It seems like a normal winter day, but it's snot.
It snowed in Oklahoma. Do you know what that means? DISASTER! TERROR! What will we do? It's all over the roads! And the grass! And our cars! And the wind, it's so cold! Will we die if we step outside? Has this ever happened anywhere else in the world? And if so, how did they handle it? Surely by closing down all the schools. Because there's NO WAY the school bus drivers could drive on ONE. INCH. OF. SNOW. No way.
The schools here build in "snow days" for just such emergencies (you know, days when the snow leaves a dusty layer on the road - a layer that is obviously so dangerous that the streets aren't even salted and the traffic is only lightened by the absent school buses). Well, how convenient. We have built-in snow days, and it snowed today. Schools are closed! It's a big party! Oh - except for the parents, who are now plunged into the depths of hell. Message from the schools: "Yeah. Good luck with that."
I probably wouldn't be so bitchy and sarcastic if:
1.) I had gotten any sleep last night.
2.) I didn't have 300 pounds per square inch of sinus pressure force bearing down on the left side of my swollen, throbbing face.
John convinced me to take NyQuil last night, which means I didn't hear the first three times Bryce woke up screaming because his hyper-sensitive, psychic brain noticed his night light "blink" during power surges at 2:00 a.m. from snow on the wires. I did, however, hear Quinn wake up screaming as a result of Bryce's screaming. Then I fell back to sleep, and woke up 10 minutes later when another power surge pushed Bryce over the edge. He was at the top of the stairs, furiously turning on all the lights in the house (the surges only lasted a few seconds), holding his tattered blue blanket, Noir, and yelling like he was in an argument with a sibling, "stop it, nightlight! Stop blinking! I told you if you do that again, I'm going downstairs!" I tried to hush him and get him back to his room, but he refused to move off the top stair, and then he started with the wailing: "But!! But! Daaaaahaaaaad said if the nightlight blinked agai-ai-ai-hai-ain, I could come downstaaaaaairs and sleep in YOUR behhehehheed!" Oh he did, did he?? But where is dad now? In my drugged and half-asleep state, I walked Bryce down the stairs and into our bedroom, where John was wishing, hoping beyond hope that I wasn't going to make him move for a fourth time. "Did you tell Bryce he could sleep in our bed if the nightlight went out again??!" He said (in a muffled voice from under the covers), "I said if the lights went out and stayed out. Go back to bed, Bryce." Uh, dude? The kid's four. He doesn't really know what power surges are, and I don't think his brain can QUITE wrap itself around the concept of qualifiers like, "if it goes out and stays out" vs. "if it goes out."
So, for the first time in his entire life, Bryce slept in our bed with us. Well, he was IN our bed with us. There wasn't much sleeping - for me, anyway. First he needed a drink of water. Then he lost his lamb (it was right by his head), then I had to threaten to send him back up to the scary flashing nightlight if he didn't stop kicking me in the stomach. By the time I woke up to Quinn screaming "DAAAAAAADDY! COME HEEEEEEEERE!!" at the top of his lungs at 6:00 this morning, only my pinky toenail was still actually on the bed and under the covers. The rest of me was left in a delirious shivering mass teetering on the mattress seam. By then my cold had turned into a sinus infection, so the entire left side of my head was throbbing, and every time Quinn shrieked over the monitor, it felt like someone was taking an icepick to my ear. Bryce was fast asleep, arms and legs sprawled out like he was sleeping alone on a fluffy California King, as opposed to a 20-year-old lumpy, hand-me-down Queen-sized mattress next to his twitching, sleep-deprived, sinus-packed mother.
If we reacted to daily life the way the Oklahoma school systems react to weather, I'd be planning my funeral right now: "A SINUS INFECTION?! GOOD GOD! THERE'S BACTERIA INSIDE MY BODY? We better shut this thing down RIGHT NOW, PEOPLE!"
The schools here build in "snow days" for just such emergencies (you know, days when the snow leaves a dusty layer on the road - a layer that is obviously so dangerous that the streets aren't even salted and the traffic is only lightened by the absent school buses). Well, how convenient. We have built-in snow days, and it snowed today. Schools are closed! It's a big party! Oh - except for the parents, who are now plunged into the depths of hell. Message from the schools: "Yeah. Good luck with that."
I probably wouldn't be so bitchy and sarcastic if:
1.) I had gotten any sleep last night.
2.) I didn't have 300 pounds per square inch of sinus pressure force bearing down on the left side of my swollen, throbbing face.
John convinced me to take NyQuil last night, which means I didn't hear the first three times Bryce woke up screaming because his hyper-sensitive, psychic brain noticed his night light "blink" during power surges at 2:00 a.m. from snow on the wires. I did, however, hear Quinn wake up screaming as a result of Bryce's screaming. Then I fell back to sleep, and woke up 10 minutes later when another power surge pushed Bryce over the edge. He was at the top of the stairs, furiously turning on all the lights in the house (the surges only lasted a few seconds), holding his tattered blue blanket, Noir, and yelling like he was in an argument with a sibling, "stop it, nightlight! Stop blinking! I told you if you do that again, I'm going downstairs!" I tried to hush him and get him back to his room, but he refused to move off the top stair, and then he started with the wailing: "But!! But! Daaaaahaaaaad said if the nightlight blinked agai-ai-ai-hai-ain, I could come downstaaaaaairs and sleep in YOUR behhehehheed!" Oh he did, did he?? But where is dad now? In my drugged and half-asleep state, I walked Bryce down the stairs and into our bedroom, where John was wishing, hoping beyond hope that I wasn't going to make him move for a fourth time. "Did you tell Bryce he could sleep in our bed if the nightlight went out again??!" He said (in a muffled voice from under the covers), "I said if the lights went out and stayed out. Go back to bed, Bryce." Uh, dude? The kid's four. He doesn't really know what power surges are, and I don't think his brain can QUITE wrap itself around the concept of qualifiers like, "if it goes out and stays out" vs. "if it goes out."
So, for the first time in his entire life, Bryce slept in our bed with us. Well, he was IN our bed with us. There wasn't much sleeping - for me, anyway. First he needed a drink of water. Then he lost his lamb (it was right by his head), then I had to threaten to send him back up to the scary flashing nightlight if he didn't stop kicking me in the stomach. By the time I woke up to Quinn screaming "DAAAAAAADDY! COME HEEEEEEEERE!!" at the top of his lungs at 6:00 this morning, only my pinky toenail was still actually on the bed and under the covers. The rest of me was left in a delirious shivering mass teetering on the mattress seam. By then my cold had turned into a sinus infection, so the entire left side of my head was throbbing, and every time Quinn shrieked over the monitor, it felt like someone was taking an icepick to my ear. Bryce was fast asleep, arms and legs sprawled out like he was sleeping alone on a fluffy California King, as opposed to a 20-year-old lumpy, hand-me-down Queen-sized mattress next to his twitching, sleep-deprived, sinus-packed mother.
If we reacted to daily life the way the Oklahoma school systems react to weather, I'd be planning my funeral right now: "A SINUS INFECTION?! GOOD GOD! THERE'S BACTERIA INSIDE MY BODY? We better shut this thing down RIGHT NOW, PEOPLE!"
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