A late-night conversation between me and my brain
Me: I'm kind of worried about the baby's sleep patterns. Can you serve up some wisdom from my past experience in parenting?
Brain: Here are five things that happened to you in high school that were shameful! I will now commence playback in vivid detail.
Me: That hardly seems pertinent. I just wanted to remember what my first two children slept like at ten months.
Brain: How about something from the vault? Here's a shameful situation that you never even knew you remembered!
Me: This also has nothing to do with sleep.
Brain: Oh boy! You sure didn't stand up to that hairdresser in 1999! She totally permed your hair instead of straightened it.
Me: Not only is that memory completely unrelated to the situation at hand, but now I feel vaguely angry and embarrassed as well as sleep deprived.
Brain: You should cut yourself to let the feelings out.
Me: You're batshit crazy, you know that.
In related news Elijah is waking up every hour to nurse, which is something like eight times a night. I don't want to say that it feels like I'm being sexually assaulted, because that would mean I'm engaging instead of dismissing the crazy monster who lives inside of my brain just waiting to make such unsavory allusions. But it sure feels like something. I've started sleeping in a bra so that no one can accidentally touch my other nipple. This is not enough protection, so I ordered some spanx online in the hopes that this will shield the rest of my skin from tiny hands. If I start sleeping in spanx we may have reached peak sensory integration failure. On the other hand... WICKED HOT!
first snowy day
morning snow
We finally got some noticeable snow around here, and the boys were desperately eager to go out in it as soon as they could.
snow angel
Snow angels have been on Zion's mind lately; he clearly wasn't satisfied by his ice angel and took the first available opportunity to make the real thing happen. It's wonderful to see him finally really enjoying the snow; I guess the problem before was just not being three. This winter he's wholeheartedly in favor: after putting in a couple snow angels he crawled around the ground for the next half-hour being a dog and eating snow.
he gets excited too
The real dog ran considerably faster than puppy Zion—he also missed the snow overt the last month and a half. And Harvey climbed the ladder to the maple tree to eat the snow up there—maybe it tastes more rich and rare 15 feet above ground level. We also tried some flat-ground sledding, with me pulling the boys on the runner sled and flinging them forward. The snow was pretty sticky, but after we waxed the runners things ran well enough.
steamy warm
When we got as wet as we could get we went inside and I made an appropriate snowy-day lunch: grilled cheese, tomato soup, and pickles. And hot chocolate, of course; and this time the whipped cream worked.
Later I took Rascal for a walk, and on my way home I was ashamed to notice that ours was just about the only house on the street without at least one gigantic snowman. Never mind that the boys wanted to finish the board game they were playing with Mama, I had to defend our honor. They came out a little later, in time to help me just the tiniest bit, play with their friend from next door, and get in on the commemorative photo.
big snowman, little kids
Then inside again for supper; for desert we had maple syrup poured over a bowlful of snow. What more could we ask for?