1m2aSandbox

It feels ridiculous to type “March 4” followed by the words “Snow Day” in the middle of Texas.

Yet here we are.

A small ice storm descended Sunday afternoon making the roads undriveable. And yes, you can laugh at Texas drivers all you want, but I spent twelve years in New York and the drive home for me Sunday afternoon, which should have taken half an hour, took two hours. Mostly because it was a highway full of drivers going ten miles an hour, trying to navigate a solid sheet of ice. Every so often I’d slide gently into the lane next to me, trying not to hit my brakes or cause a car near me to freak out. I passed a few cars that had clearly spun out, and one not-great accident. I arrived home safely, but it was luck as much as skill that got me there.

Cora’s been in a rotten, terrible, no-good, horrible mood.

Since, like, CHRISTMAS.

Over the past few weeks we’ve seen our sweet, happy girl turn into a weepy, crabby, snappy, angry little brat. Over, and over, and over again.

Cora will leave school and be monosyllabic. She won’t want to talk, walk sullenly home, and head straight for her candy jar. Then she’ll ask for something ridiculous, like a trip to the Build-A-Bear store, and when I say no she’ll storm upstairs and cry and sulk and yell at me when I darken her door for a good HOUR. Then she’ll pull through it, then be cuddly and sidling up to me and wanting lots of love.

Since moving to Texas six years ago, I’ve been very fortunate to find a small group of neighborhood friends to go through parenthood with me. In our neighborhood we have seven other families with children almost exactly Maddie and Cora’s ages; moms who tolerate my crunchiness and willingly watch my kids when I have a babysitting crisis; and dads who like to play rock music and video games as much as Brian does. This core group is very dear to me: the children are rock solid besties with my kids, and will never leave each other out, and I know my gal pals ALWAYS have my back.

Yes, we are all super close. And yet my children know they are not EVER allowed to get into a car with one of those dads unless there’s someone else in the car, too.

As the weather warms up, this family spends as much time as we possibly can out-of-doors. We’ll go for bike rides; we’ll play in the park – for HOURS; we’ll take books, snacks, and a blanket to our neighborhood pond and lie on the grass for hours reading books and feeding the ducks – really, we’ll do anything to simply hang out in the great outdoors.

With all this time spent outside comes a lot of great things – fresh air, vitamin D, lots of exercise, seeing our neighbors – and one bad thing: the ice cream truck. I swear, that guy waits until we leave the house, hiding around the corner, then fires up his tinkly little music and starts stalking us. EVERY SINGLE TIME we are outdoors we hear his music, and Cora always turns to me and says, “Mommy, PLEASE may we get an ice cream? PLEASE? Just this once?”

EVERY SINGLE TIME I have to say no to the kids – and not just because I want to. But I never bring money with me on our outings; why would I need to? So every single time, I promise Cora we’ll get ice cream the next time Mommy has money when the Ice Cream Guy is around.

Yesterday was that day.

Is there anything at all more emotional than a room filled with parents watching an elementary school talent show?

I swear, the sweetness just about killed me last night at our family talent show: little legs hanging from the piano bench, head earnestly bent over the keyboard; a father and son doing a comedy act, the boy staring adoringly the whole time at his father; children all night long swallowing their fears and clutching their violins and guitars and microphones as they mounted the steps and stood, trembling, in front of EVERYONE.