Schlink Update: VA Burb Living

Earlier this morning I read an email my sweet sister Nettie sent. She was inquiring about our general well being seeing as how DC-NOVA-MD shut down yesterday due to Winter Storm Janice (how long have the weather-folk been naming storms, by the way?) It was reassuring to know my family back in CO continue to think of us, let alone think well of us after 3 weeks of intense, toddler and Beasty filled visitations. Perhaps we are a pretty cool family then.

At any rate Nettie, we are coming along just fine, though at a quicker pace than I anticipated. The children started school less than two weeks ago and despite initial days of tears and clinginess, I am doing much better now. I still throw fits every now and then, but Margo and Deets handle my outbursts with grace and understanding. I'm told Margo eats the most food out of anyone in the toddler group, and particularly loves Nilla wafers. Deets sings all the time and loves to build pretend guns, which is a huge surprise considering he used go to great lengths to keep anyone from carrying a tune, and Montessori school doesn't exactly support that sort of play. Overall I think he is very happy with his surroundings.

My time at home has been a menagerie of writing, studying, doing yoga and reacquainting myself with DC. It's not exciting but Portuguese for me starts next month and I suspect I will yearn for more down time very soon. Mark goes to school, rules the grill and has kept our social calendar packed with friends and beer drinking. With hopes of zoning the kids out yesterday, we invited our friends over for popcorn and a movie. Instead, it was the dads who were enchanted by the Disney movie Tangled.  The men were swept away by Flynn Rider and his rowdy bar crew while the children raged around the apartment, rockin' out to their own world of imagination. At the end of the day, Falls Church collected about 6" of snow and witch's tit cold temperatures.

Coming back to a two hour delayed reality this morning, I was faced with getting my children to school without freezing off any major body parts. This is where I have a newfound appreciation for my mom who took us skiing growing up: long underwear, snow pants, boots, jackets, hats, gloves... UGH. How she managed to get us dressed, geared up and ready for the day in any timely manner is beyond me. It took me a full thirty minutes to get everyone into place and squashed into the stroller with extra blankets for the 1 mile walk to school. By the time I finished, my tomato face glistened with sweat and snot which immediately froze once I stepped outside. The only one happy about any of this was Jim.

Our morning pile of wears. Mark is lucky.
He only had to dress himself. But what a good job he did!

Undeterred, I shoved our stroller through inches of untouched, un-shoveled snow. Deets laughed with each jarring bounce; the Beast merely silent because she no longer had a voice nor will to protest her outing. I slid along with Jim dragging us both up and down the hills. Thirty minutes later, we arrived at school and I began to reverse the process. Making an effort to undress them quickly, I instead clogged up the school's hallway. Annoyed parents tried to step around my dog crowding the entrance, the snow-chunked stroller, and my messenger bag that spewed out lunch boxes, shoes, pants, boots, you name it. It humored no one. Except maybe myself, but that was because the harder I tried to undress them efficiently, the more I floundered in my already sweaty, now itchy long johns.

Of course as all fun things come to an end, I walked back out into the bright blue skies and lung searing cold. In an instant could feel the wind seep under the layers and chill my nether regions. Jim and I dashed for home. My normally snow-loving dog only made it halfway home when he flat out refused to walk any further. Civil disobedience at its best, Jim laid down on the snow unable to lift another paw. Not sure of what else to do, I bent over to pick up my 60 pound dog and stuck him in the stroller. As if I ordered the weather forecast, he just stared at me with his "Are you joking?! Thanks for nothing" look. Jim realized though that he had two options as I began to move: 1. get jacked around in a stroller, or 2. walk home as intended. I'm not sure if he gave me the finger on the way but he did jump down and kept his end of the deal.

After coughing up what feels like a black lung and warming up my now hive riddled body (cold weather hives are the weirdest thing I tell you! I'm emailing you a pic shortly) I thought I might take the time to tell you Dear Nettie, that while we are all doing well, we all love and miss the snot out of both of you.

Whosagoodboy?
Jim, unimpressed.