Last week we had our first snow day. Amazingly, Rian was wicked pissed. It was super hero dress up day at her school. She was going to be “Aqua Girl”. (This is her favorite color.) Instead she was stuck at home with her family. Of course, they ended up having a fantastic day. We were lazy. We had hot chocolate by the bucketful. We watched movies. And of course, we played in the snow. The super tiny hill we share with our neighbors was a grand ski hill that the kids went up and down on all day. Our slide out back was some sort of luge from hell. They all came in pink cheeked and happy. And so worn out.

Today, we had our second snow day of the year. Today was not quite as wonderful. Conversely, Rian was ecstatic this morning. Jack was a pill from the get go. He was into everything he shouldn’t be, he wanted help from no one but MOM, and he was just a whiney little booger. I had an appointment at 9:30. I was about to leave the feral child at home with his sister but at the last moment was able to get his pants on him and loaded into the car. When we got home, they were supposed to get dressed and head out to the snow.

Instead, I was trying to clean out a fish tank. They jumped and hollered around me like it was some sort of show. I was getting frustrated trying to get the air bubbles out of the tubing so I could suck the water out, and ended up maiming our longest living fish. Yes, this fish has survived this family 5 and half years and I nearly kill it by sucking it into the tubing. If it is still living in the morning it will be a miracle... We will call him Kinky then, because he has a horrific kink in his tail now from my poorly timed rescue attempt. (BTW... this was the second attempt at a tank cleaning. I might very well have killed a smaller fish earlier in the week when attempting to wipe the sides of the tank by putting him into some sort of shock.) At this point Rian starts wailing that I’m a fish killer, I hiss at her to shut up, she whines that I don’t want her help, Jack pulls tubing out of the bucket and shitty fish water gets on the carpet, Finn starts talking in one of his long winded stories about how Goldie (aka Kinky) is his favorite fish, and I swear a blue streak for them all to get the hell out.

At this point Rian realizes she does indeed need to move as far from me as she can and gets her snow gear on in record time. Jack is screaming he wants to play in the snow and I inform him that he must let Big Sis help or it’s a no-go for him. I’m elbow deep in fishy shit water, or maybe it’s shitty fish water, either way it is gross, and I want to get the damn job finished. (All moms know how hard it can be to complete a single task in one go.) Jack begins the death throes of his third or fourth fit and begins writhing all along the floor. Finn gets a good chunk of his snow gear on before progress stalls. Somewhere at the end of all of this, I do indeed have a clean fish tank, 2/3 of my children are outside playing in the fresh snow, and it is only 11:00 A.M.

There was certainly more chaos in the day. Jack had at least 2 more fits and Finn never really did stop talking. Rian got side tracked from a dozen little projects at least a dozen times each. However, Jack did eventually nap, I made it to the gym, did the driving back and forth thing for Rian, and still managed to make a damn yummy meal from leftovers. It has ended with a glass of wine, a fireplace, and a laptop. I guess that makes it a pretty damned good day! P.S. Kinky Lives!