Snowmageddon... New Orleans Style

This was a very exciting, yet anticlimactic week.  They were predicting temp drops and SNOW for Tuesday!  Before school was even out on Monday, school had been cancelled for Tuesday.  Did I mention it was 65 degrees on Monday when school was cancelled?!!  It was crazy!

We were thrilled though.  Free day?  Well take it!  Possible snow?  Even better!  We were ready and very excited.  I confess, it was quite lovely to get to sleep in.  The temp was only 36 Tuesday morning.  But it slowly dropped. Very slowly.  And the drizzle began.  It rained lightly nearly all day long.  I had told the kids there would be no snow till at least lunch time.  Rylee kept asking me if it was lunch time yet.  Alas, there was no snow to be had. By the time it was actually cold enough to have snow, the precipitation had stopped.  All we got was frozen roads. 

However, we are pretty far south. The more north you went, the more ice there was.  And all the bridges, spillways and causeways were closed.  In case you didn't know, it is virtually impossible to get to New Orleans without crossing some sort of bridge. And those were all closed. When you have a bridge over water, it is going to ice.  And when you have a 2 lane bridge c with ice.... well, you get the picture.  Bad things can happen very quickly.  So they play it very very safe here.  Pretty much everything was shut down in New Orleans for Tuesday, and the cold temperature was hanging around. So school was out for Wednesday as well. 

Wednesday was cold (Cold for here, as in, 28 degrees of cold), but no rain and no snow.  Stuff eventually began to thaw out and melt to the north and life resumed again on Thursday.  Lest you be critical of closing down the city for 2 days for just a little ice and no snow, all I have to do is look at the news and what happened to Atlanta. They didn't plan for weather and when it hit, everyone tried to drive home and got stuck.  Given these two options, I'm happy New Orleans chose to play it safe.  Everyone stayed home, and everyone stayed safe.  And we had an awesome 2 days of doing absolutely nothing!

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PS Today it is 75 degrees.  You heard me 75 degrees!  The weather in this place is crazy!

Yep, that's what closed down the city.  Even the base was mostly closed.  "Mission essential personnel only".

The kids were thrilled that we got some "snow".  The mini tramp had some ice accumulation.  Very exciting here!

 This is what Joshua did for 48 hours.  

Rylee had so much fun she fell asleep playing on the computer!

Schoolwork

I love my children.  They are each delightful in their own, very different ways.  They make my life better and oh, so much more fun!  Today Marian showed me some of her work from Social Studies and it was so marvelous, I had to share.  She had 2 essay questions. I'm going to write the question, and then her response, and I'll write her response exactly as she did.  The papers had check marks on them so I assume the teacher looked at them.  I don't think the responses quite fit the questions, but I have no clue what grade she got on these.  Maybe just getting anything written was good.  And the answer to the first question just cracks me up!

1.  In your opinion, would you prefer to live in current day America or during the colonial times? After reading the passage, write a 2 paragraph essay in which you answer the question and explain your reasons.  Give 3 examples from the passage to support your decision.

I would like to live in the modern day because the bathrooms back then were realy bad and smell horrable! You have to work all day and the punishment at school was realy bad! wear a dunce hat, wear a sighn around your neck saying "Bite finger Baby," put  wispering sticks in your mouth and lots of other things.  When you get sick you are more likelly to die, the medicines werent very good at all!  And thats why I would rather live in modern days, were the bathrooms are way better!


2. How has America's history shaped our world today?  Write a letter to a fourth grader explaining the importance of studying slavery's role in shaping America.  Examine the economic impact slavery had on the Americas.  Discuss the cultural and social structures.  Be sure to give textual evidence to support your opinions from page 10-13.

Dear Bob,
It is good to study slavary becaus it is good to learn what the past was like and how much has chainged today.  America is a better place after slavary was distroid.  People bought lots of slaves and those slaves were forced to work for free.  first the very rich people who almost never have to work, then there's regular people with small houses, farmers grow crops and work, and last are the slaves who work all the time with absalootly no pay! (on bigger plantations, the owner often lived in a fancy house called quarters)



However, the very best part of Marian's assignment packet was this.  I strongly recommend you enlarge this picture and enjoy it properly!

When things go wrong

I had grand plans for my day.  I was going to get my allergy shot, and visit my friend Nancy at the hospital.  Then I was going to go home and meet my friend Robin to go running.  I needed to clean the house and get dinner done early so I could have friends over for pie right after school.  

I did not get most of it done.  

I got into my car at the hospital parking garage and it felt funny.  Yep, totally flat tire.  Now, I DO know how to change a tire.  I have done it.  However, van's tend to have the tire underneath in the middle of the bottom and I didn't feel like dealing with it.  What good is paying to have Roadside Assist on my insurance if I haven't used it in almost 2 years?!!

It was a 45 minute wait for the guy, who was super nice.  It was another 45 minutes for him to finish getting everything done.  He was thoughtful enough to inflate the flat tire to see if it was an easy fix.  It was not.  I had a gash in the sidewall.  So with the spare properly installed, I crawled to the tire place that had just replaced my tires less then 3 months ago.  Yep, I have brand new tires, and now I need to replace one of them.  The tire shop didn't have my tire and won't till Monday.  So I have till Monday to cry about having to drop $200, all because I rode up the curb when I parked this morning.

I did not make it running.  I barely made it to get Rylee from preschool.  I have no idea what dinner will be.  But I AM going to have Pie!

One of Those Days

Joshua woke up with a sore throat and a froggy voice.  He spent the day lounging on the couch whining pathetically.  I couldn't tell if he felt bad or was scowling because he was cross. Even when he spoke it was still hard to tell since everything was growled and bemoaned in a loud and cranky voice.  I tried to not ask him any questions because he was so dramatic about how painful it was to speak at all. He does have a fever and he is legitimately sick, but he sure is no fun as a sickie!

I got to pull Callie from school today for a doctors appointment.  It was for a non-sick thing, but she complained of stomach pain while we were there.  Based on the tummy cramps and belches emanating from her, both the doc and I told her it was gas.  She went back to school after nibbling half a pepto tablet. She apparently was still having tummy cramps and went to the nurse.  The nurse sent her back to class.  5 minutes before school let out, she puked.   On the plus side, I didn't have to clean it up.

So that's 2 down and 2 more to hang out with me tomorrow rather than at school.

To make my day even more fun, I asked Rylee to get something for me.  She looked at me and shouted, "I'm not your Butler!!"

Yay!

I am delighted to announce some delightful news:  Rylee is Potty Trained!!  

I know, she's certainly old enough!  She just did not want to do it. She had told me she was never going to potty train.  She had refused to wear underpants.  She was quite comfortable in her pull ups.  The past few weeks I started actually trying to get her on the potty, rather than waiting for her to suddenly decide to do it herself (That worked with all the others, I don't know why she had to be contrary!)  

She began to consistently poop on the potty and had about a 75% success rate with peeing. However, she was NOT going to wear underpants.  She liked the security of that pull up.

Last week I bribed her with something she really wanted and told her if she wore underpants for a week, it was hers.  What was this coveted item?  Stompeez.  Yes, that awful slipper who's ears fly up when you step.  She has been asking for them for months and was sad she didn't get them for Christmas.  It is SUCH a lame item with such limited use and value, there was no way I was getting it for her. However, desperate times call for desperate measures and I cam home with a pair and showed them to her.  I said she had to wear underpants for a week and they were hers.  

She did it. She wore underpants and she kept them dry and she earned her Stompeez.  And up till today, she has been accident free.  Tonight, Dan and I went on a walk with the dog, and when we got home, Delaney told us Rylee had had an accident.  Here is the best part:  It was in the bathroom and they had cleaned it up!  Awesome Sauce!