As usual, it is cold, dark, and just generally nasty.
This year has been especially hard because of the insane number of snow days we have had. Immediately following Christmas break, we had a snow day. Followed by a day that the buses wouldn't start, so another snow day. THEN over the weekend, 11 inches of snow, resulting in 3 more snow days (I didn't even take the obligatory "look how much snow we got" picture, I was so cranky about it!). Finally, when we were all ready to go back on Thursday (a week after they were supposed to go back), it snowed again. ANOTHER snow day. Z and Nate finally went back Friday. Then they had school for a full week! Then a 3 day holiday weekend, followed by a Tuesday snow day. So far in January there have been 7 snow days, 1 holiday, and 9 school days. And the snow days have been bitter cold, so we have been trapped inside.
I decided at the beginning of break to kind of throw to the wind any kind of schedule...it was Christmas, right?? So there was not really any quiet time. Kids ate kind of what they wanted when they wanted, especially because we had company, Christmas food, and had the stomach bug...food/hunger was all messed up. I pretty much ditched any rules on media, so the kids were playing/asking to play on the computer/Wii/kindle all the time, and during the official break I was ok with that. But by the time we had a FULL EXTRA week of break, that lack of schedule was killing me/us. It just reminded me why we are so strict with routine...it is really good for everyone. Needless to say, by the end of the (3 week long) winter break, I was getting pretty desperate!
The first week of snow days were rough, but then it has been mostly ok since then, since I was mentally prepared for them. We watched movies and played MarioKart on our new Wii. The boys built and took apart about 20 sets of legos/Hero Factory guys over and over and over and over. They have been coloring and reading and playing, and have generally enjoyed themselves.
We did get a chance to sled a few times, the first time we have ever really gone sledding. We found a good hill in our neighborhood and the first time I just took C and Z. We had a fun time and figured out how to work the sleds. Z got a snowboard from our neighbor so he loved trying it out. The next time I took all 4 of them and they mostly enjoyed it, even L, until the end, when he completely fell apart. (To be fair, he didn't have boots and his toes were very cold.) On the drive home (a mile) I wasn't sure if we were going to make it...snowy roads meant I couldn't get up a hill so had to reverse/sled down it and try to find an alternate route, 430 sun in my eyes, snow covered roads, a big boy in the front seat yammering at me (he is not normally in the front), a little boy in the back screaming/crying about "artic bees stinging his toes"...we made it though!
And we did make snow ice cream...the kids were ok with it.
We haven't gone many places, again, the cold/snow has prevented a lot of that. And really, the littles are just content to be at home playing with each other...can't complain too much about that.
We did get outside last Monday and it was SOOO needed. Nate commented, totally unprompted and nicely, "You really do much better when you've been outside. Summer Katie and Winter Katie are different people." YES. So true. That is why I often force the kids to the zoo/mobot/parks, even when they sometimes pitch fits. MAMA needs out. And so do they! In fact I often have people make comments like "I don't know how you get them all out, etc" and this is exactly why. It does so much for my emotional state.
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