Walking in a Winter Wonderland*

I stayed up way too late last night.

M was out, so I had the kids for dinner and bedtime. I never really feel like cooking when he’s not home, so the kids and I grabbed dinner on the way home from school and decided to put the Christmas tree up! We rearranged the furniture, blared Christmas music, got fake pine needles everywhere, prevented P from pulling it over multiple times and played in the box. I decided to leave it up with only lights for now, just until some of the excitement wears off.

…which is probably wishful thinking on my part. P is the ultimate Christmas tree take apart-er.

After the tree was up, we capped the evening by watching the old Frosty the Snowman movie. (Thanks, Youtube!)

It was after 8 by the time I had them all squared away in bed, and then began my super exciting solo evening: cleaning.

I actually like cleaning. I do. I just don’t enjoy it when therIe are constant interruptions or when I can’t finish my jobs in the order I’d like to finish them. I was booked to work this afternoon, so I decided to get all my cleaning done in one go. It felt a little weird to be cleaning bathrooms and washing floors at 10pm, but it always looks so much better once it’s all done Between that and baking three batches of cookies for a church activity, it was almost midnight when I crawled into bed.

My alarm and I were not friends when it went off at 6am.

I got the kids to school, came home and tidied up then got ready for work. I covered the afternoon classes for a friend of mine, and it was so glorious. The kids were good, I saw some of my favourite colleagues and for a minute, it felt like I was a real teacher at that school again. A big part of me misses being in a department and having my own classes, but I do not miss the marking or the report cards. I’m living quite happily without those.

I raced home, dropped off the cookies to a friend of mine, picked up the kids from school, came home to change then ran back out for a dinner playdate down the road. The kids had a ball, and I had a chance to get to know a new friend a little better. It was so nice to go, AND she made perogies for dinner. She’s polish, and they were the kind of perogies that are basically life changing.

I don’t think she understood that I’m moving in now to eat perogies and hang out forever.

We left a little after 7, so of course it was completely dark out.. but it had started snowing at the entire neighbourhood was a winter wonderland. The kids were SO EXCITED to be out after dark, and danced and threw snowballs in the glow of the streetlamps. P’s eyes were as wide as saucers, and he kept scooping some up his is mittens, holding it up to me and yelling, “LOOK, Mama, LOOK! ‘no!!” He can’t quite get the “sn” sound at the start of snow, so he pronounces it “no” and it’s the greatest thing ever.

Am I a bad parent for hoping he never corrects it?

It was a whirlwind of tubs and stories before we finally got the kids into bed, and I’m so pooped. I am seriously fighting to keep my eyes open so I hope this post made some kind of sense. Time for bed… there will be shoveling tomorrow. *sigh*

Day four of no sugar: complete.