snow day!!!!

Miss Camille Anaya

Miss Charlotte Claire

And, just for good measure, a picture of Kitty napping with Suri.

Emily and Evelyn left for Jamaica this morning. Evelyn had gum and new lip gloss and new sunglasses and two packs of Mentos and some M&M's and a couple of Luna bars in her carry-on, and I made sure she had her passport. Emily made sure they had sunscreen. Off they went. Joseph so nicely drove them to the airport at five a.m., but I did hear Duke barking when Emily arrived. And when Joe got back home from the airport. And when Mirielle got home from work this morning. I also woke up Paul got up for work, and to check to see if there was school in all this snow. A two-hour delay. Yay! I fell back to sleep for like the hundredth time, then Sonja came barging in and announced that school was cancelled. yay. Now, where was I...ahh, back to sleep. See, sleep has eluded me for so many many years....so much that I just adore it, worship it, covet it, ....so. Back to sleep I went. Then Camille brought me in a letter she wrote for me. I actually drifted off AGAIN, then Char brought me one...okay, that's it, I give up.

I do like to get up anyway, on snow days, to revel in that excitement that only a snow day can bring. The promise of staying in all day unexpectedly with all the kids, the thought of perhaps baking cookies, having tea, watching movies...

The REALITY of a snow day is sometimes a bit different though. Laundry and dishes and sweeping and mopping the floor...one of my teenager daughters plugging here ears and moaning when I start to belt out a perfectly good song...one of the other kids nagging Camille for playing her plastic flute (it WAS annoying, but jeepers.), an argument about the unequality of having the boys take out the garbage....oh, the usual. I don't know why I am surprised that it is so absolutely crazy here sometimes, with still eleven "kids" still at home. They all have their opinions, and are not afraid to voice them.

With so many older kids and so few younger ones, I have to remind the older ones that the little kids still have the right to be little kids...which includes making forts and noise and messes. They got to do it when they were little, and these kids also get to.

Today, I do not want to make cookies. Okay, I do, but I don't. You know what I mean. I'm not sure if I could not eat them.

Ah well. The Complaint Department is now open. One sister is telling me how her sister doesn't take care of her clothes...so goodbye for now.