“It’s All Coming Back to Me Now”

 

Me and the babies walking to get the boys from the bus stop on our last non-snowy, nice day. 

It has been a strange winter everywhere this year, right?  No snow for anyone!  Except those poor people in Alaska with 15 feet or something.  Crazy.  It was so strange that I did something that I still can’t even believe that I did.  The end of Josh’s schooling is finally in sight, by that I mean 2 1/2 years away still, but that is nothing compared to the 8 years we’ve been at it, and we were discussing residency places after he graduates.  For the first time in the 5 winters we have been here I said, “I don’t think I’d mind staying here if we matched here.”  What?!  Every winter previous to this I would say something more to the effect of, “I want out! Send me somewhere warmer where I don’t have to bundle my kids up EVERY day in full snow gear to go to school!” 

But this year was special…warmer, no snow.  We have snow now, and I want to report that my previous feelings came rushing back as I took my first step over the mound of discarded snow pants, wet boots, hats, gloves, coats, and neck gators, just to have my freshly socked foot land right in a slush puddle in the middle of my floor.  I want out!  or at least I want a mudroom to contain all of the yuck.  It really is winter now.  My car is all salty.  My socks are always a little wet, and then when I take those off because, brrr! wet socks make for cold toes, my bare feet land squarely on the bottoms of my cold wet pants which can’t help but soak up the slush as I try to push my grocery cart through a hardly plowed parking lot, rendering the wheels on that thing completely useless.  It might as well be on 2x4’s because it’s through pure muscle power that this mama bear hurries us into the store to protect my cubs from the cold.  So winter, now that you’re here, please don’t stay too long, I really don’t like you, not hardly at all.