Stocking Up For the Storm… And Not At The Grocery Store

Yes, we’re in the middle of another blizzard. At least it’s a long weekend, and hopefully, I won’t have to revisit the “when the doctor cancels clinic” theme again.

But, it’s a long weekend. And we’ve already had 77 inches of snow. Roads, parking lots, heck, even our little driveway have all been squeezed by encroaching massive frozen snow piles. My (leased) minivan is scarred from scraping up against glacial mounds as I try to maneuver in reverse onto our now one-way street. We’re already largely snowbound. So, I’ve been worrying about being trapped inside with the kids, again.

So, in the days leading up to this latest snow event, we’ve tried to stock up. I’m not talking about milk/ eggs/ bread; we’re all set, Hubby picked up the essentials early. Rather, we’ve been trying to spend time out of the house with the kids, as much as we can considering our work schedules, stocking up on experiences.

My Thursday off, Babyboy’s school had a delayed opening. What to do with a relatively short amount of time, on a weekday morning? I wasn’t sure, so I asked him.

“I want to go to the animal shelter, and then the coffee shop,” he stated. So, he came with me for my usual Thursday morning kitty care shift, and took great pride in brushing the longhaired long-term resident, Ginger.

Then, off to the coffee shop. Babyboy’s had some odd interests lately, and one of them is a just-short-of-an obsession with coffee shops. He seeks ads for coffee shops in magazines, clips coupons for coffee in the circulars; he’s even insisted that Hubby print out images of coffee for him. Our kitchen walls are currently decorated with Dunkin’ Donuts. We don’t know why. At any rate, he was elated to stop in at Starbuck’s for a hot cocoa. With a little extra time, we took a walk through the center of town, and watched the bulldozers clearing the snow.

Later that afternoon, when I picked Babygirl up from her school, I asked her if she’d like to go to the library. I haven’t ventured to the library with either of them since our last disastrous visit, the one with the explosive diarrhea and the temper tantrum. So I was  bit nervous. But Babygirl waltzed in and plopped herself down in the aisle, asking to be read to, and then “reading” book after book… she didn’t want to leave. Remembering the last time, when I struggled to carry her out under my arm as she kicked and screamed, I didn’t push it. So we got home late, and with a huge pile of books to carry us through these indoor days.

Today, knowing that the snow was to start this evening, I took them to the local Children’s Museum. We went with another mom and her son; it was a total winner of an outing. The kids were engaged and active all day, from the opening hour to the beginning of the snowfall.

Hubby tried to spend his free time with the kids this week similarly. And now, I won’t feel guilty at all when we spend the next 48 hours inside baking sweet carbs, reading and re-reading picture books, and watching endless Curious George and Disney movies…