"Snow" Day

Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, it seems like snow days were few and far between. Usually, if it did manage to snow, it would melt as soon as it hit the ground, and the roads would be covered in ice. And that was the problem. Our area simply didn't have maintenance equipment like snowplows and salt trucks. And much of the area is very hilly, so the ice could really be a problem for school busses. So more often than not, when school was cancelled, it was due to the condition of the roads. Even still, cancellation was pretty rare, if my memory is right. More likely, school would be delayed a couple hours - long enough for things to warm up enough to turn everything back into slush.

In Rexburg, Idaho, where Jesse and I both attended college, it's snowy all winter long. Frigid, nose-hair-freezing cold, horrific biting winds, and lots and lots of snow. I can't remember anything being canceled in Idaho. Even when the roads were covered in at least 4 good inches of solid ice, the show went on.

Then we moved to Colorado. Oh, the snow! It really has a tendency to dump in large quantities (especially as spring approaches) right there next to the base of the Rockies. Still, they had plows ready for the occasion, because they know it's going to snow frequently. And they didn't salt - they used gravel, and sometimes a liquid de-icer. But it seemed like snow was hardly an inconvenience, most of the time, because all that snow equipment would be out there taking care of it in a very timely manner. And of course, most often, the sun comes out the very next day and melts everything. Man, I miss Colorado weather.

So it was quite a surprise when we moved to Maryland. Here I was, thinking - Hey! Northeast! They get snow all the time! And when we drove our moving truck closer to our first apartment, we kept noticing these odd signs: "Snow Emergency Route". What did that mean, we wondered? Did they really get that much snow in Maryland?

Well, soon we figured it all out. Yes, Maryland does have snow plows. And they salt their roads (much too liberally, in my opinion). But they do NOT know how to function when it snows. Not. One. Bit. We watched the local news stations with incredulity when the first snow of the season was forecasted, our first winter here. "Oh no, look out! There's snow in the forecast! We might get a whole inch!!!!" Grocery stores were innundated, shelves made bare. Schools were cancelled based on the forecast. No bothering to wait until morning to see what would actually happen. And that snow forecast was turned into a warning on the TV screen, bleeping an annoying sound every so often, reminding us of the impending danger: Snow. TV shows were interrupted so the weatherman could spend another 5 minutes explaining exactly when snow would be coming, which counties would be hit. It was like a hurricane was coming... only it was just an inch of snow. Maybe. And the whole point of those Snow Emergency Signs? Those are the roads that take priority with the plows.

We quickly learned that for us, snow is no big deal here in Maryland. We wait for it anxiously every winter, go through annoying amounts of rain or sleet before we get to it, and rarely get enough accumulation to write home about. Or enough to even play in, for that matter. It seems that Maryland is right on the border of all the good weather - our friends in the York, Pennsylvania (less than 1hr north) area often get a good amount of snow when all we get is rain. It makes us very, very sad. Still, while the snow is no big deal for us, it seems like the natives here just don't know what to do with themselves. Well, maybe they do know: They go into a full-scale panic.

At any rate, we got some snow yesterday. It was so lovely to see the pretty, fluffy whiteness covering everything. But, as with every other snow we've had this year, the rain soon followed. The snow changed over to a wintry mix last night, with a possibility of freezing rain (which, granted, is a big mess) for overnight/this morning. But in the 5 1/2 years we've lived here, we still haven't adjusted our attitudes. Jesse got up for work just like normal, drove to work with a mere single half-slip as he turned a tight corner, and showed up to a nearly empty office. He looked at his phone - it was blinking. There was a message. Work had been cancelled. He caught up with the other lone co-worker there and told him the news, since he had obviously missed the message, too. And then he went back out to the roads, grabbed some donuts from the grocery store, and came home.

And I, who had not yet dragged myself out of bed, was pleasantly surprised by extra morning snuggles and yummy chocolate donuts. The kids barely reacted, they simple exclaimed "surprise!" when he walked through the door. As if they were surprising him. Which they do every time he comes home.

So we had a lazy day around the house this morning. Jesse took a mid-morning nap. We made shrinkeydinks. Then we decided to grab some paper supplies for some crafts, and get our tax software and a new Norton Antivirus. The roads were all perfectly fine. The parking area right next to our van, in front of our apartment, was interesting, though. In the parking spots where plows can't reach but cars hadn't been parked, there was a layer of snow topped with a layer of ice. Jacob managed to slip on it despite being as careful as a 3-year-old can be. He slid onto his bum, and giggled. And that was the height of the danger today. But oh, you bet, work was cancelled, schools were cancelled, the whole shebang! Because here in the mid-Atlantic, weather is SCARY. Apparently. Though, I think anyone who isn't native really wonders what all the fuss is about.

Our new President even agrees with me. ;)

WASHINGTON – You call this bad weather? President Barack Obama, steeled by many snowy Chicago winters, expressed disbelief Wednesday when his daughters woke up to find that their classes had been canceled for the day.

Schools in Washington and the surrounding suburbs either opened late or scrapped all their classes because of icy conditions.

"Can I make a comment that is unrelated to the economy very quickly?" the new president told reporters at a gathering with business leaders. "And it has to do with Washington. My children's school was canceled today. Because of, what? Some ice?"

The president said he wasn't the only one who was incredulous.

"As my children pointed out, in Chicago, school is never canceled," Obama said to laughter. "In fact, my 7-year-old pointed out that you'd go outside for recess. You wouldn't even stay indoors. So, I don't know. We're going to have to try to apply some flinty Chicago toughness."

Asked if he meant the people of the national's capital are wimps, Obama said: "I'm saying, when it comes to the weather, folks in Washington don't seem to be able to handle things."

DISCLAIMER: To my local, perhaps native friends reading this blog: I don't count you among the insane. You all know better than to follow weatherman-induced, lemming-like panic. ;) And I love you for it!

The Hunt for Manners

I wonder if I could attribute it to her age: Melinda often refuses to use manners. No "sorry", "please", or "thank you"... instead, we get a full-blown fit of refusal, usually followed by dramatic crying. As if using manners is going to literally kill her. And that alone would be frustrating... but when you add to it that she used to use her "magic words" constantly, even when she was so young that she still couldn't say half of what she needed because she lacked the vocabulary.... Well, it goes beyond frustrating, and enters the zone of outright maddening.

In fact, I've been having such an issue with her doing something rude (or dangerously harmful), and then refusing to even try to make it better. For instance, the other day she knocked Alex down a la the now-popular Jacob Belly Bump, and Alex was walking around with a sippy cup in both hands. She knocked him down from behind, and he fell face-forward without any hands free to catch himself. His face connected with the cup, and he got a lovely cut on his lip. She wouldn't say sorry, give him a hug, or otherwise acknowledge the wrongdoing in any way other than cowering on the floor and shaking her head in refusal. I finally sat her down for a long talk, and made her a "contract" of what she would do if she pushed again. She and I came up with two options for consequences: My contribution was to say sorry and/or give a hug to make the person feel better. Her contribution was to clean the room.

That's right. My daughter would rather clean an entire room than utter a single two-syllable word or extend a hug if she's done something wrong. And she did push again the next day, and she did opt to clean the room instead of saying sorry or giving a hug. Call me incredulous.

Fast forward to today: We rearranged the dinner table in such a way that Melinda lost her preferred spot - one that has only been available for a few weeks. She started having a meltdown over the seating arrangments, despite being given a million and a half choices. It continued for quite some time, and morphed into a meltdown about the dinner itself, and then into wanting someone to stir her soup for her.

Well, we parental units got stubborn by this point. If she was going to sit there and have a fit over every single little thing, we weren't going to stir her soup (something she's perfectly capable of, anyway) until she said please. And oh, boy, how she continued to refuse!

Jesse, bless his clever heart, really saved the day. He began trying to "find" Melinda's "lost manners". Jesse really has a knack for being silly. It's one of the things that made me fall in love with him, after all! But he really out-did himself tonight.

"Hm, mom, I think Melinda's lost her manners! I wonder where they could be?"
(Melinda continues to sob, but her eyes peek up in interest.)

Jesse started asking a long series of questions, trying to discover where those lost manners might be. On top of her head? Under the bag of chips? Inside the vase? Eventually, when Melinda continued to cry and stubbornly refuse to participate in the quest, he got up from his seat, and started wandering around the room. He picked up a couple tissue-paper-decorated vases from the kids' Art Play class last fall, and held them on his head like antlers. "Are these manners??" He tried getting her attention with no luck, and was soon dancing a silly little jig with those "antlers" on top of his head. I couldn't help myself, when I looked at what he was doing- I burst out laughing. Jacob followed suit, too, giggling his head off. Alex looked at him with obvious delight. Melinda still huddled in her chair, oblivious to the new tactic. I convinced her to look, finally, and she hid a bit of giggles in between her sobs. Jesse moved along, now picking up a thick book from my desk. "Hmm, I wonder if this might be manners? Where would it go? Inside my head? Can I fit this inside my head??" And he suddenly starts making a show of shoving the book into his head (by putting it behind his head). Jacob was now beside himself with giggling, and Melinda was even starting to let obvious laughter escape unhidden. But she quickly reverted back to crying.

After a few more tries, Jesse came back to the dinner table. We sort of hemmed and hawed about what to try next, when Jacob joined in: "I have an idea, Daddy!" And when we asked him to show us his idea, he ran off in search of manners, too. First he mimicked the vase-antlers. While giggling. Nope, that didn't work - not manners! Then he ran to the front room, and came back with a pillow on his head. "Is this manners?? NOoooo!" Giggled and ran off. He kept coming back, with lots of variations of things on his head. It was quite entertaining. Finally Jesse called him back to the table, declaring that he tried hard enough, but needed to finish eating now.

We started using exaggerated manners while Melinda continued to sulk.
Jacob: "Can I have more milk, Daddy?"
Jesse: "What do you say?"
Jacob: "Please!!" (with a grin, even!)
Jesse: "Yes, Jacob, here you go!"
Jacob: "Thank you!"
Jesse: "You're welcome!"

And so on.
Melinda still sulked. Jesse proclaimed that Melinda's manners must be lost for good.
"But what if they're lost somewhere inside her, dad?" I asked. (Yes, I'm one of the ones who always addresses her husband by "dad" when children are present. And sometimes when they're not.) "How are we going to find them if they're inside her??"

FINALLY, Melinda starts playing the game. It's been long enough for me to finish two bowls of soup by this point, even with all the discussion in between bites. "Mommy, I want you to look for my manners," she says timidly. "Oh!! Where should I look?" I pry open her mouth and and exclaim, "Oh, look! There's something hanging down at the back of your throat! Is that your manners?" She yanks her head away from me, now giggling, but nope, that wasn't it. I check her pinky toe, maybe it's hiding them. Nope, not there either. A few more tries, and I'm out of ideas, and go back to feeding Alex a few beans from the soup.

Melinda then gives her spoon to Jesse, without a word. He says thank you for the spoon, and sets it down. Then she gives him her bowl, again without a word. He says thank you again, and sets it down near his own bowl, and goes back to eating. After a few moments, she peeps out a quick "Stir!" followed by something that might have been "please". But it was hard to tell, so we wondered if she might mean that she wanted daddy to stir the cheese. So he picked up the spoon and "stirred" the block of cheese. Oh, the giggles! She's coming out of the ridiculous fit, now! But no, she didn't want the cheese stirred, she wanted her soup (now cold) stirred. So she peeps out another "Stir!" followed by a chirped "please!!"

"Melinda found her manners!!!!" we exclaim with joy. A large round of applause! Oh, Alex likes this game! He joins in with his own exuberant clapping, grinning like there's nothing better in the world than dinner time with clapping involved. And you know what? Melinda's smiling, too! Jesse picks up the spoon and stirs the soup, and hands it back to Melinda happily. She looks so proud of herself!

And then she wants some water - with ice. "Can I have more water, please?" "Yes, you can!! Here you go." "Thank you!" "You're welcome!" And every time she used a manners word from then until we were down from the table, we erupted with "Hoorays!!!" and another round of clapping. What fun! Even Melinda was enjoying the magic words by this point.

It makes everyone happy to use manners, doesn't it??

I Hope I Earned Them

You could say I had a bit of a crazy week last week, right?  Between my dishwasher breaking, Jesse being gone a lot for work and other responsibilities, me going into a mini-spurt of depression (thanks, hormones), Jesse leaving for Grandma Lewis' funeral, the power going out, Alex teething (and sleeping poorly, again), making crazy long drives with a screaming baby, the kids being their normal crazy off-the-wall selves, trying to fix the car all on my own, and other such randomness... it was crazy, right?  I'm not making it up?

So why, then, was I so shocked to discover my first gray hair this morning?  I knew the day couldn't be too far off.  I think my younger sister even admitted to having a few already.  But I guess anticipating that "some day" you'll see physical evidence of age and stress is a bit different that seeing it right in front of your face in the shocking present. 

I yanked it out, of course.  I did allow myself a few moments to contemplate the oddity of 6 inches, from the root down, being a white-silvery color, and then transitioning to the remaining couple inches being my normal brown.  After fully examining the evil little thing, me and my crinkled-in-disgust face went back to blow-drying my hair.  And then I caught a flash of another oddly out of place hair reflecting the light differently.  I nearly gasped.  TWO?!?  I yanked that one out even more unceremoniously than the first.  And again I caught myself in disbelief that it could actually be happening to me.  I'm only 28!!  Too young, too young!!  (I know, I know, it's not.  But it feels like it!)

I went about my day, a bit miffed and slightly more scatter-brained. 
And when we were at a friend's house, I helped Jacob in the bathroom.  He took forever washing his hands, like always, which allowed me enough time to end up glancing in the mirror and spotting another little gray demon-hair.  WHAT IS THE DEAL?!?  Three gray hairs, all on the same day?!?!?!

{whimpers}

And please, since I'm obviously at a loss anyway, will someone explain this to me?  Why can Alex not stay asleep for longer than 30-45 minutes in the very late evening without waking up and crying and wanting to nurse back to sleep, even when it's dark and quiet and everything.... but as soon as it's morning and kids are up and screaming through the house, slamming doors with full force only a few feet away from him, and generally making an absolute ruckus... why is it that he can then magically stay asleep in his own bed without even flinching a single muscle, for several hours???  WHY?!?  Why not put that lovely solid sleep to good use when everyone else wants to sleep, too?  Why save it for the hours that he should be awake?!??

Today, I am one stumped (and apparently aging) mama.