hibernate

so with the buzz of christmas and new years behind us, all i really wanna do is...hibernate. seriously, this cold weather makes me mentally violent and i'd rather find a warm cave to hunker down in than deal with it. i mean, i don't know why i act surprised when this happens every year...because it most definitely does. winter brings out my inner axe murderer and i really don't like it. i do, in fact, enjoy a good snow every once in a while...but if it's going to be this cold and not snow, old man winter can suck a fat one. however, after the chaos of the holidays, i do appreciate the quiet. as much as i love my family, after spending weeks (WEEKS) with them nonstop i was raring to go back to work. plus, i am a creature who thrives on routine, so when our schedule was all willy nilly 'let's plow through several bottles of wine tonight'...i kinda lost my crackers after consecutive nights of this. when we returned from visiting my parents in pennsylvania, my inlaws flew in the next day to visit from colorado. again, i love people...but for christsake there is only so much talking and socializing a person can do. people...people whom i love dearly i might add, were starting to dance dangerously on my last goddamn nerve. i welcome the quiet of winter with open arms at this point, even as my children were running around the house screaming and playing with potholders last night (potholders). carrie also has taken a liking to the laundry basket, which she rides like a horse. (of course.)

 

ah yes...you read that correctly. long forgotten are the play doh dick, the not so easy bake oven, hooker barbie, and allllllll the other gifts my kids got for christmas. now we are back to playing with things that were already part of the scene, such as broken cell phones, laundry baskets, and potholders. each kid had two potholders in their outstretched arms as they "flapped" their way through our house acting as if they were wings. i yelled something like, "237 toys and you two are playing with POTHOLDERS?!" they just snickered and "flew" by me. jeffrey the toys r us giraffe has regurgitated at least half of his loot into our home, but let's flap around wearing potholders as flying apparatus (makes sense). later i heard screams from afar and knew it was carrie. call it older child syndrome or whatever you want, but whenever we hear carrie screaming...we immediately (and sometimes unfairly) blame ella. in these times of distress we don't always want justice, we just want quiet. therefore when carrie is acting as if elmo is hanging by a noose in her bedroom, i usually yell, "ELLLLLAAAAA why is she CRYING!? what did you do to HER!?" sometimes, ella did do something to her to make her cry, but most of the time carrie is crying for some nonsensical reason. last night when screams erupted, i saw ella zipping around the corner with a (broken) cell phone circa 2008 in her hands, and i knew the little one wanted it.

butch beat me to the punch when he said, "give her a TURN!!...or you are going to BED!" she totally wasn't going to bed, it was like 6 o'clock. (empty threat central.) despite the craziness my children continue to bring to the house, there are a coupla other developments that i would like to bring to your attention. first off, i would say about half way through our holiday break, my husband joined the gym. (what the what?) it went like this: we woke up one random sunday morning, he rolled over and said, "i'm going to the gym." at first i thought i was dreaming, as he hasn't been to the gym in a very (very) long time. actually, at that point he didn't even belong to the gym, so i was kinda confused. i said the only long winded statement i could muster at that time in the morning and it was, "what." he said, "i'm going to join the gym right now." i rolled over, wished him well, and waited for our two cherubs to awake from their slumber. although his decision to "join the gym" was rather abrupt, i was not that surprised. i've been feeding him horseshit about exercise and endorphins since 2011...so this was just a natural progression that was 3 years in the making. now when he comes home from working out he says stuff like, "don't you feel so GOOD after a good BURN?!" (yes. i've been saying this for years.) he is also doing weird things like making his own chili recipes for dinner and carrot juice for breakfast. maybe the real warren was abducted by aliens?...i dunno.

the other development is that instead of going to the sitter, ella now goes to PRESCHOOL two days a week. i don't know when the frick i had a kid old enough to go to school, but what the hell. when people tell you that "time flies" i assure you that is no bullshit. in fact, the fall of this year i will start my 10th year of teaching kindergarten and my first born will start her first year of kindergarten (woah). pretty sure i just went to a bush party with my high school friends after stealing a six pack of my dad's beer out of the fridge a minute ago. ella turned to me last night after i asked her if she had any juice left and said, "no! i like to chug it! i CHUG stuff!" butch turned to me and snickered and i realized very quickly that we are going to be in a whole hell of a lotta trouble in a couple of years. i feel like in 34 seconds flat we will go from worrying about our child chugging apple juice to our child chugging beers. anyway, the first coupla days of school went well and ella came home on friday with what every other child that just starts school comes home with...a cold. therefore, friday night was spent snuggling and cuddling with her in my bed like she was a newborn. she gently laid her head on my shoulder and ever so sweetly...coughed directly in my face multiple times. i will say that despite the germs, it was kinda nice to have her in my arms again after a week of firsts, like preschool.

first day of preschool.

 the final thing up for discussion is the fact that i finished my first grad class 2 weeks ago and just began another one this past sunday. the grade for my first class? B. now listen, under normal circumstances, i would be pissed with a B. however, i think this grade is pretty fair considering i wrote half of my papers being grossly interrupted by two children who have a doctorate degree in interrupting. moreover, one paper i wrote sitting cross legged, laptop on my legs, on the bathroom floor while my children were in the tub. (no joke.) motherhood and grad school don't mix, but i'm trying to make it work so i don't lose my mind. (stay tuned.) coupled with all the nonsense mentioned above, i started clean eating and cut out most of the booze in my life (i know, i don't even know myself anymore.) i realized that i was one step away from betty ford after the holidays and needed to make a change. plus, my pants were starting to scream at me. (no worries, i'll probably be back on the wine in no time.) if you need me, you can find me in the kitchen cooking up some type of savory paleo inspired soup, out back in the shed sharpening my axe, or hiding in the nearest cave hibernating. when we took down the last christmas decoration, ella slapped her hands together, looked at me very seriously and said, "sooo...that's done. how long until we go to the beach?!" (a girl after my own heart.) jack frost is such a jerk...bring on the spring!