Snow Week

You guys. Seriously. We had 3 snow days in a row. Following a weekend. Other than the grocery store on Sunday morning and taking Lukie to 3 hours of daycare on Monday morning before the ice storm hit, this is the first day I have been out of the house. And it feels great.

Basically, on Sunday, there was a winter storm heading our direction, so the schools, including all the area colleges, announced Monday closures on Sunday night. The storm came through on Monday and dropped lots of freezing rain and a skiff of snow. Enough ice built up that travel was dangerous on Tuesday. And then, because there was snow in the forecast on Wednesday, schools canceled Wednesday as well.

All told, we've gotten maybe 3 inches of snow, and this Midwesterner thinks it's a little funny that schools were closed for that, but to be honest, the bigger issue has been the ice and I understand the need to keep people off the roads in East Tennessee when there is ice on them. They are really hazardous and there isn't the infrastructure, salt, or funding to take care of them properly. So, people just wait it out.

Ever been stuck in the house with a toddler for 5 days with not enough activities to do? We were! I had ordered some toddler crayons over the weekend, but the weather delayed our shipment, and my "minimal toys" rule can sometimes backfire if we're holed up in the house. So we got creative. And we (admittedly) watched a lot of TV. And sledded a little bit. Here are lots of pictures.

Lukie really loved the sledding, but it was so exhausting coming back up that hill with him in tow and so little traction because of the ice! We need a slightly less steep hill, I think.

Dixie was in heaven. I often think we cheated her a bit when we moved to the South-- this dog LOVES the snow.

At one point, Lukie just laid down in the snow, and then thought it was really funny that I could just grab him by his coat and pick him up.

Such a flattering outfit on me, I know.

Post-snow peanut butter sandwich and strawberries.

Pete did get out to go to Lowe's on Wednesday morning, and while there he picked up 8 moving boxes, which were then used as giant blocks the rest of the afternoon. Lukas got a huge kick out of the fact that he was able to lift those big boxes over his head.

SICK and tired...but still alive!

I am so. over. this. winter.

Basically, the story in our house the last few weeks has been Lukie gets sick. Mommy gets sick. Daddy has to take care of everybody. Everybody gets better. Repeat.

The night we had Lukie's last pie party, we had lots of friends over to play Cards Against Humanity (so fun!) and eat pie. We took this awesome picture:

 

Everybody looks happy and healthy, right? WRONG. What you can't tell is that my stomach was starting to feel upset. By 9 p.m. I was shivering in bed with awful chills. By 9:30 I was...throwing up. This continued about every 45 minutes for the next 36 hours. I couldn't keep anything down, and even had to pull Lukas off nursing at least once. Pete slept on couch cushions next to the bed so he wouldn't get it from me, but could still be near if I needed help with Lukas, which I did...it was awful. I was out of work for four days with this terrible thing. I had NEVER been so sick in my entire life, and hoped it was a once-ever thing.

After I got well, Tennessee got about the biggest batch of snow I had ever seen fall here. We had something like 7 inches overnight, so we dressed Lukie up in what a friend called his "Jedi outfit" and plopped his fat little rear end in the snow!

This is what a person who has thrown up for 36 hours straight looks like after it is all over.

Happy, happy snow dog!

The next weekend, Pete and Lukie and I all went down to Asheville, NC. Lukie spent the day with Pete's friend Robyn, who played with him all day! It was 70 degrees out, so they went on a walk and Robyn put Lukie in a swing for the first time. Apparently, he was a little confused and freaked out. He had lots of fun, though, and slept the whole way home, so she must have worn him out!

Pete and I went to the Arts and Crafts conference at the Grove Park Inn. It's an annual meeting of people who are interested in the Arts and Crafts/Craftsman period of American and English art, textiles, furniture, architecture, you name it. It was pretty incredible and somebody could spend a LOT of money in the show rooms! We, however, only spent $65 on a print of the tortoise and the hare that we had loved for quite a while. Pete, when he gets the time, will make a frame for it and it's going to go in our bedroom.

We had a good week, and then on Thursday night, all hell broke loose. Lukas had a fever, and then he started puking every time I tried to feed him. He went to the doctor, who gave him a breathing treatment/nebulizer, since he also developed a wicked cough that was making him wheeze. He started feeling better...and then...Saturday night...my stomach got upset...

Long story short, it was Stomach Virus II: Revenge of the Bug, and I was sick for another 36 hours or so. I missed a play that two of my dearest friends were in, lunch with Pete's grandmother and grandfather, and work on Monday, all to lay around feeling miserable, not able to eat, not able to lift my 23-pound baby, who was teething so badly he wouldn't nurse and just cried, and trying to push fluids so that I didn't dehydrate (breastfeeding does NOT help when you're sick like this). 

So here we are. We've survived some total crap in the last few weeks. If there's a silver lining to it all, it's that it all happened BEFORE this weekend, since we're going to Cincinnati for a museums conference (Lukie's first conference! Yay for nerdy parenting!). We'll see my mom for one day, and we'll have a great time!

Catch you after our trip!