Today

I like to think that I handle stressful situations fairly well.  I feel like I am good at staying cool in a crisis.  I survived three years and four summers running afterschool programs and camps for elementary aged kids.  I even delivered my own baby in the back of my car!  But every now and then I have moments in which the brain just stops.  This evening at dinner was one of them.

The past couple of weeks have just been insane.  As a result, the kids have not been getting as much attention as they need.  Yesterday I tried to make it up to Ree with a girls' day that turned into a bit of a disaster.  (But that's a whole other story.)  This morning, it was Leon's turn for mommy-time.  We were out of just about everything in the house, which required a trip to Walmart.  Leon was thrilled.  As I put him in his car seat, he excitedly asked, "Bye bye?" and I confirmed that we were going on an adventure together.  He was all smiles as we pulled out of the driveway.

While we were driving, I noticed that Leon was awfully quiet, but I thought it was just the fact that he got the window seat.  Normally, he sits in the middle as is flanked by his siblings, but when he's the only one in the car, he gets the "good" seat.  Then, right before we got to Walmart, I heard a choking noise.  Not good.  Thankfully this is the part of the day I handled well.

I glanced back, not that I could see anything over the monstrous seats in the Pilot.  I kept calling his name, and he responded before too long.  Okay.  He was alright.  But there were still a lot of coughing, choking noises.  Quickly pulled over into a hotel parking lot.  Ran around to Leon and found that the poor little guy had thrown up his breakfast all over himself.  Thankfully, at the last minute as we were leaving, I grabbed a blanket to place over Leon, and it seemed to have taken the brunt of it.  Also, luckily, as we were leaving, I grabbed the diaper bag which had an extra onesie for him to wear.  While I was changing Leon, I noticed he had gotten his pants too, and I didn't have a pair of pants for him, but I did have a lovely pair of pink floral leggings belonging to Ree, so he got to wear those.  By the time I got Leon cleaned up, he seemed to be feeling better.  I assumed he was just carsick having spent over 45 minutes eating breakfast and we went on our shopping adventure.

Shopping was fairly uneventful, as was most of the day.  When Leon got up from his afternoon nap, he had diarrhea.  It kept up, and so I held him while the rest of us ate dinner.  Well, actually Ree was not eating with us (I have lots of catching up on story telling to do), but Michael, Jeff, and I were eating.  While we were eating, Leon started getting really squirmy.  I thought that he was asking to get down.  This is the part of the day when my brain shut down.

As I was putting Leon down, his little body cleaned out just about everything he had consumed in the past day.  Instead of doing something practical like taking the poor little guy to a sink or toilet, I just stood there, holding him, watching him puke.  I vaguely recall my brain taking inventory and noting that, yup, I was seeing everything he had consumed.  (Must be the auditor in me!)  He stopped for a second, and it occurred to me that Leon had covered himself, the chair, the floor, and me.  Eww.

Again, you think I would've moved toward a bathroom, but I just stood there, everything dripping.  And that's when the poor little guy got sick again.  And again.

It finally occurred to me to do something.  I headed towards our bathroom thinking Leon and I could shower together.  That was a good thought, especially since we have a hand held shower head which would let me easily spray us down.  An even better thought would've been to take our clothes off and close the shower curtain before taking down the shower head and turning on the water.  So there we were, covered in puke, wearing our clothes and sopping wet.  Oops.

Eventually, I got us cleaned up.  After the kids went to bed, I got the bathroom cleaned up too.  (It actually looks better than it has in weeks.)  I also eventually got something to stay in Leon's belly.  Thankfully, the little guy is still nursing, and after we were all nice and clean (at least relatively speaking), he and I cuddled up on the couch and he filled his belly.  Breastmilk, among other properties, happens to be a natural form of Pedialyte, and so far it's working its magic.  Here's hoping it stays that way...and the rest of us don't get this ick...

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Our first winter in Wilmington, the temperature only dipped below freezing on about three mornings.  I proudly told people that this was why my husband wanted to move south.  Last winter is a complete blur, but I know there were more than three mornings below freezing.  And from what I hear, it normally only snows every other winter here, but we actually got two snows with accumulation last year.  Crazy!

And then there is this winter.  Holy cow, it's like real winter!  Which, to be quite honest, I am mostly enjoying.  We've had numerous days where our highs have stayed in the 40s, and a few days with highs in the 30s.  I've been able to wear sweaters that have been in storage since we left Ohio.  (Granted, they are mostly out of style, and they look a little odd on my body post babies, but let me just enjoy the itchiness of the wool!  It's given me a whole "new" wardrobe!  It is such fun!  I am such a dork!)  And there is something wonderful about a warm, cozy bed piled with blankets.  I love snuggling down, even when I know that at any second I will have to respond to the screech of one of my offspring.  There's always the hope that THIS will be the night EVERYONE sleeps through the night.  It could happen...

Last Friday's forecast called for rain turning to snow over night with accumulation of 1 - 4 inches.  I wrote off the forecast figuring I would believe it when I saw it.  Apparently most people took it seriously.  I had the misfortune of being in Walmart on Friday afternoon attempting to do a regular shopping while everyone else was preparing for the apocolypse.  And Valentine's Day.  It was...an experience.  Thankfully, the kids weren't with me, so I navigated as best as I could, stuck to my weirdo organic products that were in stock, and caught up on my check out line reading.  Did you know that Brad and Angelina are back together this week and trying to make more babies after just last week they were apparently broken up and he was trying to get back with Jennifer?  Crazy stuff, I tell you.

The temperature dropped and dropped on Friday, and it was actually below freezing when the precipitation started.  Shortly after tucking in the kids for bed, Jeff called me to the back door.  We looked out, and our backyard was covered in white.

It actually snowed all night, and this is what we found on our back porch in the morning.

The rest of the back yard.  It's hard to believe we're only a couple of miles from the beach!

Of course we had to take the kids out to play in it.  I am fairly certain we spent more time bundling the kids than we did playing in the snow.  After hating it last year, Ree did like the snow this year.  The snow was perfect for packing, and she discovered she could make snowballs.  And she threw one at Leon's head.  Fortunately, he thought it was hilarious.  (He always has been odd like that.  He must have fond memories of Michael beating him up in utero.) 

Jeff and I both assumed Michael would love the snow and Leon would want to be held, but it turned out that Leon was much braver.  Michael spent the entire experience sitting, mostly on a blanket.  It didn't help that with their heavy winter coats on, both boys looked like Ralphie's little brother Randy from A Christmas Story.  Their arms pretty much went straight out sideways in the shape of "T"s.  After sitting on the blanket for awhile, Leon got brave, touched the snow, then crawled off the blanket to explore it more.  (He had already discovered that he could not walk in snow up to his knees.)  Unfortunately, he suddenly found himself in an untouched patch of snow which was 4 or 5 inches deep, and he panicked.  He had no idea how to get back to the safety of the blanket island.  At that point everyone was about done in the snow, so we headed back inside.  We made Ree hot chocolate which she loved, as soon as it was nice and cold.

Less than an hour later, Jeff noticed the sky clearing, and we ended up having a beautiful day, punctuated by the constant sounds of dripping snow.  

We still had some snow on Sunday morning, but by last night, it was almost all gone.   And today I walked across campus for a work meeting wearing just a t-shirt and blazer.  The snow was wonderful, but I'm pretty sure that's the weather I was promised when we moved here.