snow blows

Yes, it was cute on December 26th when the kids experienced their first real snow day in Charlotte. And it was nice to be able to leave work early yesterday afternoon as the city slowly shut down and declared a quasi-state-of-emergency on itself (my years living in the northeast make me to snicker at the way southerners get in a tizzy over a couple flakes of snow). But this morning the fun was over. Welcome to day 1.5 of every parent's nightmare: the snow day.

 

These pictures that I snapped of my living room this afternoon prove several things--including the fact that I do have toys for the kids--but number one is that snow days are total disasters. The kids are confused; the parents are confused; if we had a dog it would have been confused....

Catcher couldn't understand why I got him dressed and took him to school this morning [delayed] and then wouldn't let him go inside when we got there (answer: somewhere between 7:00am and 10:00am the 3-hour delay turned into a closing and no one told me!). I was confused because I was supposed to be at work at 11:00am (wasn't going to happen now that school was closed) and got a text at 11:23am saying work was closed. Alex was confused because he was supposed to be on a flight to NYC departing Charlotte at 2:35pm. He had a colleague who happened to be stuck at the airport updating him periodically with information like "all flights to LaGuardia are cancelled today" then "your flight has been delayed until 5:00pm" then "the 1:15 flight is cancelled, but yours is still on." 

Needless to say, all this confusion led to chaos in a tiny house. Alex was trying to work and keep Catcher occupied while I was trying to sooth Scout and catch up on some of my "bookkeeping." There was no food in the house and only a half-bottle of wine. The day dragged on--even Oprah was cancelled for "continuous coverage of the local storm," and I felt a hint of cabin fever. The only sound thing that came from our little experiment today was the realization that if I was a stay-at-home mom and Alex had his current job, which requires him to work from home when he's not on the road, we would probably hate each other. And the kids would drive us insane (that's a given).

But at least at the end of the day, we can put the kids to bed and have the house back to normal. Now where's my wine...and what's tomorrow's forecast?