YAY for snow days!

Audrey woke up this morning covered in puke.

The good news is she didn't have school today anyway. We got about 9 inches last night (bayern chicka bayern bayerrrrn)...of snow.

Poor little Bean had to miss the sledding adventure Jim and Mina went on. Hopefully she'll feel better by Sunday because I really want us all to get to go to the sledding hill together.

Jim took the camera and got a video that MUST be shared.

Basically he is laying on his stomach on the sled with the camera in front of his face and Mina is sitting on his back. Be sure to listen carefully for the sound of the guy they knocked over near the end (he was alright and laughed about it).

Oops

This morning, I "adjusted" the garage door.

My car sat out all night on New Year's Eve so we would have room in the garage for the smokers in attendance. We got a good bit of snow that night, so last night I asked him to bring the car back into the garage. I assumed he would get all the snow off first. Nope.

This is how it looked last night:





When I went to back my car out of the garage this morning to warm it up, I couldn't see out the back window and failed to remember that I had only opened the door halfway when I went out there to smoke a cigarette earlier.

I hate when I do stupid shit like that.

It's not just that I dented the bottom of the door (it's not even that bad). It's more about the fact that Jim now has free reign to give me shit, and there's not a goddamned thing I can do about it...except wait until he does something equally as stupid.

Got MILF?

We're on Day Two of our snowed-in extravaganza. I haven't lost it...yet.

Snow days do have their advantages. For one, I don't have to participate in life outside the warm confines of my house. School is canceled. I don't have a job but even if I did, I would have called in. Our snow shovel broke this morning while my husband was trying to make a path to get his car out.

Since I am not leaving the house, I do not have to look presentable to the outside world. Not that I care one way or the other what I look like at the grocery store or post office, but one never knows when one might run into an old friend or worse, an ex-boyfriend. I hate looking like shit when that happens. I can just picture what they're thinking: "Geez, she used to take much better care of herself before she succumbed to "mommy guilt" and quit her job. Sad. Very sad."

Well, fuck you and your small dick.

It's hard to get motivated to keep up on personal hygiene when I'm trying to keep two young children entertained all day. I can't even go to the bathroom by myself. That's not really an anomaly exclusive to snow days, but it just adds insult to injury in this case.

Last night, as my husband and I were brushing our teeth before bed, I took a long hard look in the mirror.

I had washed my hair that morning, but instead of brushing it into a manageable style, I let it dry naturally. My hair has a bit of a wild streak. Normally I can beat the curls into submission, but if left to its own whimsy, I look like I got a perm circa 1984. After a day of rolling around on the floor, playing with the kids and the dogs all day, my hair looked like that of a crazy homeless person.

In addition to my Mariah-Carey-on-crack-esque coif, my skin is depleted of any moisture whatsoever (forced air heat + old house + winter weather = very dry skin). This, in addition to PMS has caused a bit of a revolt in the skin department. "No problem," I thought, "I'll just use a bit of this handy-dandy face mask stuff I have for such an occasion."

My uniform all day pretty much consisted of what I had worn to bed the night before plus a ratty-looking but very comfortable sweater. Another reason staying in the house can be a treat is the fact that I don't have to put on a bra. Sometimes the girls need to breathe, ya know.

If you haven't been keeping score, let me recap:

My hair is caught in a time warp.
I have a smear of white face mask slapped haphazardly across my face.
PJ's from the night before, accented by a sweater that probably needs to be retired.
No bra (which would have been kinda' sexy about 6 years ago, read: pre-babies, but now not so much).

So, my husband and I are brushing our collective teeth at the bathroom sink and I stop and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, toothpaste foam forming a slow crawl down my chin....

"Jesus Christ, wouldya' look at me?"

(husband stops to gaze upon his lawfully wedded wife, most likely frantically trying to interpret my tone)


"Darling husband, I gotta' ask you, how on earth are you resisting all this hotness?"

Stupid parents

Today was a snow day. School was cancelled and my husband even came home early from the shop (an extremely rare occurence). The whole city is like a ghost town. I have a five foot snow drift in front of my garage. I won't be going anywhere until one of the following happens: A) the snow melts, B) some kind soul comes to offer his snowblowing services (which sounds awfully dirty if you ask me), or C) we buy our own snowblower.

None of these things is likely to happen anytime soon.

Just for shits and giggles, I called around to a few places to see if they actually had any snowblowers, or snowthrowers as I just found out they are sometimes called, left. Snowthrower makes a hell of a lot more sense than snowblower. Think about it.

Of course every place I called was clean out, but no one laughed at me for asking so that was nice.

We spent the day lounging and eating too much as I am want to do during blizzard conditions (like I need an excuse). It was just a casual, relaxing day.

I considered getting us all bundled up to play outside, but the winds were whipping something fierce. It was kind of scary out there if you want to know the truth (and I know you do). We had to actually force my dogs to go outside to do their "bidness". They're Pugs though, not a breed known for its hardiness or bravery in treacherous conditions.

The 40mph gusts did not stop my neighbors' kids from playing outside. My husband spotted a couple of them across the street frolicking sans gloves. C'mon people!

Granted, they don't appear to be the smartest family on the planet, but I would think a little common sense would seep in somewhere between WWE Saturday Night and NASCAR marathons.

It's cold and windy and fucking ass COLD! Make sure your kids wear gloves and hey, maybe a hat, when it's this cold outside.

A second example of parental asshattery came in the form of a Sprout short. In between shows, they do this, for lack of a better term, birthday shout out. Parents can send in homemade cards and the host reads them on air. It's cute and all, but kind of obnoxious especially when they play this thinly-disguised version of "Happy Birthday" (sung by Elmo himself!). It's terrible and it has a way of sticking in my head for days on end.

The cards though, they are heartwarming in an 'old episode of Little House on the Prairie' kind of way. Some day I will get it together enough to send one in that is so amazingly sickeningly syrupy in nature, they won't be able to stop themselves from showing it. I can't do it for one kid and not the other, so I'll probably just make it for myself. Won't I feel special?

Today, one of the cards they read was for a two year old. I don't remember where he's from or even what his name was, but I do know this: his parents should be ashamed of themselves right now.

On the front of the adorably decorated birthday card were intricate cut outs and little drawings of birthday candles. It appeared that someone took a lot of time putting it together. The inside was a picture of the cute-as-a-button birthday boy. Awwww. Then Host Guy closed the card and showed the front of it to camera again. That's when I saw it (and saw it three more times thanks to my DVR capabilities).

"YOUR 2!!"

I'm assuming they get hundreds, if not thousands of these handmade birthday cards every week, and they pick one with a spelling error?

Don't the higher-ups at Sprout (a subsidiary of PBS forchrissakes!!) that grammar and spelling nerds like myself are writhing in pain over this? What the fuck people?

OK, I know I have been known to screw up a little grammar here and there. I also know that I use commas out the wazoo, but at least I'm trying. I'm all about spell check and if I think I might be using a word or phrase wrong (see above: "...want to do..."), you bet your ass I'm googling or thesaurus.com-ing it.

"Your 2".

No. Just no.

Hold me

We are under a Winter Storm Warning until tomorrow night.

I hate this shit. I hate winter. I hate snow. Most of all, I hate going to the grocery store in front of a forecast like this.

Don't get wrong. I like to be prepared. If I know we're going to be stuck in the house for a couple of days, I make sure we have some snacky-snacks, ingredients for wholesome hot dinners and shit to do that isn't watching television. Not that I don't let my kids watch TV. I do, and plenty of it.
I just know that if the girls go over the recommended daily allowance of Sprout or Noggin, they start getting twitchy, and no one wants that. I do try to balance TV watching with other stuff. We do crafts from time to time. Usually we have great fun (though we have all agreed never to speak of the Great Glitter Fiasco of 06).

I hate having to deal with people I don't normally have to deal with at the store. I usually have the girls with me and it's not their favorite thing to do, even if we get the big plastic cart shaped like a butterfly or car. That thing is a bitch to steer and half the time they want to get out and walk anyway.

Today, I caught a break and got to go by myself. Because I am so lame, this is a huge treat for me. Normally, I go during the week in the middle of the day. Most people are at work so it's generally other stay-at-home moms and old people to deal with. Old people tend to stay out of the way, occasionally stopping to tsk tsk a badly behaved child. The other moms with kids are too busy dealing with their own meltdowns and whining to notice mine.

Today, since there is apparently an Apocalypse-worthy snowstorm coming, everyone decided to go to the grocery store. Everyone also decided that they were more important than me since they were taking time away from their cubicle to buy 8 loaves of bread and 12 gallons of milk all at once. Amateurs.

I was enjoying a leisurely stroll down the aisles, sans children when I heard the distinct swish of polyester on polyester coming up fast from behind.

"Excuse me! I'm in a very big hurry."

Oh, by all means Sue from accounts payable, let me get my lazy ass out the way. By the way, the hair dye is in aisle 11 unless orange roots and crunchy white ends is the look you were going for.

Another thing I hate about getting copious amounts of snow is the fact that my kids immediately want to go out and play in it. Playing in the snow is fun for me for about 10 minutes. Unfortunately my children disagree. They would stay out there until dark if I would let them. The last big snow we got, my two year old screamed and cried, snot pouring out of her red, half-frozen nose, when I dragged her inside by the leg of her snow suit. Not even my homemade-not from a mix, hot chocolate would calm her down.

The way I see it, playing outside in the snow and freezing my ass off is still preferable to trying to navigate slick roads in order to get my girls to preschool. I'm hoping we get enough of the white stuff to shut school down.

I say, if it's going to snow, bring it the fuck ON. I've got enough tortilla chips and salsa, meat, and construction paper to get us through to next weekend.