Just Update Your Stupid Blog Already

HOLY CRAP IT'S FRIDAY.

What a week. I've barely updated at all (except for here and here and here and here), even though I wanted to, planned to, was filled to the brim with good intentions. But there were never enough minutes in the the day or coffee in the pot or tissues in the box, as both kids had colds and the school district's spec-ed preschool program took (ANOTHER) full week off for home visits and assessments, neither of which we actually personally received. 

But whatever. Lame! Excuses are lame! Just sit down and type for awhile and hit publish when you're done. It's really not that hard.

Let's check in with our principal characters:

1) Me. I did not fall down this week or otherwise injure myself. I drank the last of the coffee that we bought in Jamaica, was sad about that. Made another futile effort to finish editing and uploading the remainder of our vacation photos, failed. Did a load of laundry, ate some tapas, plotted. Not necessarily in that order.

2) Ceiba. Is happy the snow is finally melting in the backyard, but is not quite ready to give up her habit of pooping in the baby's room instead. Don't rush her, man.

3) Max. Is on my feet. Is about to get pissed when I get up for more coffee.

4) Noah. Had the best week EVER at school -- at the other one, the private, pay-out-your-ass one -- and I am (for the first time ever!) at a complete loss to adequately explain it. Every day, the reports were good. Better than they've ever been. Full of shit like "language explosion." I watched him make predictions and figure things out instead of freaking. I watched him get his feelings hurt by a classmate's (neuro-typical) sister after class -- a little girl he loves to play with but who chose to reject him this day -- and watched him WORK IT OUT, WITH WORDS, WITH HER. He told me and his teacher how he felt (sad) and why (because A isn't my friend anymore) and then he sat down (in a chair!) and stuck with the problem until they had a solution and...I don't even know. He played WITH her. He talked TO her. We have a motherfucking PLAYDATE.

Everyone wants to figure out what's behind it, but of course you can never really narrow it down to one thing. Watching The Wizard of Oz seems to really inspire his pretend play and desire to construct more mature play scenarios with other people? He didn't have the morning program (hmmm)? The part-time babysitter is an angel sent from heaven and told me about how she's been reading up on SPD and would it be okay if she tried a few things she came across? We banished artificial colors from our goddamn hand soap? He's just another month older? The past six months of therapy are finally paying off? 

All I know is, I am SO PROUD of that kid, I cannot even tell you.

5) Ezra. Likewise. THIS ONE. He's 16 months old now, did you know that? I didn't. I've been saying he's 15 months for...waaaay over a month now, obviously. Duh. He has undergone his own explosion: a personality explosion. He is a...mmmph. How can I say this nicely? And with the affection that I swear is really behind it? He is a...spitfire. He is...opinionated. In his mind, he is already two years old. Or maybe 15. His temper is EPIC, and it is HYSTERICAL, watching him hurl his body to the ground in front of a closed baby gate while he sobs and beats his fists and kicks the floor and covers his face with his hands and then sticks out his bottom lip and storms off and I'm like: Dude. I know we're in for it when you're older but right now I am laughing because YOU ARE SUCH A CLICHE. 

He says hi, bye-bye, yummy, doggy, kitty, mommy and daddy (not mama or dada, WTF), uppy, want dat, hot, ididit, ohwow, vrooom, beep beep, all done. And of course, NO. Yesterday he pointed at the butterflies on his wall and said BEE, today he called them BUTT. He'll mimic any sign you teach him, any activity he sees. He eats with a fork and a spoon and will shriek HIIIIIIIIII at anyone he sees until they pay attention to him. He dances to Lady GaGa and his singing alphabet magnets with similar flair. He has no fear of anything...except people getting hurt on the TV, even if it's a cartoon character falling off a bike. He bursts into tears and runs to me for a protective cuddle...right before he gets distracted by the back of the couch and hey do you think I could climb over the top of that hey let's see!

Like his big brother, though, Star Trek prompts a slightly different reaction.

And I'm done! Not really, but I think I'd like to take a shower today. You know. For kicks.

Your amalah.com Olympic Coverage

First, what is probably the greatest Random TiVo Pause Screen in the history of ever:

 

My second third favorite part is the guy on the right. HE KNOWS WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT, LADIES.

***

Next, our complete coverage of the Preschool Firewood-Holder Bobsled Run.

Intense concentration at the starting line.

A good start of at least a foot and a half is critical.

Tucking in on the corners, with lots of sound effects.

 

Checking his time....and it's official! 8:30 pm! GO TO BED.

***

Not pictured, because of a scheduling overlap with curling: Toddler figure-skating, in which Ezra decided to mimic the skaters and spin around in circles for awhile before tripping over his socks. Technically flawless, but his diaper lacked enough sequins.

Every Little Thing They Do Is Magic

On Thursday, I took Ezra to a belated Valentine's Day party at Noah's school. He sat at one of the little tables, clearly impressed with himself, hanging out with the big kids. He ate a plateful of cantaloupe chunks with a fork. When he was done, he carefully placed the fork on the plate and carefully toddled over to the classroom's play kitchen. He then placed his dishes in the little sink and fiddled with the faucet for a bit before going back to his seat.

I couldn't believe it. I pointed and jabbed in his direction just in case anybody else was watching. No one was, though I insisted on telling everybody about it anyway. Who taught him that? I didn't teach him that. Who is this kid, this mimic? What different species of toddler did I produce this time? Wow.

***

On Saturday, we took Noah ice skating. We bribed him, of course: If he tried ice skating for awhile we'd go to the toy store and let him pick out anything he wanted. Jason laced up his skates -- my heart clenched up in preparation for a Big Fight about New Things On His Feet, but he was perfectly calm -- and took him onto the ice while Ezra and I hung on the bleachers. I aimed the video camera at them, zooming in on the tiny skates on his feet, ON HIS FEET, WHERE HE LET US PUT THEM, and away from his shrieking, terrified little face.

It was Jason's turn to be the Patient Ocean this time, first picking him up, then moving him to the wall, somehow distracting him from the dozens of other unsteady little skaters wiping out all over the rink. By the time they came back around to where Ezra and I waited, Noah was smiling, cautiously plunking across the ice while holding onto Jason's hands for dear life. "OH WOW, NOAH," I shouted over the din of the crowded rink.

***

Ezra, meanwhile, found a slightly elevated, slightly slippery metal bleacher that he was determined to walk across. He stepped up and toddled for a bit before his foot slid off and he went down...while I dove after him to protect him from whatever terrible injury a four-inch stumble off a bleacher seat could inflict. And he would get back up, and try again. Soon I stopped helping him up or offering my hand. He wanted to do it by himself anyway. When he finally made it all the way down to the end without falling, he looked back at me and beamed. "OH WOW, ZAH," I shouted again, and clapped for him.

***

Later, at the toy store, Noah picked out a Build-a-Road set. Jason and I were so impressed with the ice skating we likely could have been talked into the expensive Playmobil set he's already requested for next Christmas, but he was adamant. Road. He wanted the Road.

Ezra took advantage of a slight miscommunication between Jason and I and attempted to walk out of the store while we weren't looking. A salesclerk brought him (and the personalized "Brooke" mug that he'd tried to abscond with) back to me, more than slightly annoyed at our carelessness. "Is this yours?" she asked. I sheepishly said he was and pretended to be all kinds of shocked at my fearless, daredevil child. 

***

Later, at home, he evaded us again.

***

Noah and I assembled his new road and bridge, and when we were done, I turned on one of the battery-powered cars and set it loose on the track. Noah screamed. He howled. He grabbed the car and switched it off. After he calmed down, I asked him why he didn't like it. The noise, he said. The noise was too gray. 

I looked at Jason, like, OH, WOW. DID YOU JUST HEAR THAT? He nodded. We know about the blue songs, the green songs, the red and yellow and purple songs. But we've never heard him describe anything as gray before.

***

That night, Ezra just happened to walk into the room right when the skier on the TV fell down. He pointed at the screen and burst into tears. He shook his head, nonononono, and covered his eyes. I picked him up and he buried his head in my shoulder. Nononononono, he said, out loud this time.

***

On Sunday, Jason made the questionable decision to put on our DVD of Star Trek: The New Lens-Flarish One Without a Semicolon & Subtitle Which Just Feels Kind of Wrong while Noah was in the room. I clucked and chided but couldn't find the remote. Noah positioned himself on the arm of the couch, a look of increasing curiosity on his face while everything on the TV started exploding and zooming and shwoooom vroooom bang blasting. 

He stayed there, frozen, throughout the entire opening scene. His eyes were like saucers, but he wasn't scared. He was FASCINATED. He was clearly watching the GREATEST THING EVER, this space opera explode-y movie, this crazy rocket-airplane-boom-thing.

Right as the movie title and Star Trek logo revealed themselves on the screen, his jaw dropped, he leaned forward and...gasped. "Oh. Wow." he whispered. "Oh. Wow."

***

On Being That Mom

But first, elsewhere: Deconstructed Cotton Balls From Spaaaaace!

***

The comments on Monday's post were...well, they were humbling. In a shaming kind of way, the endless chorus of praise and virtual applause and refrains of YOU ARE SUCH AN AWESOME MOM, because oh. Oh.

Only sometimes.

That moment...yeah, I'll own that. I was proud of Noah. I was proud of MYSELF.

I was proud that I didn't march us back to the house in a huff of frustration and anger, letting Noah know that I was indeed, frustrated and angry, either through my words (or lack or words, ah, nothing like busting out the silent treatment on your four-year-old) or through impatient tugs on his hand: COME ON. YOU WANTED TO LEAVE, WE'LL LEAVE. GOD. I was proud that I didn't react that way. 

The way I react far too often. Maybe even most of the time. Fifty-fifty? On a good day?

The way I reacted just the night before writing that entry, while locked in a bedtime battle of wills, confronted with an uncooperative child who wouldn't stand still, get undressed, get dressed, listen to me, look at me, stop that, stop that. 

If it made me feel better, I suppose I could blame Sensory Processing Disorder: he has no self-regulation, he is distracted by things we've learned to shut out, he has difficulty interpreting vocal tone and facial expressions, he can't always distinguish when we're upset and when we're playing, blah blah blah, I only fail because my kid is so much harder to deal with.

But I don't think that's true. I know it isn't fair. To Noah, that is.

No, Sunday night he was just being...four. A high-spirited, strong-willed four-year-old who didn't want to go to bed. And I couldn't handle that.

I scolded. I threatened. I yelled. When that didn't work, I grabbed his shoulders and yelled again. I grabbed hard. I stormed out and threw his pajamas at Jason, who had just finished putting Ezra to bed. (Ezra! Who is so easy! Except when you're trying to change his diaper and he wriggles and flips over and grabs things and throws them on the floor stop that, stop that.)

"YOU DO IT," I said. "I'M DONE."

I wasn't, really. I went and took a breather in our room and then guiltily emerged to guiltily read a bedtime story dripping in guilty guilt.

My brain scolded me: So he runs around for an extra 10 minutes and then goes to bed, it's not the end of the world. Why didn't you try turning it into a game instead of immediately switching into Mommy As Dictator mode?

(And of course, the Mommy As Dictator part of my brain offered up an enraged answer: Because I gave birth to him and ruined my body and moved to the suburbs and work so hard for him and private school therapy endless drudgery I don't think it's too much to ask for a little respect at bedtime GAR SMASH.)

(Translation: Because I'm the Mommy, that's why!)

And the next day I sat down and wrote an entry about a different moment, a better moment. The kind of moment I wish we could have more of, and the kind that I hope Noah remembers. But I don't get to pick and choose what he remembers. The patient mother in the ocean, soothing, praising, protecting. Or the impatient mother in his room, yelling, contorting, snapping.

In both of these stories, Noah -- unpredictable, confounding, mysterious Noah -- is actually the constant. I am the variable.

Downhill

So. This happened. And was...awesome.

"This" is the result of all that snow and ice on our roof finally starting to melt. Into our house. I repeat: AWESOME.

I always thought a leaky roof would look like it did in cartoons -- random slow drips coming out of the ceiling, to be caught with strategically-placed buckets in the middle of the room. Ours is more like a lovely cascading waterfall effect pouring through the paint in the window frame, as the wall above puckers and swells, and suddenly it's like, HOORAY! The whole side of this room is all squishy. How fucking cozy.

I won't bore you with all the repair details, except to offer this nugget of advice: If you ever need to file a disaster claim with your homeowner's insurance, do yourself a favor and try not to time it after any kind of...I dunno...ACTUAL DISASTER. Particularly a disaster that happened to affect more than say, four other people.

(CALL ME BACK, STATE FARM. I AM RUNNING OUT OF FRESH TOWELS. ALSO: PATIENCE.)

Oh! Just one more bit of wisdom: If you are among the millions of unemployed who might be all, prostitution isn't sounding so bad anymore, you may be interested to hear just how much money I had to pay some guy to get up on my roof and remove the rest of the snow. Which he did this morning, with a snow shovel and a goddamned hammer. Do you yourself own a snow shovel and a goddamned hammer? Then consider a career in post-snowpocalyptic highway robbery today! (After he finished our roof a woman came running across the street in her bathrobe shrieking HOW MUCH HOW MUCH? He then quoted a price $100 more than what we paid, which was already $100 more than what we were quoted over the phone yesterday. It's a real growth industry!)

***

So enough about my stupid fucking roof. That is stupid. Let's talk about the Olympics.

I love the Olympics. I watch every blessed minute of the coverage, except for the Profiles In Olympic Courage fluff pieces, about how anyone can become an Olympic champion provided they dedicate themselves to a sport full-time by the age of four, along with other benefits like a shitload of money and a parent who JUST SO HAPPENS to be a two-time Olympic champion in the same sport WHAT ARE THE ODDS.

Yeah, those things. That's when I get up for more snacks.

But anyway, I've discovered I've got a bit of anxiety problem on behalf of the athletes. I'm not so worried about falls and crashes -- I don't like those, but you know, they happen and stuff. No, I am absolutely petrified that one of the following things will happen:

1. An athlete will neglect to put on their goggles, helmet or other safety gear before starting down a course.

It FLIPS. ME. OUT. to see them there, all poised and ready to go, with their goggles or face mask on top of their helmet. (And don't even get me started on the people who wait until the last minute to attach a dangling helmet chin strap put it on put it on PUT IT ON.) I am seriously a crazy bundle of nerves for them, twitching and writhing and itching at myself because oh my God, they must be thinking of a million other things, they're totally going to forget their goggles! I would totally forget my goggles! Oh Jesus, is there someone there reminding them? Because I would need someone there to remind me. I would probably hire a special full-time safety-equipment check person. I wonder if anyone would hire me to that? Because I would be good at that job. Hell, I would do it for free because PUT ON YOUR GOGGLES HOLY MOTHER OF GOD.

The minute the athlete successfully puts on their goggles or fastens their helmet, I am immediately calmed and no longer concerned about them in the slightest. Go ahead and wipe out on those moguls, baby. You're all good.

2. A skier or snowboarder won't be able to stop at the bottom of the course and will crash into the little boundary fence-thing.

Yes, because after demonstrating unparalleled skill on an amazingly difficult hill, an Olympic athlete is TOTALLY going to be all, "OH MY GOD, I FORGOT TO LEARN HOW TO STOP! HALP!" Yes, I am probably projecting my own terrible skiing experiences on them. One of which may or may not involve running over a seven-year-old. Who was standing still. Possibly inside the lodge. Whatever. You cannot prove a thing.

Patience is an ocean

On the first day of our vacation, I took Noah to the beach. Just us. Jason was putting out one last work fire. Ezra was...well, he was eating, having already figured out that 1) all the food here was delicious, and 2) he could get into the kitchen via an always-open back door, and that there was ALWAYS someone in there cooking something, and they were ALWAYS happy to give him a taste, like an over-eager puppy begging for scraps.

So Noah and I went to the beach. I might as well have taken him to the dentist, because he did not want to go to the beach, because of the ocean. He did not want to go near the ocean. He did not want to look at the ocean or hear the ocean. NO OCEAN. He stood as far back on the sand as he possibly could, practically climbing up a wall of rocks in his bare feet, adamant about the NO OCEAN part.

The ocean in Jamaica is not like the ocean here, which knocked Noah over two summers ago and he has refused to go near since. (He holds a mean grudge, I've learned.) It's calm, shallow. There's no undertow and the breakers barely come above your knees. But he didn't care. NO OCEAN. I went in the water without him. I waved and cajoled and explained. I tried to talk him into sticking just a toe in, or to just come a little closer where we could build a sandcastle.

NO OCEAN. He said he wanted to go back to the house.

And I felt that familiar feeling. I was frustrated and annoyed, even though technically I understood. Technically. But still. COME ON. It was like the end of every birthday party or disastrous outing, the miserable ultimate conclusion of something that was supposed to be fun. I felt that tired old instinct to throw up my hands and say FINE. WHATEVER. WE'LL LEAVE. To give up.

Most of the time at home, I admit: I just give up.

I sat down next to Noah and tried to think of what else I could say. He was throwing sand, something we're always scolding him about at the crowded Maryland beaches, where there's wind and other people to annoy. He looked at me, waiting for the rebuke. Instead, I picked up a clump of sand and hurled at the water's edge.

"YOU DON'T SCARE ME, WATER." I shouted.

Noah looked at me like I'd lost my mind. But he smiled. I did it again.

"YOU DON'T SCARE ME, WATER."

Another smile, this time with dimple. He picked up some sand and threw it at the ocean, repeating my challenge.

We did this for awhile. Then I crept closer and stomped on a wave as it lapped up the beach. "YOU DON'T SCARE ME, WATER." I kicked at it, sending a spray upward. Noah laughed.

And he came over and kicked the next wave. "YOU DON'T SCARE ME EITHER, WATER," he shouted.

After awhile, I picked him up and took the plunge. We waded in. He clung to my neck and howled. The water touched his feet and he screamed.

I smacked at the water, making another huge splash. "YOU DON'T SCARE ME, WATER."

Noah raised his head from where he'd buried it in my shoulder and watched me splash again. I walked in a little deeper and he hesitantly reached his hand out to hit the water's surface. It splashed back over both of us...and he laughed.

"YOU DON'T SCARE ME, WATER."

And from that moment on, it didn't. 

 

 

Before

Before the snow, before we lost power, Noah announced that he wanted to draw some pictures.

This...was news to me, as Noah does not particularly like to draw. It frustrates him. His fine-motor delays clash with his perfectionist nature. He favors his left hand but is more skilled with his right, he has difficulty getting all of his fingers to do what he wants, he sees Pixar in his head but scribbles on the paper, and within minutes he's pushing the crayon at me, asking me to please recreate the Paradise Falls tableau from Up, complete with the House, Balloons, Carl, Russell, The Snipe, The Mean Dogs and Also Russell's Lost GPS Unit Right Over There, NO, NOT THERE. THERE. All of which are also way beyond my own limited skills with an unsharpened Crayola, but whatever. They please him more than his own creations, apparently.

So anyway, this request came out of the blue, as if he'd randomly asked for a bowl of Brussels sprouts. But we quickly supplied the crayons and paper and he got to work.

After he was done, he asked for a toy airplane.

 

This is the airplane outside our house.

 

This is the house in Jamaica. It is smaller than our house.

This is the plane flying to Jamaica. The red parts are trees. There were more trees in Jamaica than outside our house, you see.

 

And there were, in fact, trees with very red bark in Jamaica, which delighted him. Soon after we arrived, he declared Jamaica to be Oz. The path down to the beach was the Yellow Brick Road; the wall of tropical greenery around the pool was the Emerald City. He stood on the steps and conversed with an imaginary doorman about the broken bell; he stood by a tree stump in the backyard asking for his oil can; he was incapable of going indoors without attempting to whip everyone into a frenzy about "IT'S A TWISTER! IT'S A TWISTER!"

At the airport, on the way home, he skipped down a stationary moving sidewalk and sang every word of "We're Off To See The Wizard" at the top of his lungs. Any irritation our fellow travelers had about the mechanical problem vanished about halfway through the song, as they all smiled and laughed as he unselfconsciously butchered the phrasing of "a wiz of a wiz if ever a wiz there was."

His hands might not be able to keep up with everything going on in his head just yet, but you know, I'm not too worried.

84 Hours

The worst part, at first, was the boredom. Or maybe the lack of coffee.

No, definitely the boredom. When we woke up on Saturday to discover we had no power, I immediately groaned at the prospect of keeping the snowed-in kids occupied without the television. And then I groaned again, wistfully thinking of the weeks' worth of unwatched programming our TiVo had recorded while we were away. LOMFGST! Project Runway! Big Love! Assorted sitcoms! A good dozen or so competitive cake decorating shows! DAMMIT.

No, wait. The coffee. Definitely the coffee. By 11 am I had a raging caffeine withdrawal headache, the likes of which I hadn't experienced since the first trimester of pregnancy (i.e. the last time I gave the slightest asscrap about improving my health and tried to cut back).

No, wait. The boredom. I'd gone to bed without charging my phone or laptop, leaving my time to muck around on pointless computer games and/or complain about our lack of electricity to Twitter painfully limited.

No, wait. The battery-backup feature on the Verizon Fios Boxamajig in the basement. That was the worst thing, at first. I have no idea what purpose the battery-backup actually serves, except to beep every few minutes to alert you to the fact that the Boxamajig is operating on battery-backup power. You know, just in case you also had a battery backup on your wireless router (WARNING: YOU HAVE PRECIOUS LITTLE TIME TO FINISH READING THAT WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE) or on your television (WARNING: YOU SHOULD JUST FASTFORWARD TO THE PART WHERE THE CAKE DECORATORS HAVE TO MOVE THEIR CAKES TO THE TABLE SO YOU CAN SEE WHICH ONE FALLS OVER). 

Every few minutes: Beep. Beep. Beep.

And every few minutes, I would hear the beep and think, "Ooh, maybe that's the power trying to come back on." Just like the lawyer in Jurassic Park said, when the water cup started vibrating on the dashboard, shortly before the T-Rex came around and ate him off the toilet.

(Speaking of which: I was absolutely SHOCKED to discover just how cold the average toilet seat gets after just a few hours of no heat. It's like, BRACING, you guys.)

I took a shower, only to break out in a vicious attack of cold urticaria the instant I stepped out of the warm-ish water. Raised welts and red hives covered my face and hands. "Look at how weird I am!" I told Jason. We ate tuna fish sandwiches for lunch. We put on extra sweaters and socks and stressed about the lack of firewood. (We'd made a fire the night before and burned through half our supply, you know, because it was SNOWY OUTSIDE. Never mind that it was 72 degrees INSIDE. Snowy! Make a fire! I might feel subliminally chilly!) We kicked ourselves for not having any propane for the grill. We all took naps because we didn't know what else to do. We kept flipping light-switches on and off. When Jason and I decided to stay warm the -- ahem -- old-fashioned way, I realized the distinct disadvantage the Hitachi Magic Wand has over other battery-powered -- ahem -- personal massagers. 

My headache finally went away (must have been that -- ahem -- fantastic massage), so I started re-reading a couple of my favorite books. At some point, while halfway through The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I realized I was squinting. Oh, right! Darkness. That. We scrambled to light a motley assortment of scented decorative candles and shoved cheap Ikea taper candles into empty wine and beer bottles. I was a little embarrassed to find that we had PLENTY of bottles.

When faced with tuna fish sandwiches again for dinner, we revolted. I remembered Alton Brown (our personal culinary lord and savior) had an episode about cooking over an open fire, and we eyed our three or four sticks of firewood with inspiration. And hunger.

Ezra got chicken sausages. Noah ate a grilled cheese. We ate a couple awesomely smoky turkey burgers.

We chilled some white wine out on the back deck. You know, for the CANDLES.

We were feeling triumphant. The snow had stopped, clearly we had weathered the worst of it.

Then the fire went out. 

The next morning, Sunday, the power still wasn't on. Our street wasn't plowed. The plows weren't even running. The number of people in our county without power was about 75,000, and climbing by the hour. The weight of the heavy, wet snow had caused an alarming number of branches to snap off a pine tree next to our house (but on common neighborhood property, that we've repeatedly, unsuccessfully lobbied for removal). Luckily, they'd missed our roof...and Ezra's bedroom window.

Jason dug and dug and shoveled and shoveled until he was able to get our car out. There was no way around it: We needed firewood. It was getting pretty cold.

 

Jason drove to our local hardware store: they had eight small bags of sadly damp wood, TOTAL. Jason couldn't bear the thought of someone else arriving after him and finding no wood, so he only took a couple. He brought it back to us, along with the Other Greatest Thing Ever:

Then he went back out in search of more wood.

A nearby Whole Foods indicated they would be open on their answering machine message, but when Jason arrived they'd lost their water overnight and were closed. While he was standing outside counting his cash and wondering where he could leave it before taking some of the bags of wood stacked outside, the manager came outside. Jason explained that we had no power and needed some firewood. The manager told him to take as many bags as he needed, and refused to take any money. 

Meanwhile, I started moving essentials out of our rapidly-warming fridge.

 

A few years ago, Jason's mother gave us a wind-up radio/flashlight thing, in preparation for the End Times. Or maybe Terrorists. I forget which kick she was on at the time. We used it to listen for news from the power companies, which was not good. "Multiple-day event," they admitted. Probably another full day without electricity. 

At some point, another Whosawhatzit started beeping. The power! It's the power! I stared expectantly at the TiVo, waiting for it to light up back to life. Nothing. I went off in search of the beeping. As I got closer, I realized that in between the beeping was an electronic voice saying WARNING! CARBON MONOXIDE! WARNING CARBON MONOXIDE!

We stared at the detector for a couple minutes, like...seriously? Seriously seriously? We have no gas or kerosene sources in the house, no garage...the fireplace? Oh my God, do you think it's the fireplace?

Suddenly the alarm changed its mind: WARNING! FIRE! WARNING! FIRE!

Being a woman of action, I yanked it out of the ceiling and replaced the batteries. Everything was fine.

But cold. Frigging freezing, man.

Jason and I had an old bag of ski clothing to dig through -- long underwear and fancy moisture-wicking layers and such -- but the boys were woefully unprepared. We prepared to go out again in search of warmer clothing to get them through the night, but alas, stores were either closed or sold out of all kids' sizes, having been cleared out that morning by more prepared, on-top-of-the-situation parents.

Instead, we went out for dinner, in hopes of getting warmed up temporarily, and maybe getting to see a little bit of the Super Bowl, which was bumming Jason out in particular. He'd been pretty dismissive about the road conditions, which shocked THE HELL out of me on the way to dinner. I gripped the door and the dashboard and closed my eyes and made all kinds of annoying, involuntary gasps and squawks because OH MY GOD, WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE FOR THE SAKE OF GETTING A DAMN CHEESEBURGER.

On the way home, in the dark, it became easy to spot who had power and who didn't. We played spot-the-lights all the way back though nearby neighborhoods, learning that the outages were not huge chunks of houses, but instead dozens of small, concentrated spots. We turned our final corner and I saw that the single family homes ACROSS THE STREET had power...but the townhouses were still completely cloaked in blackness. This was the psychic equivalent to getting kicked in the head. I stomped my foot. I said it wasn't fair. 

Jason wondered if we were making a mistake by not getting a hotel room that night. I worried about it too, but whenever I thought about putting the boys back in the car and taking them out on those roads...no. NO. We were staying put. The power would be back on tomorrow. We could do one more night. We all slept in the same bed for awhile, until it became clear that nobody was getting any sleep, so Jason and Noah went in one room and Ezra, the pets and I stayed put in our bed. This may have worked, except that Noah spent most of the night wailing about unspecified complaints (which turned out to be too-small footie jammies), and Ezra refused to sleep under the covers, choosing to stick his head in my armpit and the kick the blankets off, leaving my torso exposed and freezing and my brain convinced that I -- a one-time experienced cosleeper! -- was going to inadvertently smother him. 

On Monday, our neighborhood was plowed, but the power wasn't back on. While Pepco publicly promised "the majority of customers" would be restored by Tuesday night, multiple people were getting told a different story directly. Friday by six. FRIDAY. BY SIX.

Our electric toothbrush was slowwwwwly losing its charge, reminding me of that mournful dying cassette player from Apollo 13. I was perhaps kind of definitely getting a tad over-dramatic.

Back out, like it or not, in search of warmer clothing. We loaded up on kids' heavy-duty layers and socks at REI (where we noted, somewhat suspiciously, that it seemed like most of the stuff had been put on clearance racks to make way for spring merchandise, but the marked-down price stickers were mostly missing and everything was full price). We ate lunch at our favorite weekend breakfast place, surrounded by fellow power refugees -- we all had the same slightly dirty, greasy look about us, thanks to no hot water. We were all ridiculously overdressed for the warm restaurant but no one took off any of their extra layers. What have you heard? Have you gotten through to a person? Have you heard by tomorrow night? Have you heard this Friday by six nonsense? You have? Oh, my God. 

I spent the whole meal fighting back tears. I was tired. I was cold. I was tired of feeling my children's icy cold ears and fingers, no matter how many layers I dressed them in. Everyone's nose was running and I was coughing. Our faces were bright red and chapped. I was tired of dark cold rooms and my shivering dog and fretting about how much food we were losing in the freezer. I started thinking about families who routinely escape to low-cost breakfast joints just to escape cold houses because they couldn't make the utility payments and, naturally, this healthy dose of perfuckingspective pushed me over the edge and I went into a bathroom stall to have a mini-cry.

We decided to get a hotel room. A bunch of people on Twitter had suggested that hotels would likely have a "disaster rate" for families like us. We called around and found no such thing. We booked a room anyway at a decent-ish rate, at a pet-friendly Kimpton near Dupont Circle where we'd stayed once upon a time, with the sad little fantasy that we'd maybe be able to take the boys out and enjoy the neighborhood. Once we got there, of course, it was all treacherous, unshoveled sidewalks, closed stores, and we couldn't leave Ceiba in the room ANYWAY, as she just barked her fool head off the instant we tried to do anything, like retrieve a bucket of ice down the hall. We were essentially even more shut-in than at home, where at least we could run errands without fear of dog-noise-related eviction.

After overpriced room service meals and morning breakfast buffet, plus the exorbitant cost of a one-time viewing of The Princess and the Frog (the hotel's one lone DVD player was broken [WTF] and the bag containing toys for the boys had accidentally been left in our foyer at home, so we had zero other entertainment options), the hotel room was much too expensive to book again, particularly with another storm coming.

Yes. Another storm. Predicted to be even worse. If we stayed at the hotel we risked being snowed OUT of our house. If we went home and power wasn't restored, we'd essentially be completely fucked for the rest of the week as the house got colder and colder.

We decided to go home, pack up a few more essentials and head up to Pennsylvania, to our families. The storm was set to hit them a bit later, albeit worse. But our parents' power lines ran underground and they never seemed to lose power, no matter how bad the weather. We packed and turned our water off, and Jason stopped to shovel our elderly neighbors' car out. We gave them a bag of firewood, though they said they'd been unable to start a fire because of the amount of snow covering their chimney.

I was buckling Noah in, not feeling super great about undertaking a long drive, or the prospect of being stranded away from home for Godonlyknows. Jason had the baby and was about to the lock the front door...

When...

"Babe, the power just came back on," he said.

And it had! Oh my God! I ran back in and started flipping lights on and off. Jason turned on the water and cranked up the thermostat. (Interior rooms near the fire: 45 degrees. Bedrooms: in the fucking thirties.) Noah stood just outside, terribly confused. "Grandma and Grandpa's house?" he asked, near tears. I felt badly, but LOOK LOOK LOOK I CAN PEE WITH THE LIGHTS ON.

I started the dishwasher, drained the sink of all the crap we'd absentmindedly dumped in the garbage disposal, put a load of diapers in the wash, freaked out on Twitter and called my mom, in that order. 

Jason went outside to start unloading the car...

When...

"Oh my God," I said to my mom. "It just went off again."

And it had! Barely 30 minutes had passed and poof. Gone.

I went outside and shrieked to Jason. He came in. I kept shrieking.

Jason wanted to know what I thought we should do. I wanted to him to STOP FUCKING ASKING. He wanted me to calm down. I wanted him to STOP TELLING ME TO CALM DOWN.

It was not my finest moment. I was just...furious. Devastated. Exhausted. And oh, so fucking cold.

Some random Old Guy was wandering around outside, railing about Pepco, our own equivalent to The End Is Near Sandwich Board Prophets. He claimed to know that the power thing was a fluke, a mistake, the result of a repair being made elsewhere. He also claimed that the crew was getting pulled before the next storm started.

Jason jumped in the car and drove off, in search of this mysterious crew. To beg? Bribe? Offer his services as a human electrical conductor? I don't know.

He returned a few minutes later. The crew was indeed working around the corner. They were not even from Pepco, but from another utility company in Delaware, in town to help with the insane number of outages. They were very tired. They were especially tired, apparently, of people like Jason knocking on their windows in search of news. Jason tried to not ask too many questions and to be unfailingly polite, lest they pack up and leave us to our crotchety elderly messengers of doom.

"They said it will be another few hours." Jason reported.

I had so many more questions: Like, for sure? Like, they aren't leaving until it happens? Like, the repair they're working on is OUR REPAIR, and not like, another repair BEFORE our repair and then a couple more hours after that?

Jason was all, that's all I know, crazy lady. I decided to leave and LET THEM WORK instead of pestering them to death. 

So we decided to give them two more hours. In two hours, if the power was still off, we'd leave for PA after all, hopefully still staying ahead of the storm. 

In the meantime, Jason assessed my mental state and offered to go get me some Chipotle. It's pretty much my Prozac, he's learned.

He was still in line when I called him.

"It's on. It's back on."

And it still is. For now. For hopefully good. We're at about three feet of snow and counting.

Stay warm, everybody.

When It Snows It Blizzards

I woke up in the wee small hours of the morning today, just barely awake enough to wonder WHY AM I SO COLD, a thought that semi-occurred to me as I padded off in the general direction of the bathroom, right before I collided with the hard, unyielding edge of my closet door.

Oh. We're back home. The bathroom's a bit more to the right.

We're back home, where it is snowing, where it will apparently be snowing FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES, or at least the rest of the weekend. The villa staff did all of our laundry for us in Jamaica, so our suitcases are full of fresh clean..shorts. T-shirts. Tanks and sundresses. Bathing suits. I am tempted to just zip everything back up, shove it in a closet (I know just the one!) and sort it all out in June.

This weekend I am going to go through the roughly 40,000,000 photos we took and dust off my old expired Flickr account and upload them there, just to spare you the boredom of looking at 25 virtually identical shots of my preschool cavorting in the sand, dozens of sunset pictures, and there was this one day that I got really overly obsessed with getting photos of sand crabs. I have an ungodly number of sand crab photos.

THIS JUST IN: Sand crabs are ugly, kind of creepy.

PUT ME IN A SHELLACKED SEASHELL FRAME! PUT ME ON YOUR NIGHTSTAND! LET ME RUN ACROSS YOUR FACE WHILE YOU SLEEP!

In the meantime, if you are also stuck in the snow and would like to dream of a warmer climate (or, alternately, if your body temperature is soothed and warmed by feelings of burning hot jealousy), please to enjoy another batch of vacation photos. What? It's not like I invited you over for dinner and then set up the slide projector while you weren't looking. Oh Irving, remember the sand crabs? Here's a photo of a sand crab. Here's another one. Here's a photo that would have been of a sand crab if the sand crab hadn't run back into his hole right before Mabel snapped the picture. See that dot right there? Yep. That's another fucking sand crab, can you fucking believe it.

The most private public beach in the world.

Noah, post-beach-post-nap.

Contemplating the Jonas Brothers. Quite seriously, I may add. That Nick one sounds very driven! (NOTE: I have no idea which one is Nick.)

BLUE STEEL.

Oh! So funny story. After contemplating the terrible state of my toenails here, I decided to get a pedicure. And after finishing this beer here, I decided to open another. You know, to sustain me through the terrible ordeal of a spa treatment. Except that instead of the bottlecap coming off, the entire lip of the bottle went with it. And I stood there for a minute, contemplating this hunk of jagged glass attached to the bottle opener, when our housekeeper was all, OH HONEY! and pointed out that I had gashed my entire index finger open. Then I was all, huh. She bandaged me up and said something like, TSK! AND THIS IS WHY YOU ASK SOMEONE ELSE TO OPEN BEERS FOR YOU.

Anyway. My finger was fine. I skipped the manicure, though.

On Wednesdays, James makes jerk chicken for everybody. (And a hunk of jerk tofu for any vegetarians.) The cooking demonstration was, for Jason, about the equivalent of a teenager getting hair-styling secrets from the Jonas Brothers. The secret is to smoke it over pimento leaf. You know, FYI, if you were wondering what to do with that pimento tree in your backyard. I know I sure was. Lousy freeloading tropical climate tree. 

Yeah. I miss it already. It was really, really nice.

The Basics

I get the sense the staff here is worried that we are bored. We are not bored. We are, most likely, the boringest guests they've ever had. They keep reminding about about the hiking and snorkeling and fishing and kayaking and tubing over waterfalls, and we smile blissfully from our chair/chaise/hammock/other-place-where-we-have-planted-our-sedentary-butts and assure them that WE ARE FINE. WE ARE HAVING THE TIME OF OUR LIVES. RIGHT NOW, RIGHT HERE. WITH THE SITTING.

(We did massages. In our room. Practically rolled off the bed onto the table and back again. It was delicious.)

Every morning we wake up with the boys, cuddle for a bit before throwing open the windows and doors to survey the view and remember OH YEAH, we're in heaven, still. We pour ourselves some strong coffee our night watchman makes before he heads home. (I actually feel safer here than at any tourist-y peddler-targeted resort, but because we're so out in the middle of relative nowhere there are guard dogs and round-the-clock staff on the properties.) (And by "guard dogs" I mean a couple docile lumps of snuffully wuffully who's-a-good-boy-who-wants-a-scritchin' furbags.) The nanny makes the boys' breakfast (bananas and cereal for Noah; eggs, fruit and French toast for Ezra) while we head down to eat ours a bit closer to the water. (We've had just about everything you can imagine, from typical American grub to "real" Jamaican breakfasts like ackee and saltfish and callaloo omelets, all of which we've Hoovered up while being all, "OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD.") 

After we eat, the tough decisions start: What do we do first? Beach or pool?

IT'S VERY STRESSFUL.

Yesterday, though, we did finally leave the villa property. We visited the local preschool, the Bluefields Basic School.

The Jamaican government offers zero early childhood education, so it is up to communities and businesses and private donors to set up these tiny little places for three-, four- and five-year-olds to attend.

(The family who owns the Bluefields Bay Villas -- who, for full disclosure again, comped our stay here; we paid for airfare and staff gratuities [and those massages, heh] -- sponsor the three-year-old classroom. Other organizations and business support the other rooms. They pay for the teachers, supplies, food for the children and tuition for families who need help paying.) 

Most of the families need help. Tuition is 2,000 Jamaican dollars a semester. That's about 25 bucks.

Noah came along. The kids were delighted by their exotic visitor; they stroked his hair and swarmed him with tickles. Shrieking is the universal language of preschoolers, it turns out.

He sat in on a lesson about proteins and shared some peanuts. Here, they are discussing sardines.

(After disrupting everything, he at least attempted to restore order to the three-year-old room.)

Then he made himself right at home among the four-year-olds. "IT'S TIME TO WASH YOUR HANDS," a little girl is bossily instructing him off-camera. 

 

The five-year-olds were working in their composition books, carefully writing out the months of the year. Then we showed up and the pose-off started.

Using push pins and rubber bands to make shapes. Behind him: assorted Spider-Man, Disney Princess and Dora the Explorer backpacks.

After we got back in the car, I told Noah we'd go to the beach. "Okay," he shrugged. He waved goodbye to the ramshackle buildings and sighed. "I love that school. Can we go back tomorrow?"