Baby It's Cold Outside

I knew we'd pay for our mild summer. Winter has visited early, and I'm not liking it. Nor are the kids. Temperatures hovered in the 40s all weekend, so we got out to stores and restaurants on a limited basis, but certainly I attempted nothing outdoors with the kids. I am not meant to live in the Heartland - I should live elsewhere where I can enjoy the outdoors more months of the year than Kansas makes possible. I had a mild case of cabin fever already on my first cooped up winter-like weekend. Blah. It didn't help that Kyle worked 1 1/2 days this weekend (all Saturday, half of Sunday), which meant my "allowable" activities were a bit stunted by his absence. Instead of errands and fun while the twins napped, I cleaned house, did laundry, and organized a few areas - not exactly my idea of a banner weekend.

But still, I eked out a reasonable weekend nevertheless. The kids were in great moods (despite the lingering head cold/cough sickness everyone got last week) and the twins particularly are beginning to fall in line with our regular patterns and rules and seem comfortable in our daily routine. The only rough patches we have are at the "changing of the guard" moments when Kyle returns home and I leave or vice versa - the change in parenting styles is always a shock to all three kids.

Tonight I watched the twins play together while Kyle and Claire ran to Home Depot, and it was an absolute joy to watch them interact. Molly (the dominant twin) "directed" the play style, but Lily followed the directions (mostly) and the girls laughed and screeched and didn't pay one bit of attention to me. I had a contented moment, one brief thought that maybe there could be a light at the end of the tunnel. And then I remembered that someday I'll have three teen aged girls and I laughed at my naivete. Ah well, at least I am seeing some benefit to twins at the moment - I know I never stated that the last two years.

The girls all wore their "hot chocolate" shirts today, which I thought was fitting given the weather outside ...



... but I hope that we have a few days soon where outside play becomes possible again!