Blizzards

As I type I am drinking coffee out of the mug that the girls created for me Christmas 2006. Megan contributed colorful scribbles, Rachael made a large heart that said "I Love You Mom!" and Emma drew a picture of me, with a huge pregnant belly, and herself holding my hand. I can't help but smile when I look at this mug. We have gone through a lot of mugs lately because I generally make hot chocolate for the girls when they have been out in the snow and we have had a lot of snow. Three blizzards in one season has taken it's toll on our hot chocolate supply. At the beginning of February we had 2 blizzards, 27 inches and then 19 inches, within just a few days of each other.

Everyone knew the storms were coming, so the grocery stores were packed with people when Jim went on the Feb. 4th, and most of the shelves were empty. We did get what we needed as we prepared to be snowed in. There was an excited anticipation in the air. The snow started on Friday 2/5 and school got out 2 hours early. I left work early but when I picked Bridget up from Becky's house she looked terrible. She had started a fever on Thursday but now had and awful cough and gross discharge. I called our new doctor and even though they were closing early they agreed to stay to see her. I usually don't bring the kids to the doctor until fevers have lasted a few days, because there have been too many occasions when I make lots of arrangements to get to the doctor and then get the "it's just a cold" diagnosis. With a Blizzard coming I didn't want to risk it, so we went. The doctor's office was wonderful with Bridget but we got the"it's just a cold" diagnosis.

The snow kept coming, big, fat flakes fell all night and kept falling on Saturday. Jim noticed that the power lines in our back yard were sagging under the snow-ladened branches. So he trudged out with long poles and knocked the snow off. We didn't want to risk losing power. By Sunday morning the roads still weren't plowed but the whole neighborhood was out with shovels. Jim needs hernia surgery so he stayed in with Bridget who was still feverish on the sofa. The big girls and I went out and shoveled. It took a few hours to clear the sidewalks and driveway. The girls switched to sledding on the 6 foot tall piles that we created as we cleared the driveways.

And then the plows came. We were excited to see them but a wave of dread hit me when I saw that the plow was tilted to our side of the road and sure enough he deposited most of the 27 inches on our side of the street. Our neighbors got a laugh but then came over to help me dig out the driveway. Jim came out to shovel too and I was grateful because I was losing my motivation.

They closed school for the whole week when they forecasted a 2nd blizzard for Tuesday night. Jim's manager announced that everyone was working from home all week. I tried to work from home on Monday but it is very hard to get much done at the dining room table with 4 snowed in kids getting stir crazy. My parents watched the girls on Tuesday so I could go into the office for a little while. Jim made it to his consult for hernia surgery and then brought Bridget in to the doctor for her "well" visit. She was still not better although the fever was gone. She had an ear infection so they picked up antibiotics. Bridget also had her blood drawn for lead testing. Jim said she didn't even cry. I think this is because she didn't know what was coming and Jim kept her distracted like a pro. Bridge proudly showed off her bandage that evening.

I was glad that we had one good day to get things done, before it started to snow again. This second storm was a bad one. It was colder and the winds were really strong. Jim had to go out again and clear the snow off branches on the power lines. The novelty and fun of our first Feb. blizzard was gone and none of us wanted to shovel. The big girls had lost Wii privileges during the first storm, but with a week off of school we came up with a way for them to earn it back. Jim told them they could get it back by shoveling. They were eager to play so they went out on Wednesday during the storm to shovel. I called them back in after 30 minutes or so because it just looked miserable outside. I told them we would do more later. When we all did go back out on Thursday the sun was out but I was met with lots of whining and it was not a fun experience. A plow came through that evening again depositing the majority of the snow on our side. by the time we finished shoveling, our road had  6 foot mountains of snow lining it and only one car could pass at a time.

The girls played outside in the snow quite a bit, but I never did get to take them to a good sledding hill. We either couldn't get out, or Bridget was too sick, or it was too cold and icy. When Bridget was feeling better she was eager to go out and had a blast in the tunnel that Emma built. As a joke Jim put the bike flag in to Bridget's coat one day so we wouldn't lose her in the yard.

It is now the end of February and the huge snow piles are still out front. My parking space has 3 feet of snow in it still but I got fed up with playing musical cars in the driveway and today shoveled the smaller 2 foot high snow pile that was in the space on the other side of our driveway. It is finally melting and I was hopeful to see my daffodils are peaking out of the snow and dirt.

Tech Ed

Middle School has meant a huge up-tick in homework for Emma, but it has also come with a new schedule. Emma goes in and comes home an hour before the other girls. She has been amazing at using this time after school to sit down, eat a snack and get her homework done. She settles into the new desk with a bowl of munchies, puts her ear buds in and get to work.

This discipline does not extend to organizing her folders, but so far only a few things have been lost in the paper piles. Her floor is generally strewn with folders and random papers and of course clothes. She has a lot of challenging classes and is doing very well in them but one of her special classes has recently been giving her grief. 3 days before the end of the term she came home with a progress report in Tech Ed. The report showed 5 missing classroom assignments and a grade of D. She reluctantly gave me the report to sign. I am proud to say I didn't freak out on her. She relaxed when I went over every missing assignment with her. 3 of them she said she turned in and the other 2 she said she missed due to orchestra performance practice. We sat down and she made a list detailing all of the missing items and prepared to turn this in with a request to make up the items she missed because of orchestra. She only has Tech Ed every other day and when she requested make up work the teacher informed her and the rest of the class that any make up work was due that day.  What?!?

Emma resigned herself to getting a D. She didn't see any options. I contacted the teacher. No mid-term report came out and the timing of the progress report did not give any opportunity to turn things in. I wasn't the only parent to contact him and at the next class he handed out makeup packets, which they had the weekend to complete. He did email me to say he found her 3 missing assignments. She also put in a lot of effort on the makeup packets and she told me he said "it looks like someone wants an A" when she turned it in.

I am glad we had this experience. I think it showed her that she needs to request work from teachers when she misses class, and that things can be done to bring a grade up. It also taught me that I need to be in touch with her teachers more often and at least a few weeks before the end of a term.

Birthday for Megan

Two weeks ago Megan turned 6 years old. She is half way through Kindergarten and is growing. Megan is by far the biggest of our kids. She is just about as tall as Rachael already, who is short for her age, and Meg has much bigger feet than the big sisters did. Megan goes in for her annual pediatric appointment as soon as we can reschedule it after this blizzard and I will have her actual numbers then, but if her friends at school are the norm, I am guessing she is taller than average. Meg is taking dance and moves in her body very gracefully. She was dissappointed the snow meant missing dance again.

Megan really likes school and is proud to show me her good behavior stickers. She is also eager to share the booklets that she makes as she masters new site words. She is filling notebooks with lists and lists and lists of words as she practices her skills. Even if she doesn't always know what the word is she is honing her writing skills. I really wish I was in her school regularly, but even with the parent visitation days and conferences I feel disconnected. I saw one of her classmate's aids in the hall after I dropped of birthday cupcakes and the aid told me that Meg is very kind to the other kids in the class. It is this kind of info that I crave.

We had a joint friend party for Megan and Rachael at the roller skating rink. They both had an blast with their friends. Rachael is a good skater now and likes to go fast. Megan has been a few times and now likes to be on her own in the center, where the pace is slow. Bridget even tried putting skates on, but she didn't like the constant instablility and only lasted for a little while. Emma had a huge attitude prior to the party that she couldn't invite a friend, but got over it and had fun skating and celebrating with her sisters.

On Megan's actual birthday we greeted her with breakfast in bed. She opened gifts and we went out to dinner at CiCi's pizza, her choice. I think the real reason for her wanting to go there was the machines that have little plastic animals in them. Between the girls I think we now have over 40 of them. I hate these kind of things. We don't need more little plastic junk. But this is how they choose to spend their allowance and I try to be OK with that.

We had a 7 cousin birthday party planned at an indoor swim club with a heated pool. There are so many winter birthdays that we decided to do one huge party, but the party has been canceled twice because of the snow. I don't know when we will schedule it again. For the 1st party I had stayed up till 1AM, making cakes while I listened to the final Harry Potter book. I was really excited how Bridget's zebra cake turned out. She loved it but requested more pink. If we have another party I'll do it again and add pink accents. We wound up giving away most of the 36 cupcakes but eating all of the zebra cake. It was yummy.

At some point we will have the rescheduled celebration of Megan's, Rachael's and Bridget's birhtdays with the family, until then I will celebrate daily that they were sent into my life.