Not a Smile, Not a Frown, Just Quite the Awesomely Strange Expression

Look What I Found, Mommy!

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

SNOW!

Here are the pictures I promised my family I'd upload. It is a rare thing to get snow in our area. Rest assured, it is supposed to be in the 70s today and I will indeed be wearing my flip-flops!

Hugs for the sad little snowman.

We were completely ill prepared for snow play. Those gloves are mine and VERY large on Claire.

She was THRILLED that snow could be formed into her favorite toy, a ball. Here she is throwing one at the fence.

And now throwing one at Mommy.

Hmmmm . . . . think she's cold? Look at those poor red hands!

Pretty excited.

Sarah just wants to go back inside so she can crawl some more.

IT'S SNOWING!!!!! And your point is??

UPDATE: Apparently? The thrill of snow for a little one is all in the accumulation. Once the snow started to pile up and Claire could actually make snow balls, snow men and such, she was thrilled.

As Michael says, until it accumulates, it's just slow rain.

Original post below:

When we moved south, I knew that I would be in weather heaven most of the year. Granted, living in a tropical region means I have to suffer through 3 miserable months of unbearable heat every summer, but the remaining 9 months are a pretty good deal. Moderate temperatures, flip flops even in December. That is my kind of weather.

Don't get me wrong. I do like the occasional cold blast. Mix in some snow and that is even better. But I love living in an area where the cold blast is short lived and we quickly get back to the moderate temps that accommodate park going and other various outdoor activities. One thing I dislike about our weather is that my children won't likely have the fun of waking to snowy streets and school closings. Before I had Claire and was still teaching, I was shocked to find out that the majority of my 4th grade students had only seen snow on TV. Never in person. CRAZY!

Well today, we are enjoying one of those fun cold blasts. We are expecting snow accumulation. That's right folks, I said ACCUMULATION. That NEVER happens here. And boy do we have snow. Not the tiny baby flakes that you can only see against the backdrop of a tree or house. I'm talking the monster huge mega flakes that you are sure will hit the ground with a resounding thud.

So when the flakes started falling today, I was thrilled and couldn't wait to show Claire. Our conversation went something like this:

Mommy: "Claire!!! It's SNOWING outside!!! Come and see!" (scoops Claire up to allow for a better viewing angle through our glass door.)

Claire: "Snow?" (Runs to me. Happy for any excuse to be held by Mommy.)

Mommy: (pointing outside) "LOOK!! Isn't it PRETTY? It's SNOW!!!"

Claire: (Looks outside and then at me. Her expression practically blank.) "I'm hungry. I want to eat a bar please."

Sigh. I guess I never thought about the fact that she is too young for snow to be a novel thing. She has no clue that this is rare for us. She isn't old enough for the mere sight of snow to give her an extra jolt of the Christmas spirit.

I was trying to figure out whether or not to take her to pre-school today. I don't want to be out in the weather if the streets are bad, but she loves school and would actually be devastated if she were forced to stay home because of this nuisance called . . . . snow was it?

So now I sit here enjoying the snow on my own. Claire is at school and Sarah is napping. I think I'll go grab a cup of hot chocolate and sit under a blanket while gazing out the window. I need to enjoy it while it lasts. I am sure I'll be back in flip flops by Monday.

Mind Readers

Those of you who have subscribed to my mental blog are completely up to date on my life right now because I have been a mental-blog-writing-fool as of late. I just need to take all those blogs from my mind and put them on the computer.

Now if I could only find the time. I have one more project to put to rest (hopefully by tomorrow) and then I'll be back with a full (and possibly snarky) update.

Word #11

So I am in search of a new pediatrician. Well, actually, no I'm not. I haven't officially started "search mode". Instead, I find myself in a perpetual "complain-about-current-pediatrician-a-ton-and-say-I-need-a-new-one" mode.

The problem/blessing is that I tend to have very healthy kids. So I RARELY need to take them to the doctor. I am very grateful for this and would take it any day over having a baby who needed to go to the doctor all the time. But what it does is make doctor shopping more difficult. How do you try out a new doctor when you don't need to go see one?

So why a new doctor? Glad you asked.

We started going to our current pediatrician because his philosophies on raising children were very similar to mine.

For example, if your child won't eat what you cooked for dinner, they can go without. You offered food, they refused it. Not your fault. Mommy is not a short-order cook and your child will not starve to death before breakfast time.

I know that may seem harsh to some of you, but it's just the way we roll around here. I really liked that my pediatrician and I agreed on things like meals, bed times, potty training, etc.

The problem is that he is so old and set in his ways that I can never really tell if he is giving an accurate assessment of our situation, or if he is just rattling off one of his many canned speeches about children. Usually? It's the latter.

I've experienced it enough times to know that any question I have will be answered with a canned speech. That might be bad enough on its own, but this canned speech always begins mid-way through my question. I am lucky to get to word #11 before the speech commences. In anticipation of this, I now pre-plan my questions. I script them out very carefully so that the most pertinent information spills out of my mouth first. Do you know how hard it is to describe a child's issue in 11 words? Virtually impossible. So I end up feeling like a mom who is overly concerned about silly things, when the truth is that the doctor doesn't really know what my concern is anyway.

When you get to the point that you would rather look up your medical questions online than consult your pediatrician, you know you have an issue. So, let the hunt begin. I want to find someone before Sarah's 1 year check-up so if you live in my area and have a suggestion, I am more than ready to hear it!!!

Who's Your Daddy?

So several posts back I told you all about Sarah's serious nature. Remember? How she makes you work for EVERY smile or grin? Yeah, well what I neglected to mention was that this goes for anyone BUT her Daddy. He is the sole exception. He merely has to walk in the door and Sarah is falling apart with smiles and giggles. All this while I am dancing around, blowing raspberries and crossing my eyes to get a small smirk. Here is the proof:






After all this hilarity, I was sure I could get a cute smiley pic too. I go up to Sarah, call her name and make a funny face. To which she does this:



Sigh.

Truth? She has gotten a lot more smiley in these past few months. I now get plenty of smiles and giggles to warm my heart throughout the day. I guess she is loosening up in her old age. But there is still nothing that compares to her reaction to seeing Daddy.

It does my heart good to see what a wonderful relationship is developing between my girls and their Daddy. He is so amazing with both of them. It makes me so proud! They are lucky girls indeed.

And I think I am pretty lucky too!