Holiday Lights and the Man in the Red Coat

Last weekend we were bound and determined to do some holiday family fun, so we bundled up and headed to the (free) zoo lights display near us. Although there was no snow on the ground at the time, it was certainly chilly enough to warrant boots and snow pants, in addition to hats and mittens.  This year was even more fun than last because Sam and Anna were able to walk around on their own the entire time.  It was a lot more fun to have conversations beyond "wow" about the lights too.  It wasn't very crowded, so we even stopped to see Santa before leaving. 

(closely cropped because I had a zoom lens on my camera and this Santa was in the tiniest little shed in the middle of the light display.)

If there was a real line, we wouldn't have.  I'm not a huge gotta-see-Santa kind of mama. But Sam asked on our way out and I didn't have a good reason why not.  Last year Santa visited daycare and that was enough for me.  I would have been content to not "see" Santa at all this year.  My reasoning- I know my kids are going to get that these store Santas aren't the real Santa early on.  I mean, it doesn't make sense that Santa is all over the place wearing different clothes and with a different looking beard right before crunch time. I don't want to build it up to have to downplay it later on.  In my opinion, I'd rather tell my kids from the get-go that these store Santas are not the real Santa and are just Santa's helpers because he's simply too busy getting last minute things done to sit all day all across the country/world for the month before Christmas. That's just how I think we're gonna handle that in our family. I've always had a hard time pretending when "Santa" visits my kindergarten classroom each year, because I feel like I'm being dishonest.  To me, saying that the man in the red coat is "Santa" isn't true.  But, I believe in the idea of Santa; the magic of Santa and so I don't feel dishonest when we include the spirit of Santa in our holiday celebrations through stocking filling on Christmas Eve night.  Different families do Santa in different ways, and that's okay.

Snow Day!

Just south of us had a blizzard warning today, and with 9 inches of snow in less than 24 hours our winter storm warning meant that both parents had a snow day from work today!  I can't tell you how much this unexpected day off was needed for me, even with only a few days to go until winter break from school.

Our day started with sleeping in until 8 am (considering the day before Sam woke at 6:20 am and wouldn't go back to sleep, I was thrilled with that!)  and then potato pancakes with candy cane shaped fruit.

We bundled up and headed outside for lots of snow angel making, and also lots of flopping down in the snow just for fun.  I didn't take any pictures because the wind was blowing snow everywhere so I didn't want to get it on our camera, and because I was having too much fun making snow angels myself.  When we came back in we had hot (warm) cocoa and Christmas cookies for a snack. What a treat!

Then we made some Christmas cookies wearing the cute festive aprons a student's parent made for me as a gift.

 (They totally held hands spontaneously without prompting from me.)
I was able to get caught up in laundry, clean the house some, changed sheets on beds, wrapped all our presents, and even wrote this post, something I've been majorly neglecting lately.  It's always nice to accomplish stuff on a snow day because no matter what, I feel like whatever you do is icing that wouldn't probably gotten done had the freebie day off not exist.

Despite some not-so-good stuff after that, like the absence of napping times two, I had a wonderful, unexpected snow day off with all of my loves.  It doesn't get much better that that.

Making the Most of a Little Snow

Sam and Anna experienced making their first snowman last weekend (the one they made at daycare a few days before didn't count, because firsts at daycare never count, fyi).  The balmy typical-for-this-winter weather meant that the poor guy's life was short lived, but I'm sure there will be lots of snowpeople made in future winters, if not this one!

 Hugging the snowman

One last hug before it melted away 

(It didn't even make it past nap time that day)

Let Me Tell You About My Week

This is why I say life is never dull around here. With the excitement and far-from-the-norm events of about the last week or so, we definitely can't say our life is boring! Let's start from a week ago Wednesday:

Two Wednesdays ago Anna started to come down with pink eye in both eyes at the same time. We decided to give her Sam's eye drops (as the doctor hinted we might choose to do, *wink* *wink* if another family member became infected, as was certainly very likely). By Thursday afternoon her eyes were much, much worse than Sam's ever were- they were so swollen she couldn't see at all, and when you pried apart her eyelids to try and get the drops in, you could see that the whites of her eyes were covered completely in broken blood vessels (quite vampire-ish, really). Our daycare provider called me at work, worried that Anna was having a reaction to the medicine because it was getting worse, not better. We decided to try to get her in to see a pediatrician that day. I hustled around trying to find a way to cover my class so I could leave right then (because as a teacher it is almost always impossible to just leave work in a moment's notice), but then got a call back that they could fit her in at 4 pm. I had a parent meeting planned for after school that I couldn't cancel, so I just tried to make it brief so I could get out of there on time.

Meanwhile, a nasty storm was brewing outside and unbeknowst to me, an email was sent from the powers that be allowing us to leave early to get home before the roads got worse. I left work with enough time to pick up Anna from daycare (but realized that I did not have enough time to go home to get the double stroller, which I would need to haul both babies into the clinic), so I called our DCP en route to see if she would keep Sam a little late until I was done with Anna's appointment. She said that would be perfectly fine, but wanted to know where I was on the highway, because she just found out there was a 9 car pile up on the highway by her son who was stuck in traffic in a school bus, and was told they would probably be stuck there for close to 2 hours. We figured out a back way that I could get to her house detouring the highway (meanwhile, the roads were nasty- hello- 9 car pileup), I finally got to Anna (in one piece), and my poor baby looked awful. She could hardly see. We headed off to the doctors, about 30 minutes behind, but after a quick call to the office to let them know, I was reassured that that would be fine because of the weather conditions.

THEN, on our way (just Anna and I), my car decided to die while idling at a red light. In the left lane of a busy 4 lane road. On top of glare ice. Oh, and did I mention that our other vehicle was at a repair shop that day because it had been making a funny noise so my husband was at work without a vehicle? I panicked and tried to call him, but I couldn't get a hold of him. Not like he could do anything to help me, anyway. So I called our daycare provider (because our family all lives out of state) and there was no one else available that would be able to help. She sent her husband and another daycare daddy to come and give me their car so I could get to the appointment (because remember, we were both worried about Anna). Meanwhile, a police car pulls up behind me and after talking with me, offers to call a tow for me and takes my name and number. I leave and get to the appointment over 30 minutes late. Short version of the appointment: the doctor says to "give it another day and see if there's improvement." Um kay- so that appointment was totally not necessary.

On top of that- the repair shop couldn't get our vehicle to make the noise I heard, so they didn't do a damn thing to it. If it hadn't been in, I wouldn't have been driving our crappy car. And in my chaotic stressed state, I didn't think to find out where my car got towed, or by who (because I left it there so I could get to the doctor) and I couldn't remember what officer helped me, or even what kind of officer he was (state trooper, city cop, and if so, which city?). All that added up to a very difficult time locating where the heck my car was after we were all home that evening. Then later, I find out that I missed the 9 car pile up by close to a mere 10 minutes.

Still with me? I left out a lot of crazy details, but needless to say, I needed a big ol' glass of wine that evening.

That following weekend, we had rescheduled our 9 month professional photos because of Sam's pink eye the week before, so we needed to reschedule yet again. But Anna's eye did start to improve.

Then on Monday, I started to come down with pink eye myself. I self-doctored with the drops we had but tried to get through the day at work. Sam and Anna's 9 month pedi appointment was that afternoon, so I was going to leave early anyway. However, my eye got dramatically worse in a little under 2 hours that afternoon- very similar to Anna's eyes. I was worried, so I told my husband he would have to take them to the appointment by himself, because I needed to get to the walk-in clinic fast. Before I got there, my eye had completely swelled shut, and I had to drive with only 1 eye open. They gave me a stronger dose of eye drops plus an oral antibiotic, and an eye patch. Thank goodness my babies didn't get any shots at their appointment this time, because nobody should have to do two babies (with stranger anxiety) with shots by themselves. (Trust me, I did the flu shot appointments by myself, and it was extremely less than fun.) I won't even get into how the pharmacy couldn't find my Rx and I had to send my husband back later to get it, after waiting there for 30 minutes with eye oozing goo all over the place. I went to bed as soon as I could that night, slept 10 hours straight, and stayed home from work the next day.

Moving forward to Wednesday- I headed back to work that morning. It was the coldest morning of the winter so far, with actual temperatures of 20 below zero, plus a windchill on top of that. It was that morning (already feeling crummy because my eye was only starting to improve and I felt ugly and gross and wished I could stay home more days) that the vehicle that was making a funny noise for us but not the repair guys decided to stop blowing any warm air. So because I was already on my way, I had no choice but to drive with ridiculously cold air blowing (in an attempt to keep my windshield from being completely iced over) in -20 degree temps. I couldn't feel my feet 10 minutes into my 40 minute drive. I could hardly walk once I got to school because my legs were so so so cold (I was wearing thin dress pants and fashion boots, not snow pants and winter boots, you know?) I just kept trying to think of tropical places and warm drinks and okay- I even drove 20 mph over the speed limit to get into someplace warm as soon as I could. Being that cold for 40 minutes was way way worse that the swollen eye goop two days earlier. I cursed the repair guys for "not being able to find anything wrong with it" the week before. My co-worker lent me a heated blanket for the drive home so that helped!

If you made it through all that, I am impressed. Things have settled down a little in the last few days, so I finally have my bearing enough that I can sort through it all in my head. In short- life is certainly never dull around here- sometimes regardless if we have twins!