Buried

Whatever sweet I said about snow-days... I take it back!  I have had enough snow-days.  School days are all I want from here on out!

We have had two snow-days a week for the last three weeks.  The first of each pair has been pretty fun.  The neighborhood kids come out of their houses and wander, in a pack, up and down the maze of sidewalks.  They dig themselves tunnels in the snowbanks and teeter on sleds, seven feet above my vegetable garden.  When the kids are wearing themselves out and I have the company of the other parents on the street to break up my days, then snow days seem bearable.

But on the second home-bound day of every week, when the snow has stopped falling, the sun is shining, yet the schools are closed anyway I am running low on groceries.  I watch my income dry up at a usually busy time of year.  I find that Elsie and the neighbor kid are so bored that they've emptied my 4 oz tin of fancy face cream and slathered themselves in it from head to toe.  I am breaking my back to hoist snow off of my driveway and up and over those seven foot banks.  On each second day, the snow-day loses its romance.

Here's a video of one of the second-snow days, when I gave up and drove to the grandparents' house for fun in the suburbs, where they have plenty of snow of their own, but more space to pile it up.


I am scrambling to find a few anecdotes to share here today.  I ought to be overflowing with cute, funny stories after so many days home with my girls.  Yet these days have taken a toll on my brain.  I feel exhausted, befuddled.

So here is all that I can remember that is news:

Lucia has a name for Elsie.  She calls her older sister "Dada."  Just like her father.  She calls herself "Dada," too.  So I think that she has just decided to mark every syllable of the names she can't master with a "da!"  But Elsie does not like to be called "Dada," and has taken refuge in denial. She insists that Lucia actually calls her "Eshie" like some of the older babies on the street.  

Lucia is now walking like a pro.  She's very steady and stable on her feet.  She's squat and strong and wriggly.  She never sits still.  Lucia is friendly and sweet, but she is not a lap-sitting baby.  To hold her is to wrestle her.  She is a very, very different baby than Elsie, and it is fun to see the differences.

Elsie is reading.  It's amazing.  Reading is still a challenge for me, so to see it just develop naturally in Elsie, without a lot of concerted effort or specific structure, is like watching a miracle unfold.  Her current favorite things involve building castles with blocks, playing with friends, and baking sweets -- so long as she is allowed to lick the spatula.

That's all I've got for today.  I hope all my local friends are surviving this crazy winter!