Whiteout

Well, it's been quite a storm -- not Boston quality, not the biggest ever, but pretty darn big all the same. I'm interested to hear the totals tomorrow morning. So far they're saying we got about 15 inches. It's very snowy out there.

Not impossibly snowy, though. It was a well-behaved storm. And we have a new roof, as I may have mentioned fifty or sixty times before.

So, it snowed all weekend and was very cold. That meant that the twins stayed inside all weekend and were very loud. Rocket Boy did take Kid A for a walk to the grocery store on Saturday, after I decided we might run out of milk before Monday morning, when the milkman comes (I was right, we did), but Kid B spent the entire weekend indoors. I'm not sure he even stuck his nose out the door. I at least went out to get the paper, take a couple photographs, etc., but not Kid B.

In retrospect I think that was wimpy of us -- why didn't we go out and play in the snow? but anyway, we didn't. Just stayed indoors. All weekend. Well, it was cold. And it never stopped snowing.

I had a lot of schoolwork to do, of course, so that was my excuse. And I got a lot done on Saturday -- today, not so much. The twins were still pretty cheerful, playing imaginatively. When they were little I used to wish that they would play this way and they never did, but at age nearly-seven they sometimes do. Scooby Doo movies (we have one checked out from the Video Station) seem to set them off, probably because the plots are so similar. It's easy for them to create a Scooby Doo knock-off, if that makes sense. I try to stay out of their way when they've got this sort of game going, because if I walk in they give it up and ask me to play with them. Instead, I listen from a room or two away. The game involves a lot of urgency: "I'll stay here and charge my phone -- you go investigate!" "I've got to get gas first -- you stay here and look for clues!" etc., etc. It's very sweet.

Or at least it was for the first few hours. The problem was that I had a whole lot of grading to do, and their piping voices rang out across our little house. Normally when I need to have a grading weekend, Rocket Boy takes them out for a few hours -- maybe swimming, or on a drive somewhere. But that wasn't happening today, obviously. The Weather Service urged everyone to stay home if possible. The university even closed its libraries. Anyway, I don't like to work in libraries (Rocket Boy suggested that possibility). I like to grade in bed, with everything I need spread out around me, soft music playing in the background. Not joyous screeching.

So I tried and tried to work, and failed and failed to work. And then Rocket Boy had to go meet with a student he's tutoring. He met with her from 5 to 7 (it was supposed to be just 1 hour, but went long). He was bringing takeout from Noodles, so the twins and I waited and waited, getting hungrier and hungrier. We spent half an hour cleaning their room and then I read several chapters of a book to them. RB finally showed up around 7:30 with the food and we ate a late meal and put the boys to bed.

Anyway, it's now 10 pm and I didn't get my grading done. An hour ago I was feeling really terrible and desperate about that, and then it suddenly hit me: I'm the teacher. I don't have to get my grading done today. It would be nice if I did, but absolutely nothing will happen to me if I don't. Which I won't, because it's 10 pm already. I'll try to do some tomorrow morning before I go to school, and then I'll do some in the afternoon, and I'll do some the next day, and with any luck I can hand everything back on Wednesday. Which will be fine. And now I'm going to take my shower and get ready for bed. So there.