Improbable Things

Still stuck in the snow

8:30 pm and the house is already asleep.

I can hear the dripping of water from the icicles outside.

Three roast beasts later and we are still snowed in. Well, mostly snowed in. The market a block away was open through the whole blizzard but getting to it took us a while. We didn't lose power or phone or internet. The boiler didn't break, thankfully. So really, it's not been bad for us. Bill went to get more milk (since we have a milk-guzzling toddler) and came back with a load of carrots and yogurt, both of which we had in vast quantities already. I roasted the third beast (pork this time), made a Caesar salad, and found a savory Roman-style carrot recipe to try. In the process, we learned that tinned anchovies do actually expire. Who knew?

The snow is really too deep for our kids. WeeE and I ventured out on an adventure into the Fort at 8 am. Dauntless, intrepid explorer - with a smattering of "mom, this is BORING" followed by, "Mom, it's so beautiful!" I'm not one to enjoy long stints in the wet and cold, so we've spent a lot of time playing indoors. WeeE has been playing dress up and doing tap dance shows, which were cute until the clatter of tap shoes on hardwood started to make me nuts. WeeC has been riding her car around... and vaulting over the top with a skid and bounce that left her with a huge shiner on her forehead. She's now sporting a spongebob band-aid but isn't slowing down.

I found it morbidly hilarious when WeeC spent the better part of five minutes trying to stuff her babydoll into the play oven. I really wish I'd caught that with the camera.

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Next morning: For a while last night, it looked like Bill would be heading in to work this morning. DC gov claimed to be opening on time, the university was not closed and DC schools were going to try a 2 hours delay.

Which was delusional. Even in DC, which I agree is getting our streets plowed and cleaned and put together faster than the burbs, we are not ready for people to start back to work. The sidewalks are not cleared at all, which is crucial in a pedestrian city. It's ironic, perhaps, that the jurisdiction that relies most heavily on pedestrian access is the first in the region to get the roads clear. That's nice, but without sidewalks, Metro and Metrobus, we are just as stuck as Fairfax is without the residential streets plowed. Yes, people can walk in the streets, but as motor traffic picks up, that options becomes decidedly less safe. Plows are putting snow on the sidewalks, bus stops, and intersections, meaning that often the cleaner streets mean more barriers for walkers. As the streets get better, the cars begin to take dominance again and our walking conditions worsen, until enough snow melts to balance things out again. 

Thinking in this vein, it makes me wonder when it'll be safe for DC school kids to walk to school again. We go from being ahead of the game in the short term (with better cleared streets) to falling behind (no safe options for pedestrians) for the long haul.  A mix of apathy and incompetence, spiced with inability, cripples the city for days after a snow event. Suffice to say, DC schools opted to close after all when it became clear that the streets were unsafe to walk in, sidewalks were not cleared and Metro still can't run its full lines.

I don't have a solution except to get out and shovel more. I guess I should get on that.

snowy wilderness

via www.flickr.com

It looks like the middle of nowhere... a special nowhere that is also close to Metro and a great lil market that never closed during the blizzard.

WeeE Sitting Pretty

via www.flickr.com

Note to self - go clear the fire hydrant later today. It's the slightly taller pile to the left

Early but not still

It's 6:40 am and already Bill has been out shoveling for about an hour. He is diligently knocking the snow from our hedge because we really don't want to lose it and have to see our neighbor's crappy yard after this season. Even with his efforts, the nearly 10' tall hedge of Euonymous is bowing to the ground. The 70+ year old Yew that dominates our front looks crushed under the snow. The young plum tree has snow drifting up to its lowest branches

Bill tried to go back to bed but WeeC is up and adamant that things happen. She's not sure what should be happening, but she wants it now. Too bad she's too little to shovel, though I have it on good authority that she will not be willing to shovel by the time she is competent. WeeE is now up - wanting food, snacks, waffles, bacon, pear, banana, EVERYTHING. She's an eating machine. WeeC won't be put down without screaming.

Now it is 7 am, the coffee is ready, and so starts the weekend of being housebound with the Wees.

Snow and Games

via www.flickr.com

Seems there is more snow on the way. And some game or something. Kidding - even I can't escape the excitement about the Superbowl this year. And I've thoroughly enjoyed the glee over at the Capital Weather Gang in following the probabilities until they converge at SNOMG!!! In a world full of all kinds of people who take their interests to the geek level, whatever that interest, I know too few true weather geeks.

Rounding up our scores on recent online polls:

• SuperBowl: We are rooting for the Saints.
• Snowstorm: We are calling it Snowpocalyse II: the Electric Boogaloo (and yes, we actually have Breakin' 2 on DVD because my husband is like that.)
• Brookland Grocery Debate # Umpteenth: I'd choose a Wegmans over a Trader Joes on RI. Trader Joes would fit better over near Catholic.

I don't expect any quiet during this storm. Kids change everything, in case you haven't heard, and being snowed in with two toddlers is entirely the opposite of being snowed in with your sweetie and a pile of good books. It's more wonderful because of the wonder and joy, pure and sweet, that kids have for playing in the snow. Its less wonderful for the sheer inexhaustible wet and cranky that can follow.

In 2002, Bill and I were delightfully snowed in over Valentine's Day. It was a good storm, a solid three-days of being snowed in, I recall watching a lot of Sifl & Ollie (Pirate cripplers - does Ollie sound kinda like Glenn Beck?) and napping. Now I can't even guarantee quiet in the early morning hours. 50/50 chance one or the other of the girls will be up between 5 and 6 am. Still, once in a while, I get a peaceful morning - such as on Monday when we got 8" of surprise fairy dusting snow. The photos are just snapshots but they store a small moment of peace, quiet, stillness. Thank you winter, for occasionally giving us stillness.

Snow Day 2010

More snow. They predicted a dusting and we got 8 inches. Usually we get the reverse around here.

Sophia still loves the snow, even as she approaches 90 in dog years. She will frolic if you toss a shovel of snow at her. Joy!

It's hard to take snapshots of sledding. The hill looks flat, but look up there, that Bigfoot-looking outline is Bill and that is how far the girls came down together. Just them, yes, a thee year old holding a one year old. It's a long slow hill and a perfect bunny slope.

This is WeeE coming down from about twice as far up... she was FLYING... or so she thought. If she were really going all that fast, I would not have gotten the picture.

The cuties. We walked around the neighborhood with the sled and the biggest obstacle was ironically where neighbors had shoveled. I had to dig in the clothing bins to outfit WeeC. She grew into and out of her recent coat in about 5 weeks. I thought those boots were too big... but they are just right. The coat she is wearing is the same one her sister had on just last winter when she was two and a half. I thought the first daughter was ginormous, but it seems, judging by the clothes, like WeeC is even less of a wee.

I see this picture and I think I should either get sunglasses or stop being a worrywart. Bill on the other hand looks just as handsome as when we met. BTW, that is a Ghostbuster T-shirt peeking out under his scarf. Yep, we are dorks.

Churn

Life has a lot of churn sometimes. Agitation.  Call it Sturm und Drang if you are feeling dramatic.  Call it logistics if you just want to be practical about it.

Whatever you call it, it's been the focus of life recently. Nothing really stands out in the mess of things happening, but I think we are doing things, getting things done. We haven't been buried in dishes and laundry yet - and I'm prouder of that accomplishment than seems rational. We have a reasonable expectation of enough sleep to cope, even with two kids who'd rather jump on our heads at 6 am than play quietly in their rooms.

Going to work again hasn't meant adding another hat to my rack of obligations. It meant a doubling of the number of hats, until really the metaphor falls apart under its own weight. In addition to the mom hats and the volunteer/neighborhood hats, I now have all the different hats at work: accountant, editor, trouble-shooter, IT Tech, website designer, project manager, Jack-of-all-Trades. 

We already had to switch WeeC's care situation, which meant new routes and new drop-off and pick-up schedules. Bill's school schedule changed, so now I'm not riding Metro but driving. No two weeks are the same. No two days are the same.

I'm still having a honeymoon with the job. I can walk. To get sushi! I can eat a meal in peace. After 3.5 years of hauling kids everywhere I went, just the fact that I can sometimes walk, unencumbered, is enough to make me smile. Yeah - I'm the dork smiling for no reason on lunch break.

On the days that I'm at home, we play hard. Tunnels, forts, cooking together. On nice days, we stop at the playground on the way home from school. WeeC loves the swings of course and her big sis likes to climb the most dangerous parts of the jungle gym. I'm looking forward to the weather getting better and WeeC getting more mobile, so we can get out and play more.

It's ridiculous how much I appreciate these little things right now. I get to work AND still spend time at the playground. I hope I don't start to take it for granted too soon. Right now, I'm holding on tight through the churn.

Step aside, WeeC is One

Last year today was a ride, literally a "trip", like none I'd ever had. Having a baby is both so mundane and transcendent. Earthy and spiritual. We were each of us born, a daily fact of life. Yet each birth has as part of it an ineffable truth - the start of a new person - that is simply bigger than anything we know in daily life.

A year later, I recall WeeC's birth gently, tentatively. It's not a memory I'm comfortable reliving. It's not like that delicious first kiss or the long gaze you held on your wedding day. Some memories you wish you could recreate, practically wallow in them, they feel so good. WeeC's birth didn't get that.

Instead, I spent hours before the birth being frustrated and uncomfortable, treated like a pregnant slab of meat by the surgery prep nurses, and finally panicking through the epidural. Panic. I can admit that now. I'm not keen on needles (few of us are) and I'm doubly less happy when a terse nurse comes up briskly and tries to matter-of-fact stab me in the spinal cord without a by-your-leave. You too, my friend, will jump out of your skin. Two nurses grabbed my arms to hold me forcibly still, telling me to just relax. "Just." After a third failed attempt, I finally got them all to back off and let me breathe to relax. They were in a hurry though, so I didn't get much respite. Finally the needle was in.

And it failed to "take." A vague way of saying I didn't have pain killer. Anyone else out there have a c-section without pain killers? 

With that I retreat from the memory. I spelled a bit more of the story out last year. 

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A year buzzes by.

 

No one gets enough sleep,

 

But we make it through.

And WeeC gets bigger, mobile, eats better, starts solids,

 

blossoms into a person, unfolding who she is, leaving the baby behind for the toddler,

   

until we find this little lady greeting us this morning.

She climbs the stool and tries to fill her own water bottle. She coos to herself in the morning. She walks and walks and walks and walks and.... She's dealt with starting daycare like a champ. She's figured out straws and wants to feed herself, adamantly. She'll slap away things she does not like and is emphatic about what she wants. Fearless and creative, I've called her The Menace more than once. Still, what do I expect when she has her sister to model all the funnest (and unsafe) behaviors. Inside this little person is a woman who knows her own mind and isn't terribly concerned with your opinion. Real leadership potential here. Everyone step aside, WeeC is One.

Snow... er... Broken Infrastructure Day?

A water main broke and flooded the basement of the old church where WeeE's school is held. After the water receded, they discovered that the ancient boiler was damaged beyond repair, so classes most of this week were canceled. We hope the church is able to replace it in time for Sunday Mass, which will mean school is back on Monday. Otherwise, it might be a while until they reopen.

So much for returning to our regular 'routine.' We have no such thing. Today we delivered the unused snacks for her school (30 servings of bean and cheese quesadilla) to a local charity, then blew off steam at Ikea. Because that's educational, right?

WeeC cooks

She had it pretty much under control. And was adamant that we were NOT to intervene.