Snow Way Jose!

This past week was not been my favorite week staying home with my toddler boys. It was a week of ups and downs…well, mostly downs. But it’s not how low the downs were, so much as it was about the general turbulence of navigating between the two.
It started Monday with the excitement of the alleged “Severe Winter Storm” alert. We had a 70% chance of snow for Tuesday! In what seemed to be an unprecedented event, the city of Austin and surrounding areas preemptively decided at 6:00 Monday that Tuesday was not happening. They shut down schools, businesses. Oh the overpasses! Oh the sleet! Oh the black ice! But then the snow?! One forecast even called for 1-2 inches and this is a BIG deal in our neck of the woods. Our boys have barely any experience with snow so we were all getting excited. My husband didn’t have to go to work! My three year old didn’t have to go to school!
Ohhhh but wait. My three year old did not have to go to school. And my husband “got to” work from home in our modestly sized home where there’s truly no escaping our boys’ and their hot, rough, shoving, screaming…then maniacally laughing…then bickering…then reading together sweetly…then throwing metal toys at one another’s faces…MESS. They’re a mess, guys.
Additionally, we were already about three days into our boys passing a low grade fever back and forth. Very minimal symptoms but it meant we couldn’t to any of our regular places that include childcare. We had no escape, no breaks from one another. I was thinking No way, Jose. No way can I remain sane…
But back to the weather that would calm and cover us in the purity of white snow. I’m sure it didn’t help that I was literally checking my weather app at least three times an hour. The radar looked real patchy so we were going to need to put on approximately 73 articles of clothing between the four of us pretty dang quick if we were going to catch any of it. Only the snow never came.
Wednesday we were fever free, which means we got to go to the recreation center. The boys could go into childcare and I could work out. Hooray! It was awesome right up until the point that I went back to get them and one of the workers was holding my two-year-old in a blanket.
“We were just about to call you. He has a fever.” Of course he did. This meant another 24 hour minimum of holing up in the house again. It meant missing my Bible study group for the second week in a row, due to fevers.
But then came Friday morning. Lo and behold, we were fever free again! Hooray again! This meant we all got to attend our MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) group and the boys got to play with their friends in childcare! The sun was finally shining again and I was overjoyed to end the week on a high note. I was very much looking forward to the weekend and grateful for healthy boys.
We returned home, ate lunch and I put them down for naps. I exhaled. I started to make myself a cup of coffee. Then the tip of my brand new long sleeve shirt caught fire on the burner. Thankfully I wasn’t hurt and the smoke detector did not go off during naps. And honestly, I wasn’t really phased. At this point it was kind of like I damn near caught myself on fire? That seems about right in step with the rhythm of the week.
All that being said, it’s Saturday now. Last night I slept a solid NINE hours. It’s a spectacular, beautiful day here in my little Texas town. And I am blissfully blessed to be out of the house all by myself. So take that, false snow alert, fevers, and flammable fabrics! We survived you all!