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-Today felt like it should have been narrated by Rod Serling. If I had known I was stepping into the Twilight Zone, I don't think I would have left the bed. I started out the morning hoping to trim Kolbi's hair before she had to get ready for school (it was looking a bit ragged and all sorts of split-endish). This is the same Kolbi who who has been trying to grow her hair out for 6 months now because her friend Jaiden has super lengthy beautiful locks, and her friend Piper has hair down to there, and her friend so-and-so actually sits on her hair, and . . . well, you get the picture. This is the same girl who has cried for the last 3 haircuts because I trimmed a quarter-inch and "Now it's tooooo Shooorrrrttt!" When I started to cut, however, Kolbi proclaimed she wanted, not a trim, but a full-on CHOP. Her friend so-and-so has short hair, and she wanted to do it too. "Ok Self", I thought, "No problem."Well, I lied. Every time I thought I got it even, I would go to the other side to find I was still crooked. I couldn't seem to get it straight and even, and the clock is ticking, and the other three monkies are starting to wake up and demand my attention, and the hair just keeps falling, and it's still not straight, and Kolbi is wiggling, and it's now longer on the left than the right, so I trim the left and now it's shorter than the right, and she's starting to look like I thought I was a jungle-woman hacking through her hair with a flippin' machete! I finally got it **cough cough** (quote, unquote) even (ok, as even as it was going to get this morning before I took the Wahl to my own wrist). I proclaimed her "DONE" and immediately she starts to tear up because it's not as short as so-and-so's. (Really, already at this age??? Do we really have to be such a conformist? Aaaaagh!) I shoe her into the shower (she can tell from the way my eyeballs are protruding out of my skull and spewing forth fire that I mean business), she beats a hasty retreat. I vacuumed up the dead cat while she showered and clogged the drain and the other three ran amok (their absolute FAVORITE pastime). By the skin of our teeth she made it to school and I went home ready to collapse and it was only 8:05 a.m.
Next came the grand adventure of the babysitting swap which actually went really well. I had only one friend drop-off her kids, including her gorgeous 6-month old (who I think epitomizes cuteness and was an ABSOLUTE angel!) I plopped the kids in front of a show (after a brief squabble about the virtues of Star Wars verses PBS kids) and actually succeeded in getting the kitchen cleaned up a little. That is, until the show ran out and they were pining for a snack (of which only about half actually made it INTO the little bodies). By the time mom came to pick them up, it was snowing pretty hard. By the time I went to drop Jonah off at school, one of Texas's rare snowstorms was hitting us full-force.
By 3 o'clock, we were buried in 4 inches of snow and it was still dumping!
Now, having lived in Denver, Chicago, Utah, and Idaho (all competitors for the "Snowiest Winter" award) I've seen my fair share of snow. One of my few joys in moving to Texas is that there's no snow (well maybe a quarter inch dusting 1 day out of the year). But as I pull out of the garage, I am in a winter wonderland and it's apparent Texas felt the need to at least run in the Competition even if it knew there was a snowball's chance in Texas of actually winning. As I clutch my steering wheel and gaze out at the blizzard that has descended upon us, I'm assaulted with so many bitter snow memories . . . [Cue memory reel . . . ah, my snow-filled paper route days in Colorado when I was a kid. The time I was about 7, pulling my stupid red wagon full of the Denver Post, trudging through the snow ~that was literally up to my chin! Oh, but rain, or sleet, or snow right? (oh wait, that's the postal service). . . How about the time, while traveling to a stake youth dance in Chicago (the same Chicago where they put 10 foot poles on the fire hydrants so they can find them under the snow in winter~think I'm joking? 'Fraid not), my car spun around 3 times, [to the tune of my friend hitting me repeatedly and chanting "It's okay! It's okay! It's okay!"] planted me the wrong direction, and abruptly died on a major highway. . . . Or the time I was walking uphill to campus in Rexburg Idaho and ended up slipping/sliding back down the very lengthy hill 3 times, thus bruising my knees, shins, chin, and unmentionables! . . . Or the time I walked out my apartment door one wintery morning in Provo, Utah, abruptly slipped, and bounced my skull off the pavement, effectively giving myself a lovely black-eye (which I used to fool my then-boyfriend into thinking I'd been mugged and finally admitting what happened as he was picking up the phone to call campus police) . . . NOT happy memories (okay, the fooling of the boyfriend was actually pretty funny in a sick way, but the other memories . . .not so much)!]I pull out of the driveway and am painfully reminded that my two rear tires are as bald as Mr. Clean, and they ain't giving me no traction what-so-ever! (I knew they were bald, but we're too poor to replace them yet and I wasn't expecting to walk out of my Texas door into Alaska!) I gingerly slip-slide my way slooowwwlllyyy to school (all the time reminding myself that I've driven in snow more than your average bear, that I can do this~I've done it so many times before. But my traitorous brain kept whispering back, "but not on bald tires with precious cargo in the back!" Thanks a lot! No pressure!) At the school, of course, there's an insanely long line to pick up the kids. All the time I'm completely paranoid that while on the hill, my tires are just going to slip on the ice and we're going to slide down the hill taking out multiple cars on the way. My knuckles are whiter than the snow and I'm praying most fervently. I picked up the monkies without incident and we made it home safely at a snail's pace. *Whew* Except I couldn't actually get up my driveway and into my garage! My oh so barren tires give a mighty effort, squealing and clawing for a hold, but the snow is indomitable and isn't giving up. Finally, after three tries, I gun it and the van gives a lusty roar as we sail into the garage, narrowly missing the back wall. Jonah, who is begging me to stop trying because he is, at this point, terrified, heaves a pitiful sigh of relief. I let out the breath I've been holding all the way home, and we scramble out of the vehicle.
At home, the kids beg mercilessly to play in the snow. I inwardly groan, imagining all of the snow that will be tracked into the house, the wet & muddy coats, shoes, socks, gloves, and jeans that will be clogging my laundry room, how cold it is out there, and the fact that I will have to accompany said monkies into winter wonderland (Have I mentioned that I hate snow?). I suck it up however, bundle the monkies like little eskimos, and send them out to play in the nasty white stuff.
I have to admit, it was really good packing snow, perfect for snowballs and Large snowmen (a rare treat in Texas ~ our last rare snow storm produced a miniature snowman that barely came above the children's shoes). We threw snowballs for a while, shoveled with our gardening shovels, and the kids helped the neighbors build a snowman taller than Kolbi. And the snow kept coming!
Zoe, the one who fought hardest for her right to play in the snow, became cold, sick of her mittens, and bored of the snow within 5 minutes. She started dragging out all of the summer sports equipment and then screaming when she couldn't ride her trike in the snow. 
Oh, the sheer audacity of this snowstorm to ruin her contemplated plans!! This was when this tired little Cleopatra LOST IT Big time!!! Her wails sailed out over the snowy plains and echoed back considerably. If there were mountains, I'm sure she would have started an avalanche! I hastily informed the children we needed to get inside, Zoe was ready to blow her little top and melt all of the snow single-handedly (if she didn't push me over the edge first, in which case I would do the proud deed). Surprisingly, my little snow angels didn't oblige willingly. I wrangled, wrestled, coaxed, coerced, and threatened them with their lives (all the while desperately trying to hold onto the slippery lil' krakatoa) and finally got them stripped of their soggies and inside the house, where they begin to ooze and meltdown at the injustice of it all. I reach out and hit the button to close the garage (hoping to effectively shut our drama off from the rest of the world), it starts to descend, stops, and turns right back around. What!?!?Either the snow was too deep or too swirly and the garage door sensors were picking it up, thus keeping it from coming down. If I kept the door open much longer, the garage would be packed with the crud, and Chris wouldn't be able to get his car in. So, Mukluk to the rescue, I absorb the kiddos in a show and head out to shovel the driveway (with a garden shovel mind you. FUN!) so the hubs won't have to battle his way into the garage and so we can close the darn thing. After considerable toil, the right side of the driveway is clear, salted, and I'm ready to collapse (oh, wait, but it's time to make dinner!! Woo hoo!! Will the fun never end?!). I hit the button to close the door again, and lo and behold . . . it STILL doesn't close!! What the @#$&@^@*$%*?!?!
Inside, I search vigilantly for the manual for the garage door. I call the manufacturer and sit for a half hour just chillin' to their lovely muzak (actually I was thanking my hubby for my lovely blue-tooth that saved my neck and arm while I started scrounging for something brilliant to make for dinner). Finally I get a genuine human voice, he sounds really young, and after each question I hear him typing into his computer, followed by long pauses. Does he really know what he's doing? What he lacks in age and experience, however, he makes up for in enthusiasm, exuding words like "Fantastic! Wonderful! Excellent! and Marvelous!" He walks me through several steps which effectively dismantle the darn door. Then he asks me to pull the door down manually. That's when I solved the mystery . . . when the chillins got out the shovels to play in the snow earlier, they knocked a pole in the path of the door. Hence, when the door came down, it would hit the pole and go right back up (a lovely little detail I couldn't see through the solid steel of the parked van~I'm no Superman). I get the pole out of the way, but now, the instructions for re-assembling the door aren't working. My door is still manual (and that ain't gonna fly~we paid extra for an opener for a reason). . . the 12 year old on the other line puts me on hold to speak to someone who actually knows what he's doing. Meanwhile, I fiddle (hoping my impromptu pizzas aren't burning in the oven) and get it to work. My friend comes back on the line and I tell him what I did to fix it. "Fantastic!" He says, "That's just what I was about to tell you to do." "Wonderful!" I say, "Thanks for your help!" and rush inside just in time to pull the pizzas out of the oven (narrowly avoiding another Day of Rest incident).
Chris arrives home safely **Whew** and we have a lovely little dinner together. The kids regal him with tales of their joyous snow adventures (sprinkled with expressions of disgust that the abominable snowmom brought them in too soon). At least someone had fun in the stupid snow! It certainly wasn't me! Chris looks over at Kolbi's new hair cut and asks, "Why is one side longer than the other?" THAT'S IT!!! I pull Kolbi into the bathroom, yank out the Wahl, and start hacking away again. I'm dead determined this time not to send my child to school looking like her head got caught in the lawnmower. By the time I'm done, the bathroom looks like there's been another cat fight in there, Kolbi is actually looking more presentable, and it's way past everybody's bedtime. Chris and I, in great haste, packed the sardines off to bed, and both collapsed on the couch. I survey the damage . . . there's still muddy, wet shoes by the front door, a pile of wet laundry piled next to the washer, dishes from dinner all over the kitchen (not to mention half of dinner that ended up on the floor. . . What's the deal with not being able to get the food INTO the mouth??), and I've noticed I've developed a few new tics. Chris just grabs the remote control, flips on the idiot box, and we sink into the couch while our brains leak out of our ears. Aaaaaah! A moment's peace! The news comes on and I swear it's Rod Serling's voice predicting sunny weather tomorrow. Temperatures are rising and the snow is already melting making the morning commute not too bad. . . . "You're moving out of a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. A land where nothing is quite as it should be." He says, "an area which we call the Twilight Zone".
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Up next: Family fun ~ or die trying
