Mom:  “How are you going to have enough money to go to Disney with the girls?”

Me:  “I don’t know.  I’m going to wing it.  First step is to register.  That might get me motivated.”

Mom: “Well, save money.”

Lily:  “Live Better.”

Arden:  “Walmart.”

(insert rash of giggling and more repetition at the Church Of Walmart’s slogan altar)

In Michigan, it took a blizzard of epic proportions to keep kids out of school.  I clearly remember my dad fishtailing his way up the giant hill to Junior High cheerfully blasting NPR and giving me a hearty “Have a great day, Sweetheart!” at the top of his lungs while I considered the repercussions of flipping him, and the school system, the bird. 

When we did have snowstorms of epic proportions, school would be canceled one or two days at the max.  If we got the second day, I can still recall the pure joy burning through my veins - TWO DAYS in a ROW!!!  Later, when I could drive, my diesel Rabbit would be unplugged from the power source that enabled it to start on cold days and my friends would pile in.  Donuts in the high school parking lot (the kind that don’t make you fat), specifically looking for icy roads so we could spin out - it’s no wonder I still remember how to drive in terrible conditions.  Is it possible my parents actually let me drive in that stuff?  They were probably so fed up with me, they would have let me drive the Rabbit across West Bay just to get me out of their hair.  The ice was so thick I could have anyway.  Not that I ever tried it. 

It is true that every 4th vehicle in my hometown of Traverse City, Michigan was either a snowplow, sand truck or a very large 4 x 4 truck with two pieces of triangular metal welded to the front - the makeshift redneck snowplow.  Therefore, it was rare that that the buses couldn’t get anywhere on the days it snowed very hard.  The entire population of hearty corn-fed Michiganders banded together in an ice-fueled festival of “CLEAR THE ROADS!” and got out there, shoveling, snowblowing, welding metal to their cars, and making sure their precious kiddies never missed a day of edu-macation.  I’m sure I’m making this up but I wouldn’t be surprised if Grand Traverse County voted unanimously to outfit all school buses with chains during the winter months of September through May. 

I’m not going to launch into a tirade about Virginia, or Henrico County, or the lack of snowplows and budgets.  It’s rare we get snow like this so okay, I get it, but that doesn’t help the insanity that sets in.  I have to ask:  why is it that the first time in nearly a year, I have a paid contract job and my kids are suddenly home, crazy from cabin fever, and crawling all over me like ants on syrup?  I get that every single solitary freakin’ back road in the entire county has to be cleared before the buses can run because if a single child can’t be bussed in to school, then dammit, no kids will suffer the misery of education! 

I think even the kids are starting to miss school.  And that’s saying a lot. 

Last week was “my” week with the kids.  No school Monday through Wednesday.  Lily went half day on Thursday; anytime there is a half-day Arden’s preschool is cancelled.  Based on the threat of bad weather, schools closed again on Friday.  Yep.  The threat.  Not only does forecasting bad weather send everyone streaming into stores for milk and bread (and according to Nicole and Dan, Rainbow Cookies from Ukrops), it sends the schools into a frenzy of OMG OMG OMG we need to preemptively close schools. 

I know.  Safety first.  But can we mix in a healthy dose of reality?  The rest of the Virginia universe drove around, to work and to Ukrops for more Rainbow Cookies - all week long.  Most were miserable and stressed out, going either 104 mph in their Suburbans and Lexus SUVs.  The rest drove 3 mph and randomly stopped in the middle of the roads.  Oh and by the way?  Did you know that snowplows don’t have to follow basic traffic rules, like stopping for red lights?  Yeah, we were almost creamed by one yesterday.  I even saw a snowplow in a ditch in the middle of 64 over the weekend - that had to be embarrassing. 

We had another wicked snowstorm this weekend.  I’d venture a guess and say it was worse than the one we had last weekend.  If my calculations are correct, this will mean the kids will be out of school for the next week entirely.  And there may be some freezing rain mid-week, the threat of which may cause them to cancel school for a third week in a row.  Did I mention the paid contract due at the end of this month?  Did I mention the ants in syrup reference previously? 

Yesterday the fighting and nitpicking reached a fever pitch.  I clearly recall saying, “I’m going to lock you both in a dark room with soundproofing and feed you through a slot in the door if you don’t knock it off.”  I also lost it entirely when Arden was screaming and crying because she was “cold”.  She was “cold” because I’d let her use my bathtub as a pool and she’d stayed in for nearly 90 minutes.  Why would Arden be cold?  She was running around the house buck naked refusing a towel and screaming at me that she was cold.  It was refusal of towels that caused a psychotic break in me.  We both survived the cold incident, but just barely. 

I have meetings this week that will be canceled.  I’ve already abused my regular babysitter with favors; time to start hitting up the neighbors or just standing on the side of the road with a billboard advertising Two Sometimes Well Behaved Children In Need of Entertainment. 

To those parents like me - hanging onto their sanity by their fingernails - I salute you.  And I actually feel a tiny bit of guilt for the joy I felt when schools closed.  My poor mother.  If it makes you feel any better, mom, I’m paying it back in spades now. 

Arden:  Mommy, how did you know I was in your tummy after Lily?

Me:  Well, I started to get a big belly!

Arden:  Ummm.  Okay.  So how did the baby get there? Like, ummm, how did you make it? Can you just make one by yourself?

Lily:  Someone at school told me that your daddy carries half of it, and the mommy carries the other half.

Me:  *chokes/snorts* Trust me, girls, daddies do NOT carry babies.  Only mommies.

Arden: So can you make one by yourself?

Me:  No, you need the daddy to help.

Arden:  So what do you need to make love?

Me:  *freaking* - my child just said ‘make love’!!!  !!!!

Arden:  I mean, what are the ‘gredients in love?  How do you make it?

Me:  *ooooohhhh/laughing* Well, there are no ingredients.  You know how you feel about Thora, or me, or Daddy, or Lily?  That’s love.  It’s natural.  You don’t have to mix it, there are no ingredients - you don’t even have to bake it.

Arden:  Okay, well, then I want to make some when we get home. Without ‘gredients.  Can we do that today? 

Lily:  I knew that boy was lying about daddies carrying half the baby.  That just makes no sense. 

On the days when I think my kids are really badly behaved, all I need to do is go to our neighborhood pool for a little dose of reality.  Inevitably at least one child (normally barely able to swim, I might add) is left unattended in the pool.  That same child is usually ill-behaved.

Today, I took Lily and Arden to the pool around 3.30.  It wasn’t very crowded.  We all got into the pool and started splashing around.  Lily decided to get one of the pool toys out of our beach bag - it’s something that looks like a bat (the winged kind, not the baseball kind).  You put it under the water with your foot, release it, and it “swims” away from you.  As soon as she started playing, a boy about 5 years old came over and started grabbing at it. I didn’t interfere - I like to let the girls fight their own battles, and imagine my pleasure when I heard Lily say, “You can share it with me!”  They began to play with it, but then I saw the boy push her head underwater when it was Lily’s turn.  I moved closer.  He was demanding to take the toy and not give her a turn.  Arden of course wanted into the fray (she probably wanted to scrap with him), and asked for her turn.  I sat in the middle of them and handed the toy out to each of them in turn, but the boy kept getting louder and more obnoxious. He started yelling at me:  “YOU CAN’T HAVE A TURN!!! GIVE IT TO ME!  NOW!”  complete with grabby hands in my direction. I had had enough, so I handed the toy to Lily and asked her to put it away because it was causing “problems”.  As I swam away from him, he swam after me screaming, “NO FAIR!!! It’s MY TURN!  GIMME MY TURN!!! WHY??? GIVE IT BACK!”  I answered, “I took it away because you were fighting over it and not sharing.  It’s our toy, and it’s time for it to go away.”  I think I was pretty mean when I said it, but it didn’t settle him down.  He just yelled more loudly.

Where, pray tell, were his parents?  No idea. I never saw anyone talking to him, but I did see him attacking random children in the pool, ripping their water toys away, dunking their heads underwater, and generally being obnoxious. 

A few weeks back, Mike was in the pool with Arden and Lily, and a small girl, maybe about 2-3 years old, was clinging to the ladder like her life depended on it.  Turns out, it did. She couldn’t swim - at all.  She had to be helped out of the pool, after her sister got her mom’s attention.  She was busily stuffing her face while texting.  She took her daughter out of the pool, but immediately resumed the texting and her non-aquatic daughter was back in the pool within seconds.  Drowning, anyone?  Apparently they assume the lifeguards are there to rescue kids who can’t swim Why bother with swim lessons when you have lifeguards? 

Ugh.  Just, ugh. 

I love Chantal’s “Bullety” posts, so I’m totally stealing from her. 

• Lovin’ Love and Logic:  Jennifer turned me on to this book.  I’ve made no secret of my struggles with Arden and her willful and strong spirited personality.  I really, really don’t like yelling at either of my kids.  In fact I hate yelling, period, but as Arden has gotten older, I’ve found that my yelling has increased.  Additionally, when Lily picks fights with Arden or vice versa, the more annoying the fight the exponentially louder I yell.  I picked the book up when we were in DC,  and I’m through about 3/4 of it.  I can’t explain it well, but the directions are fairly simple and common-sense.  If your kids feel you are out of control, prepare for the worst.  If they feel you are calm and IN control, they will react accordingly.  The specific techniques seem to work wonders on Arden, at least right now.  They involve playing goofy “choice games” - like, “Would you rather roar like a lion or meow like a cat?” as well as more important choices:  “Do you want to put your coat on now, or see if you get cold and put it on outside?”.  You give them lots of choices you can live with, which makes them think and reason through the answer, and lets them feel like they have some control and independent action. This way, when you do have to lay down the law, they are more pliable.  I’ve also been using the calm “non-sarcastic” approach to problem solving, like today when I picked up Arden at Rainbow and found out she’d been mean to one of her classmates and had refused to speak to any of the teachers.
  
  Turns out her normal teacher is on vacation this week, and I knew she was upset about that, but unable to express it.  She told me she was mean because she didn’t have a nap yesterday, so I told her she’d be taking one today.  This caused a huge meltdown as we walked to the car, complete with some seat kicking.  I never lost my cool or raised my voice.  I simply said, “How sad that you were mean to Cameron today.  I KNOW you are a nice and kind person, but we all have bad days.  Tomorrow will be better, I’m sure, but today, you need to take a rest.”  Eventually she calmed right down and said, “I can’t be good unless Ms. Rey is there. I can’t do it!”  It was pretty awesome, even though it broke my heart to hear her say that.
  
  I also am SO tired of yelling, “QUIT WHINING!!!” all the time.  The book has a great suggestion - when the whining starts, I say “I can’t hear little voices. I can only hear big, grown up voices.”  When she whines, I say, “I can’t hear that little voice - sounds like something squeaking - maybe there’s a bug in the car?”  This sometimes leads to her laughing, or she gets it together and asks me in a mostly-normal voice.
  
  The best part is, since I have a guide to how to handle these situations, I don’t feel out of control and I don’t get frustrated as easily. Sure, it’s embarassing having a screaming 4 year old, but less embarassing than me screaming along with her.
  
  
• Easter:  I forgot to write about it.  We had a great Easter.  Weather was gorgeous, we spent some more time in the yard, and the girls bought some pretty flowers to plant with their new gardening gloves. They loved planting flowers with their grandmother.  Since neither my mom nor I wanted to cook, we had a delicious dinner out at Cheesecake Factory.  It was heavenly and I hope that not cooking becomes our standard Easter routine.  The Easter Bunny, and Easter Grandparents, were both very good to the girls this year.  Watching them egg hunt was hilarious.  Mass chaos.
  
  
• I often forget how rampant eating disorders are.  Once you get into your thirties, it’s not cool at all to have one, even if you aren’t actively participating with the instructions that sick voice in your head gives you.  I had lunch with a friend today, and as we talked about weight gain after childbirth, she mentioned she’d had a bad eating disorder for about 3 years.  She’s one of the luckier ones - she managed to self-heal and hasn’t fallen back into the psycho groove.  I don’t often talk with my friends or acquaintances about it - not because I’m embarassed, but because it doesn’t come up.  However, when I do, about 80% of the time the woman across from me ends up sharing her experience. It’s rare I talk to someone who hasn’t had anything to do with the big, bad, ED.
  
  And by the way, sometimes I think my family wishes I was embarassed, that I didn’t blog about it.  For me, writing about it openly keeps me honest.  I know I’m not the only 37 year old woman who still struggles on a daily basis with the annoying voice and the desire for the quick fix, and most of all, the desire to control the one thing we actually CAN control.  It’s also good for me to note that so many other people with perfectionist tendencies fall into the ED trap.  It’s been said before, but bears repeating:  eating disorders are less about food and more about controlling when we feel the least in control.
  
   
• Weight Watchers Day II is going fine.  I had lunch at Panera, and they offer some really good options.  Yet another reason I love the internet:  online menus.  I planned my meal so I didn’t have to worry when I got there.