Notes to People In Warmer Climates

First of all, let's get this out of the way - YES, I chose to live here and no, I'm not leaving any time soon. So you can just go ahead and NOT write that in the comments, okay? Okay then...

To set the stage: It is currently 2 degrees, with a wind chill of negative 8. Yesterday's high temperature was 2 degrees below zero. I can't find the wind chill yesterday, but the winds were gusting to 27 miles per hour, so I'd say it was significant.

So walking in to work today I was thinking about all the things that hearty Minnesotans get to experience that the rest of you don't, so I thought I'd share the love...

1. We plug our cars in. Okay, so I have never actually done this, until last night. But you can literally plug your car into a normal outlet with a normal extension cord. I was pretty sure that me and the cord were gonna drive to work this morning together, but Chuck kindly unplugged it before I left. Smart guy.

2. Your nose hairs freeze and stick together. It's odd and you find yourself making weird faces trying to unstick them. (You know you're making the faces now too, admit it.)

3. (LAURA T - If you're reading, skip this one. It's about eyes.) That membrane that covers your eyeball? That thing kinda freezes too. Weirder than the nose hair one, and I think that must be what the start of cataracts feels like.

4. Christi and Beth can attest to this - your jeans freeze. You get out of your car wearing jeans and after a short walk they have turned into cardboard pants.

5. It gets so cold that it's physically impossible for it to snow. When the snow falls, we consider that a warm-up.

6. Your teeth actually get cold. In your mouth. It's like eating ice cream only suckier and without the calories.

7. If your gym bag sits in your car all day while you're at work, your workout clothes get ridiculously cold and you start to see all means of creativity in the locker room. Some people simply put the cold clothes on, do the full-body shiver and then hop up and down for awhile cursing under their breath. Some throw their clothes, or entire bag, in the sauna for a few minutes. Today I found myself using the hair dryer on my gym shorts. I looked up and saw a few people staring, but I think they were secretly wishing they had thought of it first. 

8. Your freezer space increases 118-fold. Is that a thing? All winter you can put your hotdishes and lefsas in the garage and they stay nice and frigid.

9. Related to number 8 - you can NOT keep beer in the garage because it will freeze and explode. 

10. Schools close, sometimes, because the diesel fuel the buses use can "gel-up." Chuck taught me that one. I have no idea what it means. Email him.

King Jack

If you follow me on Facebook, you already know this, but I'll elaborate here. Jack won four awards in school in the last three days. This is significant for a lot of reasons, but mainly because he has worked so hard at it. I think some people (even readers here, I'd guess) have kids for whom behavior has never been a problem. It's one of those "You Can't Know What It's Like Until You're There" things, to be a parent of a kid who really struggles in that area.

He's had his eye on the Classroom VIP since he stepped foot at Seven Hills (his new school). It's the highest honor they bestow upon the students - and every class does it every week of school. Jack has ebbed and flowed with his behavior in the classroom and has not received the award.

In gym class they give a VIP as well, and Jack won that earlier in the year. Then behavior stuff got hard again and he didn't get any more. We work REALLY hard with him on all of this - I won't go into it all here, but trust me that the caps-lock on "really" was intentional and well-earned. So we took a deep breath and kept at it. He kept mentioning the classroom VIP, even saying the other week that he thought he was going to get it. I knew he wasn't, because I was having daily email conversations with his teacher about his behavior. It broke my heart and Jack got to learn the words "discouraged" and "disappointed" and the difference between the two.

He had a good day on Friday, and Monday, and again Tuesday, and the hopes started going up (on both of our parts, I'm not gonna lie) that this might be the week. On Wednesday he got the gym VIP again, and a Great Work ticket in math class. That's another way they reward good behavior.

I picked him up Friday and we were walking down the hallway and he goes "so...I got the VIP."

I literally dropped my bag on the ground and said "SHUT. UP." (I'm a great role model.) I was stunned. He was beaming.

I tried to tackle him but he's too strong for me so I had to settle for a really big bear hug. He also got another Great Work ticket. Four awards in three days - all of them behavior-related. Amazing.

Missing

We were playing that game at dinner where you draw a card and it has a question on it and you ask the question to the family and everyone gets to answer. We had done a couple of them and then we drew one that said "Who do you miss?" We each answered and then it was Chuck's turn. I said "Daddy, who do YOU miss?" And Ryker quietly goes "please say me."

Time Off for Good Behavior

Camp Grandmommy - the Winter Edition. Chuck and I left the kids with her in StL last Thursday and headed back up to Minnesota. We bought (well, leased) a car, cleaned the bathrooms and kitchen and living room and entryway, scanned hundreds of our documents into the computer and then shredded the paper-trail, folded loads of laundry, slept a lot, saw movies (the Hobbit for Chuck and Les Mis for me), hung out with friends, and had a Harry Potter movie-marathon.

The bulk of my time, though, was spent in the kids' bedrooms.

TERRIBLE.

I had this stance for awhile that they are big enough to clean their own rooms and that if I helped them, it was doing them a disservice. The last 48 hours, I've paid dearly for that decision.

The upside to filling three bags of trash and two bags of recycling is that you get another view of your kids. For instance, Ryker really, really loves his brother - he saves tiny pieces of paper that Jack gives him. He also is a hoarder of cups, writing implements, and Chapstick. Jackson likes to roll up a bunch of pieces of paper and then tape them together, and he is sentimental. He has kept all kinds of work from the last two years of schooling, awards, positive notes home from teachers, stories he's written and things he and I have drawn. I'd say that he only has them because he doesn't throw ANYTHING away, but they were in remarkably pristine condition, and sometimes stapled together into collections.

The kids return tomorrow. We'll have to stop watching movies so loudly, the new car will be introduced to Fruit Snacks and kid-sized footprints, the dust bunnies will roll once more. But I want to hug my babies, so I'll allow it. =)