A Mommy Story

All of my focus has been drained away, so apologies if this is disjointed.

Today is the third snow day in a row for us, and our…eighth? seventh? who can keep track anymore?…of the school year. It’s an unheard of number of snow days for my kids. A few of the days made sense, with extreme cold and wind chills of -20, and this Wednesday’s snow and ice storm in the early morning, making for dangerous travel.

Yesterday and today were called off mostly because the side streets and many sidewalks are still snow covered. I remember days that had more snow in previous years where the kids still had school. This is not a “kids nowadays are wimps” complaint, this is more of a “what happened to city snow removal?” complaint. I understand the need to protect the safety of kids, and wouldn’t want to put my kids at risk for a bus getting stuck in the snow or sliding and having an accident, so I approve of looking out for the safety of the kids. But the snow stopped early Wednesday morning, and snowy roads should have been cleared by now.

Mira, 2009 – I think Cordy missed just one day of preschool with that snowstorm

As of last night, the news said the city was just starting to get to the side streets and neighborhood streets. It seems like Columbus used to have a better snow response team and reached the entire city in under three days. Most of the suburban schools were back in session on Thursday, with clear streets, while we continued to wait. Maybe Columbus should take some of that large tax surplus they have and invest a little in additional snow removal teams?

So, we’ve been stuck at home, two stir crazy kids and one mom who still has to work. I’m thankful that I work from home and don’t have to scramble to find childcare during these snow days. But it’s also hard to stay focused on work with constant interruptions. Cordy has been doing a lot of reading during the past few days, finishing another Percy Jackson novel and earning more points for her school’s read-a-thon. Mira has been trying her best to engage her sister and force Cordy to play with her. It’s worked a few times, but most of the time it ends in, “MOOOOOM! Mira’s bothering me!”

We’ve had plenty of TV watching and game playing , too. I’ve learned just how little there is to watch on TV in the late morning/early afternoon. Especially for kids. Your choices are pretty much preschool and younger programming, or older teen programming that they’re not quite ready to watch. This is only strengthening my desire to cut cable entirely. On the upside, it’s strengthened family bonding time, too, as I’d rather sit with Mira and let her read to me rather than endure Bubble Guppies.

We’ve been staying in pajamas until late in the day, too.

And having the kids around 24/7 has resulted in my being unable to get away from the germs that Mira likes to bring home. She’s had a cold since early this week, and now that we’ve been in such close contact for so long, I’m now getting her cold.

I love seeing the snow cover everything outside in a beautiful, sparkling blanket of white. But I’d be just as happy to see it gone if it meant no more snow days this school year. I want some “me-time” again – just a little – before I go bonkers.

I’m really looking forward to Monday, for two reasons. First, if Mother Nature has mercy on us, the kids will go back to school and we’ll have some sense of normalcy again. At least until they’re out of school on Wednesday for a professional development day.

And second, I’ll be seeing the orthopedic specialist my doctor recommended regarding my shoulder. Yep, it still hurts, although it’s not as bad as it had been, thank goodness. Certain movements are still painful, but if I’m sitting still, it doesn’t continuously ache. Unless there’s a storm coming in, and then my shoulder aches down into my arm. Hooray for a weather-predicting shoulder? I can think of far better superpowers I’d rather have. Hopefully this doctor will have some solutions, or at least a place to start to get rid of this shoulder pain.