Sometimes You Just Gotta Get Outside

It's been a tough couple days. OK, it's been a tough week. OK, OK - it's really sucked since we've had eight billion feet of snow on the ground. Ability to play outside has been significantly diminished. Ability to take small child out for walks? Also not good, as a vast majority of the sidewalks in this neighborhood are not shoveled (slacker neighbors) and the shoulder of the road is covered with three feet of frozen solid snow.

Factor in the child who is going on day four of a fever, two nights in a row of middle of the night wakings with a super high fever, thus making it impossible for us to even to go a friend's house to play and... We're having some serious cabin fever.

But sometimes, or all the time, you just have to get outside no matter what. Just for a change of scenery. A new set of stairs to climb. A different environment in which to chase the dog.

We wander outside the day after the third big storm of the winter to check on Dad and his shoveling.

Dad and his shoveling? Tired Dad out.

What's that white stuff on my foot?

He really isn't as happy as he seems here. We just pose him well.

Dex can walk on top of the snow - it's pretty heavy stuff. Mom? Yeah. Not so much.

A little displeased. With all the walking. In the heavy white stuff. That is cold.

A few days later, we went out on the deck to do this. And this is pretty much all Dex did. Down the stairs. Sit on the landing for a long time. Up the stairs. Down the stairs. Sit on the landing. Repeat.

It IS kind of entertaining watching him try to get around with fleece lined pants and a snow suit and mittens and a jacket. Oh, yeah - and slippery SmartWool socks on his feet.

A couple days ago, we ventured outside again, this time to wander around on the sidewalk. And check out those big piles of white stuff again.

OOOH! CoCo! Sweet! I'll follow her back here in the grass.

Except that the grass has turned to a sloshy trail of mud. We used some serious Oxy-Clean that day

Rear view. Not any cleaner.

Dex leaves cute muddy mitten, knee, and shoe prints down the sidewalk, chasing CoCo again.

The kids go up the stairs. Neither is graceful. Neither is clean.

Post-mud-walk playing. The dog got dumped in a snow bank before I let her inside.

Our Regularly Scheduled Programming Will be Replaced By...

I was thinking today might be the day to start the Jillian 30 Day Challenge. But then the baby was cranky all day yesterday, and had a fever that kept getting higher. And then I stayed up too late napping during the Olympics. And then Dexter woke at at 3AM crying, with a fever of 104. And then he woke up again at 5:30, no longer feverish but still awake and hungry. And I got up some time during the night to grab some water and some ibuprofen for my pounding headache. And then John went to re-stock our baby drug supply today and brought home a donut and some Cadbury Cream Eggs. And then my morning nap was just interrupted by the floorboards in the house squeaking like someone was walking around. The dog doesn't weigh enough to do that, and the baby can't walk. So, the Boogie Man was just walking around my house. Great. And now the carpet selling dudes are coming this afternoon to tell me how many trillion dollars it's going to cost to carpet both bedrooms, so before they come I need to do some sort of cleaning up. Like maybe wash some dishes. And get dressed.

SO - today doesn't sound like a good day to start 30 days of no chocolate. Maybe tomorrow? C'mon, BABY. Stop being sick, and be better now, ok? Mama needs some sleep.
PS - Dexter's fever broke last night and when he woke up this morning he was back to his typical (for the last few days) kind of grumpy but ok, temperature hovering between 99 and 100 degrees, self again. He's got like 27 teeth coming in right now. Between molars and eye teeth, his poor mouth is a mess. He spends a lot of time chewing on above green thing.

The 30 Day Challenge

I've been thinking about doing this for a couple weeks, and I chatted briefly with John about my plans last night over a delish dinner of Wal-Mart rotisserie chicken and red wine from the winery across the cow field from us. I think he's in, too. At least, we did a fist pound over it. Me with my thumb inside my fist, of course. Which John says completely doesn't count...

So here's our challenge. Because we both have a raging sweet tooth we'd like to get under control, and because we'd both like to be a bit more fit. I'll say that for John. Me? I'd like to be less of a fat-ass.

1) Do Jillian's 30 Day Shred for 30 days straight. 10 days each at Level 1, 2, and 3. This is a bit of a challenge for me because although I've been doing Jillian off and on since July, I've never gone for more than 10 days straight, and have never moved past Level 1. John's done Jillian exactly twice, but I don't see it as being too much of a challenge for him. Perhaps making the time in his schedule is going to be the biggest challenge.

2) No sweets. No chocolate. No cookies. No cake. No ice cream. We're going cold turkey on this one. And we're going to start... as soon as we finish off the Valentine's candy in the pantry. And the Girl Scout cookies. Which, given the amount of binging we've been doing recently, shouldn't take more than about 20 minutes or so. This one? Oh, this one is going to KICK MY ASS. Especially in the car. And in line at the grocery store. I'll be ok at home if I just don't buy anything sweet to have in the house.

I have a couple more goals that I'm aiming for, but I haven't shared with John.

3) Drink only water. Not really a big deal, except for those really crappy days when the baby is cutting 17 teeth all at once, sleeps little, and I haven't showered in days. Those days when you're just waiting for 5:00 so you can crack open a beer. Those days when you hope John comes home early so you don't feel bad about drinking alone. Oh, sure, you're not really alone. There's a completely helpless child and dog there with you, so it's totally ok. Right?

4) No eating after 8PM. Also not really an issue. I don't often eat after dinner, except for chocolate and ice cream and Girl Scout cookies and all those things I'm not going to be eating, anyway. So it'll be fine.

DAMN IT! I just realized something. No hot chocolate, either!! Shit! I am going to have to convert to tea. Can I have tea with honey? Can I just get a pass for that one little thing? DAMN IT AGAIN! Tea goes against the "drink only water" goal. Oh, man. I am screwed.

Anyway - keep checking back for my hopefully daily posts about how much Jillian sucks and how I am going to kill someone if I can't have ONE little Cadbury Cream Egg. They hopefully are going to be daily posts because then I at least feel accountable. For something. And will be more likely to stick to this craziness. Wanna join us? It'll be FUN!


Yeah, yeah. I am already hearing the grandma's grumble now. "Why do we have to read daily blogs about our CHILDREN? Those silly people we gave birth to? We don't want to hear about them. We've known them for 35 years. We're sick of them. We come here to see pictures of the cute baaaaybeeeee." Fine. How about I try really hard to take a new picture of Dexter every day, and I'll post that along with our daily challenge report? Will that make ya happy?

Step One

I am way far behind on blogging. We've had Valentine's Day. We've had a THIRD snow storm for the winter. I have a one year video I still need to make. I am slacking. I don't have any good excuses. I've been... watching the Olympics. Napping. Trying to keep the house clean. Not walking outside because there's no place to walk.

But this one can't wait.

Dex has been walking between John and I for a few weeks now. I have video of it, but I haven't posted it yet because I suck. He's been getting pretty good - walking rather than falling, and we've been moving a bit further apart. Plus, every now and then in the past couple days Dexter lets go of whatever he's been holding on to and stands, for just a split second, before he loses his balance, flails wildly, and grabs on to the nearest object.

So I was surprised this morning after breakfast when Dex was holding my hand to walk upstairs, and then just... let go. All on his own. And walked about five steps. And then fell down on his knees. And then was so sad that he fell down that he proceeded to bang his forehead on the ground. Oh, this child. He's going to be a self-harm inflicting, tantrum throwing pain in the butt.

It'll be a while yet before we get any sustained walking. But Dexter is on his way. Lots more trouble to come, very soon!

Dear Weather: WTF?

No, seriously. WTF? Maryland doesn't DO snow. 1 inch of snow causes mass panic in the streets, Home Depot to sell out of shovels, and school to be canceled for at least a day. But now, weather, you're killing Maryland. KILLING IT! A weekend 24 inches of snow storm (apparently some kind of two day snow record for Baltimore, or something), followed on Tuesday by ANOTHER 18 to 24 inches of snow storm? There will be no salt left in the entire state. All the snow plow drivers are going to be propping their little eyelids open with toothpicks. WAL-MART might even close! The horror!

I think that my poor friends in Virginia are going to be covered with snow again, too. All I can say is: It's a damn good year to NOT be the stable manager at Sweet Briar. Because getting 75 horses and a barn and vehicles and hay and water and all that stuff prepared? HUGE pain in the ass. I shall happily totter out to Wal-Mart tomorrow with the rest of the world, pick through what's left of the toilet paper and bread, and then hunker down and play with the baby, inside, during this next storm. Sorry, horse peeps!

John brushes off my car on Sunday. Not like I am going to drive anywhere, but still. Nice to know there was a car under there.

Helllllooooo? White car? Are you in there?

24 inches of snow IS pretty. Oh, also? That huge pile of icy snow on the bay window slid off yesterday. It made quite the loud crash. And I think the bushes under the window are forever smooshed.

Note snow height = taller than fuzzy brown dog. Who, by the way, was HIGHLY unimpressed with having to go outside.

Bundled up to watch the shoveling.

Video Trial

Sick Day from Alissa Norman on Vimeo.

Blogger has basically sucked ass at having posted videos available when people (namely, Grandma) want to watch them. So I tried uploading to a video hosting site, and embedding that video in the blog. Let's see how it works! If it seems to work ok then I'll upload all the videos that way.

The Big Snow 2 - Mother Nature Strikes Back

We're nearing the tail end of "The Blizzard of 2010" right now, at 2PM on Saturday. It's been snowing (well, it started as sleet) since about 5PM on Friday. We haven't measured yet to see how much snow there is out there, but maybe when John comes inside we can measure how high it is to ABOVE HIS KNEES and that will give us a good estimate. It's ridiculous. The world is going to be shut down for weeks. We, fortunately, are well stocked with beer and pizza and diapers and formula. We are good to go for a week or so. Sure, we might be down to eating popcorn by the end of that week, but there's nothing wrong with that, right?

Dex checks out the snow from the nice cozy living room

I had just opened the door so Dex could play with it. Ummmm. Wow. I don't think we're going out the front door any time soon!

John trying to decide if he really wants to go shovel. He did then decide to go out and re-shovel the path for the dog. Poor old dog. She'd be buried out there if John didn't shovel for her.

Then I looked out the front door and saw a cute hubby buried in snow.

This is how deep the snow is. Seriously. ABOVE John's knees. And John? Is not short.