well snowstorms!!!

But don't worry, we're in the '10-'18 inch area. After this storm though, the lake effect comes in from the north, and we'll get a bit more.

Ahh, winter. How I hate thee. The wind and the ice, the theft of spontaneity. Plans? Not set in stone, not around here in January. The ice on the windshield, the frigid tile floors in the kitchen, and boots...boots bursting out of the shoe area, winter coats piled and stacked and draped on chairs, big coats that fall off of hooks.

Today, is the official Calm Before The Storm day. The weather lady said to get your store runs in, and fill your car with gas. Camille heard, "Go to the library! Get tons of books!" She didn't really, but this was our plan. Until...

Someone didn't feel well at school, and while I won't say what she's sick with, Miss Sonja has to go to the dr. this afternoon. It's no fun, she feels lousy, and to make it more fun, she thought she'd be okay, and went to school, which meant...I had to go get her. She texted me from class. So, I arrived in the office at the high school, and said I was there to pick her up, she was sick. They were fine with that, the nice office ladies, but the principal was standing there, and said, "Just so you know, it'll be an illegal absence." hmm. Why? "Because she didn't go to the nurse." Okay, I said, I'll send her down to the nurse when she gets here, because we don't want to be doing illegal stuff." Oh, I was too snarky. So the principal says, "You know, in case there's an epidemic or something, we have to have a record of everything." The nurse came into the office when Sonja came in, I told her we had to go down to her office just so we weren't illegal, and she said, "Oh bless her heart, Sonja, just go home, you don't have to come to my office, it'll be fine, I'll fix it." Some people are so kind and good, but others just seem to love their authority.

Anyway.

We're not going to the library after all. It's in the entirely opposite direction from the dr. office.

This afternoon, when I get home, we're having a party. I missed the twins' birthday this year, so I have a gift for them, and Jon found something to give to William, and I have something for Lydia too. We baked chocolate cupcakes and made buttercream frosting, and we're having a party. Just because.

It IS Emily's birthday today! 34 years ago tonight, it was a Friday back then too, at 9:53, I became a mama. My first birth was a rough one. She was transverse, and mid-forceps, which shh, that meant huge-0 episiotomy. :(. I also wasn't awake for the birth. I was told it was just a try it thing, the dr. was going to try to go up and turn the baby and bring her down, if it didn't work I would wake up from a c-section. We signed the papers, and went to the operating room/delivery room, and goodnight to me, I woke up and Paul was crying, and saying, "We have a girl first, a baby girl." I said, "What time is it?", and, "What do you mean FIRST?" ha, little did I know. And thankfully I had an experienced doctor who maneuvered that baby out without surgery.

Emily was a delightful baby. It took a week for me to get her to latch on properly and nurse, but after that, she thrived. Oh, she had a high fever at six weeks, and we took her to the E.R. I had to be shown to the waiting room because they were trying to take blood, and she was so small, I heard them say, "Try a vein in the neck...", and I was going DOWN. But she was okay, and got better. She fell off the changing table when she was seven months, and I thought she broke her collar bone, but she didn't. She was fine. She grew and grew, and learned to read and tell time by four years old. Paul told her she couldn't turn five, she had to stay four. Every year on her birthday, he would tell her, "You're still four." Well, she's still four all right, thirty four. I've loved all of my babies, but there is something about a first baby. I truly was the only one who understood her needs, and she was my life and reason for existence. I dressed her to the nines for even a trip to Kmart.

I spend too much time prancing down Memory Lane. The kids are outside playing in the snow. Charlotte Claire told me that Lake Superior is so big and deep, there's enough water for one foot deep all over North America AND South America. So we started googling the depth of other lakes, and there's one in Russa: over 5,000 feet deep! Seneca Lake, home of my favorite wineries, is 607 feet deep!

Anyway. The three visiting children have been here for seven nights now, and they're doing fine. The oldest boy is ten, and he informed me the other night that he needed poster board for THE NEXT DAY. He had a book report due. He said, "I like leaving things for the last minute." Well, he is definitely related to me, ha. Then he tells me that tomorrow morning, wintery tomorrow morning, at EIGHT A.M.!, he has a math competition. um. What?

Kids are coming back in, time for me to get moving. The snow is falling gently, and Jonathan is out there using the Sawz-all, cutting a shield from plywood...the boys newest thing is plastic sword fighting....