How I Spent the First Day of a Not-So-Springlike Spring Break

My morning routine for spring now holds two optimistic thoughts each morning as I boot up the computer. I grab coffee and check to see if, 1) we are in danger of bouncing a check, and 2) if today will be the day it feels like spring. I check the weather via web site. Then I look out our large picture window for the real scoop. The Christmas lights that are still dangling from the roof are my wind vane. If they are dancing merrily, mocking me that I will not bring out the ladder in either snow or squishy mud to take them down, I know it is going to be chilly no matter how bright the sun.

Today looked like a winner. Even though the predicted high temperature was only 39 degrees (11 degrees below normal) the Christmas lights were not swaying in the least. The sun was beaming down at me. As my toddler and preschooler gallop around my chair, I tell myself that today will be the day we go to the park. Sure, we have been outside to play this winter, but that does not hold a candle to the PARK!

However, the current temperature outside is 22. We have some time to kill before we dare go on an adventure. I bundle up to go fetch the daily rag and the mail. I come back to the door to find the toddler clutching his Bob the Builder boots. "Side?" he asks me, his blue eyes full of hope. "Not yet, buddy. It has to warm up a bit first." He tosses his boots down and goes back to continue wreaking havoc on the living room with his brother.

After a fortifying and nutritious lunch of fluffer nutters on whole wheat, high fiber bread, I tell the kids we need to go to the store to buy bananas. I dare not mention the park. The three minute drive of excited shouts and gleeful cries would be too much after the morning we had. The quick shower I took to the staccato notes of a toddler beating on the bathroom door and wailing. The whining. The fussing. The "I don't want to get dressed" and subsequent running around naked, while they shout it unison "Baby butt! Baby butt!" Discovering the toddler "cleaning" the toilet, and waving the toilet brush around his head like a light saber, spraying toilet water over every surface. For once I was thankful for a bathroom the size of a shoebox.