Winter Comes to Denver

On facebook, I read excerpts that my friends post, sharing details about what they are doing. It pretty much always sounds great. Do you suppose my friends are telling it like it really is? Here is my excerpt from our evening, with parentheses around details I would omit on facebook.

Here in Denver, we are enjoying (I am not!) our second snowfall of the season. The beautiful, white snow blankets the house (and is treacherous to drive in). (I'm worried that we're going to have to shell out @ $400 for Science Girl to have snow tires since she has a long, daily commute to work and we're on our second snow and it is only Nov. 3.) Science Girl made delicious chili (but, of course the kids won't eat it). I love having something warm to eat on a cold night.

When the kids got home from school yesterday, they were excited to get outside (to make a huge mess playing in the snow). (I asked them to shovel the sidewalk but instead, they used the shovels to pick up snow and scatter it around and to hit each other.) The snow came so early this year and the boys are growing so fast that we realized they both need new snow boots. (Holy Cow! More $$$. Also, I don't have any idea when I'll have time to do this.) (When they were finished outside, they both tracked in chunks of snow and ice, and ran upstairs, leaving all their snow gear in a messy pile on the floor by the front door.)

Later, (under protest) Sport read aloud to Science Girl while Secret Service and I completed some household chores. Secret has (grudgingly) agreed to do some extra things around the house as a way to pay back some money he owes. We worked together (he had to be watched constantly as any time I didn't stay vigilant, he stopped working and started pushing buttons on his phone). Secret worked diligently (with only the use of one hand as his other hand had to hold on to his cell phone at all times) and learned to clean mirrors, dust the wooden staircase (at one point spraying the cleaner in his eye and then trying to use this as a reason to stop), and vacuum staircases. The house is really starting to sparkle (or maybe it looks that way to me because I got cleaner in my eye, too).

Afterwards, I made a loaf of banana bread. It smelled delicious (until it baked too long, the bottom got burned and the kids refused to eat it even when I cut the burnt piece off). At bedtime, I placed extra blankets on each bed. The boys snuggled in (Secret still clutching his phone) and looked so sweet. (All was quiet untill Sport started coughing, threw up from coughing, took cough syrup and returned to bed.) A nice (not!) start to winter.