The Parents are One Step Behind

From Mike:

Thursday morning at school drop-off, I was suiting Margaux up in her

raincoat in the door of the minivan. (It was pouring this AM.) And

she has a matching umbrella that she loves, too. When I gave her the

umbrella and got my umbrella, she said, "Put it over your head, like a

shell, Daddy!" I asked, "What animal has a shell?" thinking she'd of

course say turtle. She answered: "Limpet." So I said, "Well, turtles

have shells." She looked at me and said: "snails." So, yeah,

obviously her dad has no idea what animals have shells.

I didn't even remember that there *was* something called a limpet.

But according to Wikipedia it's "a common name for numerous different

kinds of saltwater and freshwater snails."

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limpet)

From Cindy:

Last night Margaux kept pulling the covers off her bed as fast as I put them on. It was late, and I wasn't amused. I finally said, "Margaux, don't do that again!" She burst into tears and started sobbing. When she finally calmed down a bit, I said, "Margaux, when Mommy says no, you don't have to get so upset. Just stop whatever it is you are doing." She took a few seconds and looked at me with her big, wet, brown eyes and said, "But, it would be so much more fun if you would just say Yes."

Blizzard v2.0 - Part I

Sheesh...enough already. We got a load of snow dumped on us again Tuesday night. I'm guessing around 6-8". Two college kids rang the doorbell Thursday around noon, offering to shovel the driveway for $20. I instinctively said no (I sort of knee-jerk say no to anyone who comes to the door), then about half an hour later realized what I had done and ran outside to find them. Alas, they were long gone, and I had to shovel the *&%*!* myself. Stupid stupid stupid.

[UPDATE - Thurs, 10-Feb-2011: The temp plunged to well below zero here last night. Poor Cindy had to haul herself up to school to educate the ignorant in weather that was -15 degrees...yes, that's NEGATIVE FIFTEEN! It had warmed up some by the time I got out (around 1:00pm); it was up to 20 above.]

This is what the front yard looks like (you can see the outline of the sidewalk).



I had to get out with the shovel to clear a path so Ferg could go do his business ("In the land where the Schnauzer's go / Don't you eat that yellow snow")



Cindy sat inside to read the paper while Margaux watched Curious George.

Blizzard of '11, part II

While mommy supervised from the porch, Margaux worked hard on her excavation project.

















She was going to build an igloo. More of a conceptual igloo than an actual one. She piled up some snow and said "look, an igloo!"















Then she made some snow angels.
















Dad helped out.


















After a long day of making snow angels, there's nothing better than sitting down to rest...


















...and having a snow snack.

















Sometimes, snow just makes you thoughtful.

Blizzard of '11

Well, it's astonishingly cold today here in Stillwater. Currently 15 degrees, dropping to *negative* 2 tonight. Egads! It snowed from late Monday night until early Tuesday afternoon. We've been huddled inside, because it was too windy and cold to let Margaux play outside. Maybe tomorrow. Margaux didn't seem to mind staying inside too much. In fact, while outside it looked like this:















...she decided to not only snuggle up *on* the couch; she actually snuggled up *inside* the couch, and spent quite a bit of time playing and watching Seasame Street on the DVR.















This is a before and after pic of the back yard. The top of the picture was taken around 9:00pm Monday. The bottom one was about 12 hours later.