It’s not the cold, it’s the kidmidity

Today may have broken me.  I was about ten seconds from huddling in a closet and refusing to come out until other people did all of the adulting for me, leaving me with nothing to do but watch Jane the Virgin and drown my frustrations in a half-gallon of double fudge ripple.

I’m not sure I have ever been this happy to go to work.  Ironically, the fact that I had to go to work is what precipitated this near-meltdown in the first place.  Though, who am I kidding?  Another day stuck in my house would have left me cowering under the table as Rowan clawed at my chest and Lorelei used permanent markers and glitter glue to draw vampire mice on the dog. She has a thing for vampire mice.

At the beginning I thought I would use the time to clean the house.

And yes, Mt. Laundry is clear of avalanche warnings, having become more of a miniature golf obstacle at this point*.  But the dust bunnies are having babies, and the furmbleweeds are starting to become sentient.  And I have no idea what that smell is.

I’ve spent the last few days working out plans A – Z on how we would deal with the inevitable school closings and days of captivity. I am having to rely very heavily on the village I have created around me, calling in favors on top of favors.  My neighbors have helped me more than I think they will ever know.

So we had a plan.

You know how that goes.

Rowan screamed off and on for hours, finally settling down in the swing at 5am.  Lorelei got up at 6am, and needed me 293042394 times.  Her stomach hurt.  She wouldn’t take any gas drops or Zantac or anything, and she wouldn’t eat, despite the fact that hunger and low blood sugar were the likely culprits.  The sheer lack of logic that inhabits the brain of small children makes me want to bang my head into a wall.

Nobody could make a decision, because we didn’t want to send her next door in full-on whiny tantrum mode with an upset stomach, but we had to go to work.  Finally Zach decided to take her with him.  Once we started packing her bag full of toys and fun things she was magically better, and decided to go next door after all. Rowan screamed like I was sticking him with needles the entire time I got us ready.

This was all before the part where I had to get my car out of the icy driveway, deal with an icy road, and slip and slide my way across daycare’s parking lot.  Wah wah wah, southern people, snow, ice, whining, blah blah blah.

Once upon a time I listed snow as one of the few positives that winter had to offer.  But the realities of two children in different schools and working have sucked most of the joy out of that.  Luckily the weather nerd in me still gets batshit excitedly Cantore-level crazy for the days leading up to the storm.  They can’t take that away from me.

*I actually had very little to do with that.  Zach did most of the laundry work.