The Entertainer

Yesterday we had a snow day. The girls' school was closed, the Hoos' office was closed, and Mama used her discretion to work from home.

Alas, the Hoos has some significant projects and looming deadlines, so he spent most of the day locked up in our office. I spent my day being a trampoline, a coach, a chef, an inventor, a workhorse, a referee, a housekeeper, and an editor (I have a job too!).

I have determined that it is actually worse to have your spouse work from home when everyone is there. Because you think you can depend on them for help, when in reality, they are like a ghost and you are better off being ignorant of their existence. This is no slight to the Hoos. I knew he had work. And "working from home" is supposed to mean just that. At least for one of us.

By 11:15 I had not showered, but I had walked on the treadmill with my daughters (very slowly), done two loads of laundry, constructed snowmen in the basement out of imported snow, decorated the basement with chalk, made a vat of vegetable soup and a pan of chocolate cookie bars and re-ghost-wrote a column authored by my Vice President. Too bad the day was less than half over.

I showered around 2 to avoid listening to AK cry instead of nap. Fortunately she was asleep by the time I got out. I then spent the next two hours trying to figure out how to play Tinkerbell/Pixie Hollow on the Internet with LP. We still don't know what we are doing, but her custom-designed fairy is very cute and has a cool name (Chipmunk Orangesage).

Finally we decided to face the snow. LP and I suited up and I grabbed a shovel. After clearing the driveway (with some help from our neighbor and his snow blower) and walkways, it was time for LP and me to play. We built a snowman and made snow angels and in general just enjoyed the snow.

At the point that LP wanted to go in, AK was awake and wanting to come out. The Hoos brought her out along with our sled. Which made LP want to come out again. While I pulled AK around the lawn on the sled (trudging through a foot of snow is a good workout!) the Hoos and LP suited up. And, as usual, right as LP and the Hoos were exiting the house, AK removed her gloves and insisted on going in. The Hoos and LP built a humongous snowman and had a great time too. A highlight was watching LP try to pull the Hoos on the sled and tumble heels over head.

All in all, we survived. We had a nice day with limited TV time. I didn't have to pull out any of the store-bought special projects I have hidden around the house in case of emergency, and I love my family. Oh, and we determined that we have awesome neighbors. Really generous people who just decided to come and shovel/snow blow our driveway because they didn't think we were home. We were home, just lazy.