and I were visiting my family’s condo in Okemo, Vermont and decided to drive to Montreal – a good eight-hour journey – to see the Canadiens play. We left early enough to tour the city a bit, then scored tickets to the game that night. When the usher guided us to our seats, speaking in rapid French, we were to embarrassed to admit that we hadn’t quite understood what he’d said, so we muttered, “Oui!” and hoped it would suffice. Disgusted, the usher glowered at us and reprimanded – in English – “You didn’t understand a word I just said, did you?” Um, nope. “Then why did you say ‘yes’?” Merd.

Newly married, we made a similar one-day round-trip trek to visit my BFF, Kiki, for her dad’s 60th birthday. My mom was out of town at the time, and we were watching her dog, a Sheltie named Jasmine, who got along just fine with our Madison. Knowing we’d be gone for, oh, fifteen hours or so – with no one available to let the dogs out mid-day – we opted to take both hounds along. Jazz was used to traveling in her crate, so we set her up in the back of the car, with Maddy chilling on her dog bed nearby. All went well until Mads got up to shift positions and a low, menacing growl emanated from the kennel; it seemed that Jazz didn’t so much like being cooped up in a moving vehicle with another dog encroaching on her territory, and began snarling viciously, snapping at the crate’s wire walls, each time Maddy so much as breathed. I managed to crawl over the seats and into the way back, where I draped a blanket over Jazz’s kennel to block Madison from her view, which worked nicely until we rounded a corner, and the blanket would slip, and Maddy would move, and suddenly it was Wild Kingdom all over again. The dogs were more than a little frazzled by the time we arrived in New Hampshire for the celebration. Surprise! Happy Birthday! We’ve brought dogs! Let’s party!

Come to think of it, we’ve done a heckuva lot of driving with dogs, from our cross-country disaster with Madison to taking our CCI pups with us anywhere and everywhere. On one such occasion, we had our first CCI dog, Diamond, with us as we again made our way to Vermont. About halfway through the trip, we began to notice this… odor… enveloping us any time Dizey stood up to circle and lie back down again in, in that dizzy-making way that dogs do. Yep, Di had gone into heat and was making a mess all over the floor of the minivan. Awesome.

In case you’re wondering, WalMart does sell doggie diapers. They’re gross, but effective.

Diamond isn’t the only one of us who’s had… trouble… in the car. Sure, we’ve had our fair share of kid-vomit moments, but those are a dime a dozen, no? More unique was the time we were driving with a potty-training Ella who desperately needed to make a pit stop. Careening off the highway, we looked for a gas station, restaurant, or anyplace with indoor plumbing, only to be met by the northern Massachusetts wilderness. We decided our next-best bet was to find a safe spot to pull over and have Ella let loose on the side of the road, but everywhere we turned, the road either had no shoulder, or we were in a residential neighborhood. As Ella’s pleading became ever-more dire, we finally found a field-like area and skidded to a halt. Vaulting out of the front seat, we undid her carseat buckles with lightning speed and placed her on the ground to take care of business, careful to hold her hands and help her squat down…

… when this man appeared out of nowhere. “What are you doing here?” Um, sorry, but our daughter really needed to go to the bathroom… “Well, you’re on my property.” Right. Our daughter is now peeing on your lawn. Super. Reeeally, really sorry about that. We’ll just clean her up and get on our way.

There was also the time when we were visiting my sister- and brother-in-law in Colorado, and Nick was working all day, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to drive the girls up into the foothills, because when you’re this close to the Rockies, you can’t not see them up close, right? Ella had said she didn’t really feel well – and, in fact, she did have a fever – but after a dose of Tylenol, she perked up considerably. By the time we’d cruised west out of Denver and were winding our way amongst the peaks of the mountains, the Tylenol had begun to wear off, and Ella started to fade. Not wanting to let this first-in-a-lifetime moment pass by, I found a spot with a beautiful view and had the girls get outside for a photo op.

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Best mom, ever.

ARE WE HAVING FUN YET??

We flew home the following morning with the sickest, most feverish, vomiting, hacking kiddo, then raced her to urgent care as soon as we landed, where they immediately proclaimed she had severe pneumonia. But at least we have the photos.

Most of our road trips these days are taken with just the four of us (and our hounds), but occasionally, friends or family will join us. On one such occasion, when Ella was about two, we were dragging my sister-in-law, Emi, along with us, and things began to go south. Both of our kids have always hated being trapped in their car seats (you know how people say they’d go for a drive to calm their kids down? HAHA. I would rather take a 12-hour flight than a 3-hour drive with our girls), and have generally been miserable travelers after the first hour or so. On this particular trip, Annie was screeching like a banshee despite my attempts to calm her (ever tried to breastfeed a kid from a moving vehicle? NOT EASY, MY FRIENDS), and Ella – who was growing ever-more agitated with being stuck in her own seat and listening to her sister’s wailing – requested “Daddy’s song.”

And so Nick began singing “Faith” by George Michael, a song he’d sung to Ella countless times before, but whose lyrics he’d never really contemplated. “Well, I guess it would be nice… if I could touch your body… I know not everybody has a body like you…” Emi’s head whipped around so fast, I thought she’d injure herself. So this is how it is with your family. Not awkward at all.

Today, it’s just the four of us again – the dogs are happily home with our fantabulous house sitter – and, three hours in, it’s already been an adventure. The moment we closed the doors, Annie began watching newly-downloaded episodes of Sofia the First, oblivious to everything around her.

Ella, preferring to wait till halfway through the drive to watch the 6th Harry Potter movie, began chatting with Nick and me, laughing out loud about that time when every single one of us forgot something and we had to turn around and return only minutes after we’d departed. The chuckles had barely escaped her lips when Ella drew a startled breath and confessed, “I left my American Girl doll at home.” Another time, we’d have said too bad, but this trip, her brand-new, much-beloved doll might actually be… important… so Nick and I both took our own deep breaths as we turned that car right around. At least we were only twenty minutes from the house – let’s add forty minutes to the trip! It’ll be fun!

As we rounded the bend in the park near home, Ella poked her sister to show her the mushroom house, and Annie – still wearing headphones, looking up from her screen for the first time since sitting down – clearly registered that we’d been in the car for quite a while (so we should be well on our way to Grandma’s), did a double-take, and stage whispered, “Why are we going home??”

Look kids! Big Ben! Parliament!

Family ~~bondage~~ bonding is the best.

A Very Harry Christmas

Posted on December 27, 2013 by missemtoo

Sometimes, things don’t go the way you’d planned or hoped. Maybe your expectations were too high, or the circumstances just don’t pan out, or something goes wrong.

Other times… It goes exactly the way you’d imagined.
Amazingly, our Christmas was one of those times.

My dad and stepmom – Papa and Grand Meg – joined us for the fourth year in a row, and although they were accosted by the girls the moment the came in the door (and barely made it home in one piece, having been thoroughly climbed on, jumped on, hugged, shouted at, danced with, and sat upon for the past three days), it was, as always, a marvelous way to spend the holiday.

We ate.
christmas42
Looking for some decorating tips?
Dog beds, unwrapped packages, and Swiffer WetJets are magnificent accessories.
Cute black Lab not included.

We got ready for Santa.

What? Santa doesn’t get cookies, milk, and whiskey at your house? PITY.

The big guy came…

Apparently, the whiskey went to his head…

And brought Annie and Ella just what they’d asked for.

In our house, we eat a big ol’ Christmas breakfast before digging into the bulk of our gifts – but, to keep the Ella and Annie sane, we let them open a few presents in advance of the rest. For the third year in a row, the girls requested that the first gifts they open be the ones they’d picked out for each another.

They were a hit!

Not to be outdone by a guy in a red suit who breaks and enters, Nick and I had a few gifts up our sleeves – including Harry Potter wands.

The girls were…
well, these speak for themselves.

(These are the best pictures ever, are they not?)

(Yep. Best ever. Definitely.)

A couple of weeks ago, Nick had mentioned that he and his siblings had played a game called Trac Ball with their dad when they’d visit the North Shore of Minnesota. Lo and behold, Trac Ball still exists – and it so happens that it’s a blast.

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Not sure why I have no photos of Nick playing Trac Ball… but my dad took Ella on this morning.

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Grand Meg plays to win, yo!

I won’t bore you with the details… but the rest our Christmas was pretty damn fine.

Don’t mind Annie’s nervous smile; we were in the middle of a lake effect snow squall and the flakes were really flying.

It wasn’t entirely sunshine and unicorns. Annie has a cold, Langston ate the entire wedge of brie right off the coffee table, we missed Bill an awful lot, and the lasagna I’d so carefully made ahead of time (so that we could just pop it in the oven on Christmas day and eat it 90 minutes later, no fussing or fretting necessary) might have not really cooked so well, leaving us with delicious sauce and lasagna noodles that were still crunchy. Oops.

But it was still pretty fantastic.

Growing up, I’d assumed that the best part of Christmas was being a kid. Turns out I was wrong: the best part of Christmas is watching your kids experience it*. The wonder… the awe… the joy… the exhaustion… the seven extra bags of trash that had to be dragged to the curb…

This year was a really good one. Magical, really.
Hoping yours was the same.

My BFF, Kiki, sent us these Harry Potter glasses with the instructions that they were for “the entire family, even the dogs, with the hopes of a PHOTO!” How could we not oblige?

Side note: not sure whey I look like Professor Trelawney.
Side note two: Jambi totally rocks the glasses Very studious.

* That is, when they’re not crying or hitting one another or ripping through the packages so fast, you’d think they were competing in an opening contest – five year-old Annie, I’m looking at you.

** Thanks, Grand Meg, for sharing some of your photos!

Living and learning… and cookies

Posted on December 21, 2013 by missemtoo

Growing up in southwestern Connecticut, which only saw an average of 24″ of snow each year, was a bit rough for a snow bunny like myself. Because of the relative rarity of measurable snow, even a little bit brought everything to a halt; you could count on school being cancelled at least three times a year, sometimes at the mere prediction of snow.

Moving to Rochester was, therefore, a thrilling experience for winter lovers like Nick, the girls, and me. With an average of 100″ of snow per year here, there’s no shortage of the white stuff to go around, which is awesome for folks like us. (Lest you get the wrong idea, the volume of snow does not lessen our enjoyment of it; we still gleefully celebrate the first nighttime snowfall each year by waking the girls up and carrying them downstairs from their beds to watch the falling flakes, just like my mom used to do with me.)

This is our seventh Rochester winter, and I think I’ve finally got it figured out. Which probably sounds strange – what is there to figure out? It’s just freakin’ snowy all the time – but it’s not quite that simple. Here’s the thing: our snow doesn’t usually fall in large increments. It’s not like we get a foot of snow one day, eight inches a few days later, and another foot the following week. Although we do get a bunch of snowfalls that total over six inches each season, the majority of our snow comes in rather small amounts: an inch today, half an inch tomorrow, the two more inches the day after tomorrow. An inch of snow doesn’t sound like much – and it isn’t – but when you have an inch of snow for 10 out of 14 days, and it’s remained cold enough for the snow that’s already fallen to stick around, it adds up.

Literally.

The exception to this rule is an odd thing we have here called lake effect snow, which technically means that the Great Lakes (in our case, Lake Ontario) gather up moisture which then comes down as snow in the winter. Practically speaking, it means that even when we don’t have a storm moving through, if the conditions are right over the lakes, it can snow pretty much any time, and that snow is entirely unpredictable. Dealing with lake effect snow is like anticipating Pope Francis’s next move – he might deliver a homily in Latin or take a selfie in the Vatican square. On any given day, it can be clear and dry, and suddenly there’s a snow squall so thick you can’t see across the street for fifteen minutes – and then, just like that, the snow is done. It’s kind of cool, in a geeky weather way, but is also maddening because you never know when it might pop up next.

(Side note: I think Pope Francis rocks.)

So anyway, now that the meteorology lesson is over, I’ll get on with the actual story. Oh yes, there is an actual story. Last week, Annie was scheduled to attend an evening Girl Scout outing where we would be caroling at a retirement community. (I know, I know… I said we would be caroling, which goes against everything that the Slacker Moms stand for. But people, it was singing Christmas carols. I just couldn’t help myself.) I also say we because I’d signed up for this to be “my” activity, so I definitely needed to participate.

See, although we may be slackers, we still want our kids’ scouting experience to be a good one, and the troops don’t run themselves, so each of us agreed to be in charge of one meeting or field trip. Because my piano lessons prevent me from attending any of the meetings, I knew I’d have to do an extracurricular activity, and the caroling seemed tailor-made for me. First of all, singing. CHRISTMAS CAROLS. Check. Second, since it was an already-organized activity (our troop was tagging along with several other Girl and Boy Scout troops, one of whom had arranged all of the sing-along details), it was really easy to make it “my” event: all I had to do was bring song sheets, cookies, and hot chocolate. Check. And finally, since I was already attending a(n adults-only) Cookie Exchange later that night, I needed to be making cookies anyway, and I am nothing if not efficient. Check.

Beyond that, the only thing that Annie and I had to do was show up at the retirement community. When she got home from school, this seemed like it would be no problem; she was excited to go, the cocoa and cookies were ready, all was well. It was quite cold that day, with temperatures in the teens and twenties and a decent wind chill. Given that we’d be caroling outside from house to house, bundling up sufficiently would be necessary, but that wasn’t really a big deal. With about an hour to go before our scheduled departure, I glanced outside and noticed that it had begun snowing, but I didn’t think anything of it; no snow had been predicted for the day, so I only just barely registered the falling flakes.

Annie was in the middle of playing – nothing particularly earth-shattering, just, you know, playing – when I gave her the heads-up that we’d be leaving soon. She called back to me that she didn’t want to go because she was busy. Playing. I told her that I was sorry that she didn’t want to stop playing, but we definitely needed to attend, so we’d be out the door in a bit.

Well. Little Miss must have been in a mood, because when I told her it was time to put on her boots, she began having a world-class meltdown. Had I not heard her? She DIDN’T WANT TO GO. She’d NEVER wanted to go! SHE WOULDN’T GO.

I tried to calmly talk her down, and then glanced outside again. The flakes that had been fluttering to the ground an hour ago had apparently been gathering steam, because, in those sixty minutes, a good two inches of snow had piled up on the lawn, the driveway, the road. As I surveyed the white-out, I was momentarily confounded: I didn’t think we were supposed to get snow today. With that much already on the ground and more continuing to fall, I knew that boots wouldn’t quite cut it; she’d need full-on snow gear.

When I broke this news to Annie (who was lying on the dining room floor, writhing about as though perhaps the subject of an exorcism), she didn’t exactly take it well.

Have you ever attempted to wrestle a sobbing orangutan into a pair of overalls? It is a good time, let me tell you.

As the snow fell ever more steadily and the time of our departure drew nigh (first time I’ve ever written that word, holla!), I considered my options. More specifically, I considered that we didn’t have any options. On another night, I might have said, Ah, forget it. It’s snowing like crazy and Annie’s behaving like she’s possessed. We’ll pass. But this was MY ACTIVITY. I had vats of steaming hot chocolate (carefully packed into dispensers nestled within an insulated carrier) and dozens of cookies and had spent a good hour printing and stapling together packets of Christmas carol lyrics. Plus, the other girls in our troop were counting on us to be there and take the reins… Because it was my activity. Seeing as how Annie is the Girl Scout – not moi – she needed to come along, too.

I finally managed to get Annie into enough snow gear to cover her, but it wasn’t pretty. I can’t remember if I worked out that morning, but after the wrestling match, I’d easily burned enough calories to account for the cookie dough I’d consumed making the treats earlier in the day. After stuffing Annie into her booster seat and heading down the driveway, I attempted to reason with her. She could choose to continue to be upset, growling like a wounded animal, or she could choose to have fun. We would be spending the evening with some of her closest friends. We would be singing! THERE WERE COOKIES AND COCOA, FOR GOD’S SAKE.

Also, if she didn’t stop crying, her tears would freeze to her cheeks and then she’d really be miserable.

Crazy-mom threats. Always a good strategy.

I’d worried that, after our short drive, Annie would still be a hot mess when it came time to join the rest of the troop – but, as luck would have it, she had plenty of time to get herself under control because the road conditions were horrendous. Rochester is typically pretty good about clearing the roadways quickly and efficiently, and even in decent storms, we tend not to have much trouble getting around. This night was different. I’m not sure what happened – maybe the road maintenance crews had read the same forecast I had and didn’t know we were going to get snow, either? – but there were at least three inches of snow in the streets and nary a plow in sight.

As I crept from our street into the main drag, I could see nothing but brake lights up ahead, so I – very wisely, I was sure – chose to take the highway for our ten-minute sojourn. Wrong. The moment I merged from the on-ramp onto the freeway, the traffic was absolutely bumper to bumper. We never drove faster than 13 mph, and that’s when we were moving at all. THESE HOLIDAY CELEBRATIONS ARE SO MUCH FUN.

Forty minutes later, I exited the highway, and asked Annie if she was feeling a bit better. When she didn’t answer me, I turned to ask her the question again and saw this:

My little wounded animal had howled herself out.

After driving the wrong way – twice – at last I found our meeting spot, parked, and gently shook Annie awake. She was… not particularly happy with this development. Given that we were more than 25 minutes late, there would be no hot chocolate or cookies before the caroling, so I dragged the insulated carrier with me as we started off on our slippery jaunt around the retirement community. Naturally, the carrier had no straps, so I had to carry the enormous container in my arms, like I was toting a boulder up a mountain. (Does anyone actually do that? Perhaps I need a better metaphor…)

We joined up with the rest of our troop, trudging off through the snow that was far deeper than it had been at our house. As soon as I caught the eye of one of the other moms, she gave me a bewildered look back and said, “I didn’t realize it was supposed to snow…”

Annie came along for the ride, but she wasn’t exactly festive. Partly to defy me and partly because her body temperature hovers somewhere around volcanic, she refused to wear her hat, and within the first ten minutes, at least five adults asked her if she was okay, or offered to loan her their hat. No, that’s just my kid being defiant and stubborn. I realize it’s a blizzard out here, but I’m sure she’ll be fine. When she began literally dragging her feet and stomping on residents’ bushes, I pulled her aside and whispered violently to her that if she didn’t pull her act together, there would be a very serious consequence. I had no idea what that consequence was, mind you (another stellar parenting decision), but with my arms full of the hot chocolate and cookies, I couldn’t very well lug her around, too.

As we reached the third of seven houses, Annie’s demeanor began to change a bit. Rather than stand off to the side and murmur her “thumpity-thump-thump“s, she took the lyrics from me and sang a little louder. At the fourth house, she miraculously perked up when the residents offered the pint-sized carolers some Hershey’s kisses. By the last three houses, I could hardly even see her – partially due to the ridiculous conditions, and partially because she ran so far ahead, laughing and singing with such gusto, I could scarcely keep up.

When we had completed the final sing-along, our troop members were more than ready to hightail it out of there. We were frozen to our core and covered with snow; my feet were thoroughly soaked, because – not knowing that the snow was going to be so deep – I had worn my sneakers, which proved greatly ineffective. We Slacker Moms don’t sign up for such hardship, damn it! But there were two things that needed addressing before we could hop in our cars and inch our way back home: hot chocolate and cookies.

We – parents and girls – milled around for a good twenty minutes after everyone else had left, sipping and chomping and discussing how none of us had had any idea that it was going to snow that night… And now, here we were, with five inches on the ground in less than two hours. At last, we said goodbye, commenting about how crazy we must be to be out in this weather, how terrible the driving was…

… but also, how rather sweet it had all been. The kids, rushing from house to house, “singing” with such force that the tunes were sometimes unrecognizable. The octogenarians stepping outside and onto their porches, joining right in with the chorus despite the swirling snow. The catching of snowflakes on tongues. The richness of the chocolate, and hugs shared between friends. Knowing that we’d made people’s evenings just a little bit brighter, that we’d genuinely spread some cheer and happiness.

On our drive home, even Annie had to concede: that was really, really fun.

The return trip was much quicker than the journey there, which was a good thing because I still had a Cookie Exchange to get to. It struck me, as I crawled along the streets to my destination, that this kind of snow would have closed school in Connecticut (indeed, our friends who live in Connecticut, southern New York, and New Jersey had already had a snow day due to 4-5 inches of predicted snow), and here I was, blithely driving to a friend’s house to trade cookies.

But hey. Cookies are cookies, man. You don’t mess with cookies, not even in a blizzard.

By the time I reached my destination, the snow had largely stopped. When I left two hours later, I could glimpse the moon.

Turns out it was just lake effect snow after all. Nothing to be concerned about.
The cookies, on the other hand? So totally worth it.

All Together in a Scattered Sort of Way

Finding humor in even the most inappropriate places

Author Archives: missemtoo