Snow Queen

At 5:30 this morning there wasn't a snowflake in the sky and the schools were already on a two hour delay. By 7:10 this morning school was cancelled - snow had started to fall. A snowbound day - no errands, no preschool, minimal sanity.

Addie and I built dozens of block towers. We hunkered down in the basement and played game upon game of Uno Moo (she dominated) and back to back to back games of Hi Ho! Cheery-o (I dominated, she accused me of being mean). A carpet picnic of grilled cheese and pickles with Chamomile hot tea was shared. Laundry was folded, bathrooms were scrubbed and quiet time was taken.

At 4:30 I went outside to snow blow the two-ish inches of snow that fell off our driveway.

Yes, I said snow blow and two inches of snow in the same sentence. Dear lord, I think I am becoming a Cincinnatian.

While I spent all of nine minutes clearing the snow, Addie went to town frolicking - making snow angels, sampling the freshly fallen flakes and throwing snowballs. Once I was done I joined her - we made, per her request, a snow queen.

Instead of a magic hat she has sparkly crown. We didn't give her a scarf, but she does have a purse. No corncob pipe for this snow madame - instead she has a wand.

Around here we're all about the high class snow people... in relatively little snow.

Seriously, Cincinnati? SERIOUSLY?

Hot Chocolate

We have been sprung from our snowed in home. Addie is at school and I have gotten errands done (like buying toilet paper, which we were dangerously close to being out of). The floor is about to be mopped and laundry is going to get put away. Something about being housebound with a toddler makes it impossible to get such mundane things done.

Our snow is nothing to what the East Coast was pummeled with, but for us it was significant. Schools were cancelled for two days and getting anywhere that involved a hill was tricky.

Andy and I have discovered that having a double driveway on a corner lot equates to a ton of shoveling. We have also learned that our neighbors are kind and generous when comes to their snow blower. Okay, in general they are kind and generous - we've borrowed spices, a whole gallon of milk, scotch tape and butter from them. They also readily supply play dates for Addie and lent us their lawn mower when I wrecked ours last summer. The point being that through their generosity we have discovered that snow blowers rock and shovels blows. On our list of purchases before next winter - a snow blower.

On the first snow day we frolicked and played. We went sledding, built snowmen and had a snowball fight. The second day it was frigid outside and the wind was whipping. Addie and I colored and painted and did laundry and fought over nap time.

I was forced to get creative and decided to make play dough. While it was a great hit, note to self don't use an all-purpose whole wheat flour mix - the dough is a bit grainy and the color is really off. My misjudgment didn't seem to bother Miss Thang, however.

She rolled it and smashed it and played with it for quite some time. We made snakes and gorillas and a manatee. She used her cookie cutters to make flowers and apples and deer. She generously made her Daddy a rock.

With all the movie watching, snow playing, painting and play dough creating I thought I did a decent job of keeping my darling daughter entertained and content. But it turns out, to achieve her bliss, all I really needed to do was whip up some hot chocolate with marshmallows.

Hmmmm. Hot chocolate with marshmallows...could the pure sugar intake be ruining her nap time? Dear lord, sometimes I question my smarts.

C.R.A.Z.Y.

Crazy.

That is what I may be on the verge of going. Cincinnati is "closed" for yet another day, and I don't think I can handle being in my house too much longer. I assumed when the snow stopped yesterday by NOON that the land of the Nati would reopen today...but it hasn't. These past few days have confirmed that when I come out of retirement I am definitely heading back to the realm of education. In Cincinnati snow days are a reality, in Chicago they were an urban myth.

Today I am completely out of creative entertainment ideas for stinkerpotomus. Yesterday we played in the snow and baked cookies. Tuesday we played in the snow and finger painted. Today I have zero desire to play in the snow.

Wait, you are thinking to yourself, did she just say that she let Addison finger paint? Has she totally lost it?

The answers to those questions would be "yep" and "yeppers".

Tuesday, in between snow play, I set Addie up in the basement to do some finger painting. I taped a trash bag to the floor and a piece of cloth to that. I set out four paper plates with squirts of red, yellow, green and blue. I dressed my kiddo in non-nice clothes, and then, I let her loose. At first she wasn't so sure about this messy painting thing. She would dip her pointer finger in paint, scrutinize it, and then daintily dab it on the cloth. It was though she was afraid of getting dirty...which is a little bit amusing, since later that night when we had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner she was covered head to toe in marinara sauce and cheese and didn't seem to mind at all, but I digress.

After a few dainty touches of the paint she got a little more interested. Next thing I know she has her whole hand in the paints and is smearing a masterpiece across the cloth. She then decides to smear paint on her shirt. Then she decides she needs to get a better angle so she walks across the freshly painted cloth, making her socks awfully pretty. Suddenly she decides that she needs a better vantage point - you know she needs to understand where more color is needed or if she needs to add more depth to the overall visual effect - so she sat in the middle of the freshly painted cloth...hello, colorful baby behind.

By the time her first art project was done there was paint everywhere, thankfully Crayola means it when they say their finger paints are washable...otherwise I'd have a tie-dyed daughter. Her finished product is still sitting on the floor of the basement, and each time we've gone down there she has stopped to oooh and aaah over her work.

Eventually we will frame it and hang it in the house, probably under archival glass with gallery lighting, sectioned off with a velvet rope. Until then, it will keep the floor of the laundry room looking quite nice.

**After Addie's nap I finally did escape the house. Addie and I went out to lunch and Target with Grandma and Aunt Nikki. Even better, Aunt Nikki came over and played in the snow with Addison while Grandma and I watched warmly from the inside.