White snow and pink eye

Like everyone else in the eastern half of the country, we've had some snow recently. While we've had nothing close to the 4 feet many parts of the country have seen, we've got about a foot of the white stuff on the ground.

Along with the storm came two snow days. Sadly, our first snow day was spent traveling between the doctor's office, CVS and (even more sadly for the kids) my hair salon. Poor C developed an ear infection the night before the storm, so we braved the weather and the snow covered roads and headed to the doctor so we could get him a prescription for amoxicillan. After a brief trip home for lunch, I bundled the kids back into the car so we could make the journey to my hair salon. I have been waiting weeks for this haircut and neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night would prevent me from getting my split ends trimmed off.


We got back home just in time for K to take her nap & for C to announce that "something was wrong" with his right eye. The thing that was wrong was that it was red and tearing and covered in green goop. Eeek! Pink Eye alert!

I quickly called the doctor and got yet another prescription for the poor child who now seemed to be riddled with infections. Needless to say, we spent the rest of our first snow day indoors (scrubbing our hands and spraying Lysol on every surface that C had even thought about touching earlier in the day).

By the time our second snow day rolled around, C was feeling a bit better & his eye didn't look nearly as gross infected as it did the day before. I spent the morning washing every piece of fabric that may or may not have come in contact with his face. Trust me, it was hard enough putting drops into the eyes of my mild mannered seven year old son. I planned to do everything I could to avoid having to put those same drops into the eyes of my medicine-hating 4 year old daughter.

By the late morning the laundry was done & C was no longer contagious. He had watched two Star Wars movies and was finally feeling up to a romp in the snow.

Although, Mr. Crackers & I had done most of the digging out the day before, my 2 kids decided to help me shovel the front walkway...

...for about 3 minutes until I was told that shoveling the sidewalk was "boring".

I finished the rest of the walkway and then was told that my shoveling services were needed in constructing some snow forts.

Since the snow was so deep, "construction" of a snow fort just required me to dig a small hole in the snow so the kids could sit in said hole. Voila! A fort!

Once the kids had their fill of sitting in holes, we went on a short hike to the pond in our neighborhood. And by hike I mean that C walked ahead of me while I tried to pull my 40 pound daughter over 3 foot drifts of snow on a sled that was also weighed down with all of the snowballs that C was collecting for "later".

I have no idea what C is doing in this shot. We milled around like this for about 10 minutes until K decided she was "tired and done". So we headed for home and the exciting conclusion of our time in the snow: a snowball fight!

Since tears & screaming ensued within seconds of the snowball fight between the two siblings, I decided it would be safer if all snowballs were directed at me.

Thankfully, almost all of K's snowballs either missed me completely or hit my feet.

C on the other hand has quite an arm (and a terrific capacity for aiming at moving targets). After getting hit by about 6 snowballs, I declared the snowball fight over & we all headed in for some hot chocolate and another round of eyedrops.