The Weight of Winter... Or Why I Need This Season to End

I really need Winter to end.

Eastern Massachusetts has had record-breaking snow over the past month. That I can handle. We've had six snow days in three weeks. Until last week, between the snow days and holidays and February vacation, my kids haven't had a full week of school in five weeks. Or to put it another way, since the 22rd of December, my children have had exactly three weeks of school where they actually held class all five days. Another thing I can handle.

I can handle the shoveling. The finding spots to put the snow when the banks are over my head. I can handle the ice dams and all that they entail. I can even handle, although VERY reluctantly, the cold. That sub-Arctic cold air is barely tolerable in my book. I can handle the snow and ice and snow days and ice dams and even the cold air.

I can't handle the way I tend to turn into Betty-freakin'-Crocker on the snow days. I have made more cakes and brownies and bread and cookies and cobblers than a good bakery, partially to warm up the house, and partially because it's something I feel an urge to do - make the snowbound home warm and inviting and mouth-wateringly good.

My waistline is beginning to show evidence of it. Because honestly - what goes well with a glass of milk better than a chocolate chip cookie or brownie still warm from the oven? What goes better with a nice stew or soup and salad than fresh hot rolls?

Please, Mother Nature, woman to woman - let this winter end. For my sake. You understand, right?

No More Babies In The House

I looked at my kids' faces around the dinner table last night and noticed something. I'm sure many of you can relate.

There were no more babies at our table. There are no more babies in our house.
The Oldest is at college.
The Middle Child is now shaving.
And the Youngest - he's now a little boy.
The chubby cheeks of my baby have disappeared. And the "cankles".
He's missing a tooth or two, with more ready to fall out at any moment.
It's that time in life when you put your child to bed and when he or she gets up, they look like they've grown an inch... because they have. 
He's outgrowing clothes at an alarming rate. And there's no one else in the house who's going to wear them.
Even his laugh has changed. It's no longer that great giggly belly laugh that babies have.
And I'm 99.9% okay with this stage, the stage where I don't have any more "babies" in the house.

Just keep the tissues ready for when that 00.1% comes to the surface, okay?

So Much Has Happened... So Little Has Changed

Another school year started.
 
Another holiday season came and just left.

Children have grown older.

My hair is getting blonder the more white I have to try to cover.

The "baby weight" is stubbornly holding on, and I have yet to find the time in my schedule to do some serious working out to get it to budge.

I survived being a class "mother" for the Oldest's high school class and organizing all the major milestone events.  I also survived some 17- and 18-year-old girls (class officers who were definitely not "classly", or mature) who thought that I was their handmaiden and answered to them.  And my fellow class mother and I even survived one of them and her mother bullying us when we held her to her word to run a class fundraiser that she (as usual) tried to back out of at the last minute and dump on us.

I survived a season of bird watching... a.k.a. youth soccer for the Youngest.  Hopefully a lacrosse stick in his hand this spring will encourage the appearance of participation... swinging at butterflies with the stick gives the impression one is open for a pass or is defending the goal.

I survived MidKid playing high school football... and all that that entails.

I survived the Oldest leaving for college.

I survived MidKid starting high school.

I survived the Youngest starting first grade.

Apparently this year the theme is "Survival".

I am trying to care less about what others do and say, because so many do so through tinted glasses, with concern only for their child, their feelings, their beliefs.

I am trying to grow a thicker skin when those same people turn on me with pitchforks for having an opinion that doesn't agree with their's, when they speak down to anyone who fails to accept and follow their directions, when they show themselves capable of being such small-minded people.

And for the third year in a row, I managed to keep my one New Year's Resolution.
I did not run away from home.

2015 is Year Four. Keep your fingers crossed I keep it again.