Barnmaven

New glasses to see through.

Even though I was anticipating a spectrum diagnosis for Mr. C, having that diagnosis has made a surprising difference in my ability to cope with some of his more frustrating behaviors.  It has also opened my eyes to other behaviors to which I've been more or less oblivious.

In contrast to his sister, my son was such a pleasant and easygoing toddler that there was no indication of anything non-neurotypical.  As my daughter's behavior improved through therapy and medication, his began to worsen.   Its taken a lot of time and help to begin to see improvement for him.  I didn't understand at first that the difficulties I was experience as a result of my son's behavior were small potatoes comparied to the difficulties that HE was experiencing as a result of his autism and sensory issues.

I am embarassed to admit it, but with the psychologist's report in front of me, it finally clicked into place.  His behaviors are incredibly less of a struggle for me to cope with.  I find myself less frustrated because I am more aware of why he reacts the way he does.  I begin to understand that our expectations of him and our attempts to elicit expected behaviors from him have been unfair in that we were often approaching him more in the way one would approach a neurotypical child.  He lacked the context for the "why."  That doesn't mean he didn't try, but even when he was behaving appropriately it was more to the credit of his own ability to adapt than to our parenting.

My children have dealt with so much in their young lives.  They have overcome obstacles that I am convinced would have overwhelmed me if I had to face them. 

The mask for the nitrous and the blowing air were too difficult for him.  After we tried for an hour to get started on the procedure, the dentist and I agreed that we would reschedule and try to get the cavity filled under sedation instead.  But my son, he had been promised a particular toy if he let the dentist work on his tooth. So began the negotiations.  No, he couldn't wear the mask.  No, the dentist did not think he would be able to numb my son if he didn't have some way of relaxing him, so the fast drill was out of the question.  But my son agreed to open really wide and to hold up his hand when he needed a break, and the dentist agreed to use the really slow (and loud) drill and only drill for five seconds at a time.   With a fully negotiated agreement between them, they worked together as a team and the tooth was drilled, the cavity filled, and my son got his toy.

And this is why I know my son has more courage in his little toe than I have in my whole body.  There is no manner of persuasion on this earth that could make me sit in the dentist's chair and let him drill my tooth without any sort of novocain or pain relief.  NONE. 

I don't know if there is ever any way that we as parents get to compensate for our past sins, but if there were my biggest wish would be to get a do-over on all those times I got frustrated and out of temper with my children for behaviors they could not actually control. 

I suppose its funny that having an autism diagnosis is a relief. But it is.  Its the opposite of every negative thing you might consider it to be.  It removes the uncertainty and the questions about the puzzle that my son has presented.  It opens new opportunities for him and for all of us.  It reveals him in all of his unique beauty and mystery, lets us see him in a new way. 

Once I might have reported this experience at the dentist by complaining.  Feeling frustrated because it took so incredibly long, that we had to go through so many gyrations to get the filling done.  Now, though, the experience is transformed through the lens of autism into one of triumphant success, an opportunity to celebrate the unique way my child negotiates his world in accordance with his needs. 

My son was not difficult.  My son was BRAVE.

On love, blended families, and housework

 

Last year SG and I were a happily dating, newly-in-love couple.  Valentine's day, on my night without the kids, was so romantic.  Being an old-fashioned kind of fellow, he thoughtfully brought me a lovely box of candy and a bouquet of flowers.  So sweet.  As I recall, I gave him a book on some kind of tantric-sex thing.  (And now you know why he loves me so much).  We had a lovely dinner at a local Italian restaurant and listened to a local couple playing guitar and singing ballads.  We played footsie at the table and we stayed up way too late doing things I can't mention in public. 

A year later, we're married, parenting a blended family, working the kinks out of who's responsible for what, and marveling at how, amidst the chaos, we manage to find time for lovely kisses and murmered promises for later after the kids go to bed.  And we do.  Find time.

He's home right now, getting ready to leave for six weeks on a road job, and then starting a new job in town after that. 

We have discussions about the housework and what's a fair split of chores.  I feel that since I'm the one working full time, while for now he's home, 90% of it ought to belong to him.  He doesn't disagree, but frankly he's not the most efficient housekeeper I've ever had.  And reluctant to boot.  I don't blame him, if I have the time to do other things, the last thing I really want to do is clean toilets and sweep floors and fold laundry.  I think we both have frequent wet dreams about when he's home from this next job and working full time and we win the lottery, having enough money to maybe pay someone else to come in and do the cleaning. 

Until then though, SG is the one who's supposed to be doing the bulk of it, but frankly not getting much of it done.  Last Monday I thought maybe making him a list of the top priority items would help. Six days later, Sunday, and about half the list is still waiting to be tackled.  I did not mention, and likely do not need to at this point, that efficiency is not SG's greatest strength.  There's always a Mises Institute lecture to be listened to, people on Facebook need to be argued with, and Words with Friends (and him being beaten mercilessly by my sister) beckons alluringly.

I went off to go on a lovely trail ride late Sunday morning and then ended up doing errands and not getting home til dinnertime.  I hoped - truly hoped - that I'd come home to dinner and a clean house.

Not so.

My house was a disaster, SG was completely frazzled and chaos abounded.  "I don't know how you manage it when I'm not here," he says, "every five minutes there's an interruption.  I just lost a whole hour!  Race Car man wanted a sandwich so I was in the middle of making that and then Amazon Girl sliced her finger open and there was blood everywhere and while I was in the middle of taking care of that T-Bone managed to steal the half-done sandwich off the counter and then Race Car Man threw a fit about not getting his food in a timely manner!  I'm exhausted!"

Heh.  Welcome to my world, babycakes.  I tried not to be too obvious about the laughing.

Its not too often he gets left with them for the entire day.  And to be truthful, not every single day is THAT chaotic.  But those days are far too frequent in my house, and when we have them, it IS exhausting.  Poor guy, after that he ended up staying up almost all night working on his paperwork for the road job that was due first thing Monday morning.  I got up at 3 am and he was still struggling getting the scanner to put the 60 pages of required information into one document instead of 60 documents.  (As an aside, if you want to work in the nuke industry, be prepared to provide exhausting details about every place you have worked in the last ten years including exact dates and addresses, every place you've lived for more than three months in the last ten years, your shoe size, IQ, everyone you've ever slept with or dated or even looked at sideways on the bus  and whether or not you hate your mother. Those people give a whole new meaning to crawling up your ass with a microscope.  One thing's for certain, I don't believe I'd ever be able to get security clearance at the plants he works at.) 

I felt bad for him, so I got up and helped him get everything scanned and sorted and emailed out.  We crawled back into bed at 4:30 AM, me to get one more half hour of sleep and him to get two hours before he needed to get the kids ready for school. 

There's just no time, sometimes.  And now its Valentine's Day, and its my week with the kids, so there will be no romantic date at a nice italian restaurant with live music.  There will likely be food on the walls, children being loud, dogs barking at everything that walks by the window, cats knocking things off counters.  But there will also be stolen kisses and Valentine's Day flowers and footsies under the dinner table and an early bedtime for the youngsters so us old folks can have some adult time. 

This year is certainly a far cry from last year.  But honestly?  I think its way better.

 

 

Badass Dentistry

Here's where I admit yet another of my many failures as a mother, try to give you some bullshit excuse and then tell you how I've oversome it and now I'm a really awesome parent.

(When I was in 4-H many years ago while dinosaurs roamed the earth, they told us always to present a topic to your audience by telling them what you're going to tell them, then tell them it in detail, then summarize what you just told them.  Personally I find that boring as hell, but a little preshadowing never hurts.)

I believe my insane fear of the dentist is well into the public domain.  When I wrote that it had been two years since I had been to the dentist, what I didn't tell you is that it had also been two years for my children as well.

I know, I suck.

Its not easy to take your kids to the dentist when your own bad experiences overlay everything that's going on.  Its not easy to take them when you remember like yesterday your toddler having to undergo general anaesthesia because she couldn't handle sedation dentistry.  Its not easy to take them when your youngest child has been so anxious and afraid he screams whenever the dentist tries to look in his mouth.  No, its not impossible.  Its just not easy.  And for two years I've been hovering over them while they brush, threatening them with descriptions of what they'll be like wearing dentures in their twenties as a consequence for poor dental hygeine.  Oh yes, I'm a wonderful mother.

This year, though, I decided, would be THE YEAR.  My daughter has mostly overcome her issues with the dentist and I was more worried about the extent of the damage from the two-year-haitus in dental care than anything else.  But I was really, really avoiding having to deal with the little man and his anxieties.  Not looking forward to it at all. 

To put teeth in my resolve, I scheduled dental appointments for everyone in the family.  SG and I both had our exams and cleanings and are still in sticker shock over the anticipated costs for the crowns we both need (gritting your teeth when you are stressed is by all evidence a very bad thing to do).  The kids' appointment hit some conflicts and had to be rescheduled twice, and each time I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking, "Oh thank GOD, I can put this off a little longer." 

I kept waiting for a good excuse to reschedule a third time, but life refused to cooperate, so I showed up at the dental office with a little bit of determination and a whole lot of apprehension.  In keeping with our reward-based behavior mods for Race Car Man, he had been promised some DS during free time if he let the dentist look at his teeth. 

Not being one to aim low, he went for the gold.

Not only did the doctor get to examine his teeth, he let the hygienist clean them and give him a flouride treatment AND he got both bite-wings and a panoramic x-ray. 

It was a raging success.

While I think the kid-friendly open seating and movie screens (with headsets) helped, the most important factor was the dentist and his staff.  He introduced himself to my children:  "Hi, my name's David.  What's yours?"  And from there it was just marvelous.  He said we would let my son set the pace and they would not do any procedure he didn't consent to.   He then spent a good five minutes just chatting with each of my kids, asking them about their interests and their schools and their friends, and he didn't ask them to open their mouths until he had really earned the right to do so.

C:  "Why are you wearing that mask?"

D:  "I want to cover my mouth.  I have to talk sometimes when I'm working on your teeth, and sometimes when I talk a little piece of spit might come flying out of my mouth.  If your mouth is open at the same time, my spit might go in your mouth and man, that's just GROSS." 

Badass.  If the man wasn't already married with about 10 children, and if I wasn't so damn much in love with SG, I would have kissed him.

The hygienists were equally as badass.

They let my son feel the rubber cap on the cleaning tool.  They let him watch other kids have their x-rays done so he would understand the process.  They gave my daughter purple sunglasses because she's sensitive to the overhead light.   When my son wanted to get up and look around the room, they allowed him complete freedom.  They had screens on the ceilings above the chairs and nice padded headsets for them to watch movies.  They answered their questions. They explained things very factually but in terms that were not frightening.  They treated them with respect.

It was clear to see that this was not their first experience with special needs, and it was equally clear that the comfort of their patients is their number one priority. 

While its still true that in my heart of hearts I'm no fan of the dentist, in this one case, I may have to make an exception. 

Dentistry for kids.  Totally BADASS.

Its almost that time

The rock chucks were squeaking at one another in the cold afternoon sunshine as I rode my horse in the arena yesterday.  As I cantered in circles, all around me I could hear  "Squeak!" nearby, and then answering squeaks from off to the left and the right.  A hawk was circling over, so I imagine the chucks were warning each other about the dangers of becoming someone's lunch.

For the oddest reason I'm fighting baby fever right now.  I normally get bit by the bug in the spring, but its come early this year.  With a house full of critters, adding a puppy or kitten to the mix to be a subsitute for a sweet, squishy real baby is out of the question.  But we lost a couple of hens over the winter, so a batch of baby chicks to fill out the flock will have to suffice.  They're so cute when they arrive, fluffy and yellow.   If you hold them enough they become tame in no time at all.  You can cuddle them up under your neck and they'll happily take a short nap.  (They'll also happily deposit a little chick-turd on you, but it comes with the territory.  You want babies, you gotta deal with pooh.)

By the time they hit about 12 weeks they're ready to go outside and they don't look like babies any more at all.  It seemed the last batch turned into full grown chickens practically overnight.  Its an abbreviated example of what happens to our human babies, isn't it?  I keep looking at this long-legged, long haired gorgeous girl and I wonder what happened to that six month old bundle of chub and drool. 

Saturday she was complaining about a bump on her face, and I kind of laughed it off.  "Maybe you've gotten your first zit!"  Then a sobering thought hit me -- Maybe she DID have her first zit.  I made her let me look at her armpits, and right there in front of my eyes, was tantamount proof.  I have an adolescent child in my house. 

I did what any normal parent would do.  I panicked.  Then I ran to the store and bought her a brand new razor and some shaving cream, and just in case, a small pack of maxi pads. 

Do I think her period's going to start tomorrow?  Oh hell, I hope NOT.  But it stands to reason that I might not be home when it does, or she'll be at her dad's house.  Better to be prepared, right?  So we sat down together and  I explained what happens to girls as they grow older and start to mature physically.  I'm such a fantastic mother I actually managed to cause her to burst into tears with my description of what happens when you get your monthly cycle.  

I'm already practicing my speech for the Mother of the Year.

I did manage to get her calmed down, and then we got the books off the shelf that explain these things far better than Mama can. 

Spring is coming soon.  Change is just around the corner no matter how ill-prepared I might be.  I guess I'd better work on being more ready than not.

 

 

Dear Karen, a geography lesson for you. **UPDATED**

To Karen Handel and the Susan G. Komen Foundation:

Just in case you missed the basic human anatomy lesson they gave you in your junior high sex education class, here's a useful little fact about the female body:

MY BREASTS ARE NOT LOCATED IN MY UTERUS.

No, really.  Its true.  Pinky swear.

I haven't been too thrilled in the past years over the flood of pink (PINK!  OMG PINK!  BUYING PINK THINGS CURES CANCER!) and the clear contempt for consumers that the whole pink ribbon fiasco has displayed.  You trained us well.  We see a pink ribbon and our little brains automatically start processing. "Must. Buy. Pink. Spatula.  Save. Women."  How many of the advertising dollars for the damn pink ribbon actually went to fund research?  How many went to executive salaries?  How many (the bigger question, really) just went straight into the pockets of the people smart enough to stick pink shit on their products?

After more than a quarter century, no one doubts that the Komen Foundation has the most brand name recognition and political power of any of a number of charities focused on raising public awareness, providing screening and education and funding research for a cure for breast cancer.  But as time has gone by and you've grown bigger, there have been plenty of questions raised about just how much you're actually doing to cure cancer and how much you're doing to line your own pockets. 

Still, though, I've donated to friends who took part in your Race for the Cure events.  I'm not a breast cancer survivor, it doesn't run in my family, but I had my own lump scare and I take getting my annual mammograms pretty seriously.  

In 2009-10, Planned Parenthood provided almost 750,000 breast exams through its 840 health centers.  Karen, thats a LOT OF BOOBS.  Did you know that fully 14.5% of Planned Parenthood services provided were for cancer screening and prevention?  And did you know that a mere 3% of services provided by Planned Parenthood are for abortions?  Yep.  Just 3%  Planned Parenthood, in case you weren't aware, does a hell of a lot more than provide parking lots for anti-abortion protesters to carry signs and yell chants and places for pro-life wingnuts to hold shoot-a-baby-killer parties.  Planned Parenthood is seriously involved in the business of improving health, not just for women but for people everywhere.  They provide prenatal services, colonoscopies, STD screenings and treatment.  They do adoption referrals. 

I also take women's health as an overall issue pretty damn seriously.  Yesterday, you cited a federal probe (which you know damned good and well was probably politically motivated) to pull funding that provided mammogram screening from Planned Parenthood.   I'm not certain how it helps prevent or cure breast cancer by pulling funding from an organization that provides low-cost screenings to women, but there you go.  I'm sure you have a really, really good reason, because otherwise I'm sure you're getting my breasts confused with the politics surrounding my uterus.  WHICH IS NOT WHERE MY BREASTS ARE.

Picture by Lian Maris

****UPDATED 2/3/2012  The Susan G. Komen foundation announced today that it has reversed its decision on funding cuts and will continue to fund Planned Parenthood's existing grants as well as continue PP's eligibility for future grants.  Now lets everyone get back to the business of preventing and curing cancer. 

 

 

The little boy who could

 

Some years ago, in one move or another, I lost my original Golden Book story of The Little Red Caboose.  That was one of my favorite stories as a kid, probably because in at least one of the illustrations there were horses.  Fortunately, those books never go out of print and I was able to get a copy of it for my own children.  For a time it was also one of Race Car Man's favorite bedtime stories, mostly because it has trains.  WE LOVE TRAINS.

The Little Red Caboose wasn't ever going to be a big black engine, no.  Not even a coal car or an oil car or a box car or a flat car.  But as it turned out, The Little Red Caboose had tremendous value just being a caboose.  He saved the train, you know.

My son's "official" diagnosis arrived in the mail on Friday.  Yes, he has an autism disorder.  The scales are both meaningful and not, as things go, because the spectrum is quite wide.  He is not severely disabled, he scores in the high end of the 'mild to moderate' range.  He will not struggle with the ability to speak or read or to do the things many neurotypical people are able to do.  Other things will just be a lot harder for him to learn, things like having relationships, getting along with others at school and eventually at work.  Learning how to modulate his emotions and behaviors.  Taking proper care of himself in terms of hygeine and dress.  Being medication-compliant so that his anxiety disorder doesn't overwhelm his ability to function.

None of those are terrible things, or really even bad things.  They are just things about him.

There are other things about him that are really important.  Things he can do.

He can, by himself, assemble a Hot Wheels racetrack and put every single one of the 57 different stickers in the right place.

He can, by himself, dissasemble any mechanical or electronic piece of equipment.  Sometimes he can even put it back together, although it might not function the way it did before it was turned into a pile of disparate pieces.

He can find the proper screwdriver to open the battery compartment of anything that uses batteries, determine what kind of battery it needs, and replace said battery or hound mama until she loses her everloving MIND to go buy the correct type of battery if we don't happen to have it in the house.

He can play a mean game of checkers, and I suspect it will not be long before he will be playing an equally mean game of chess.

He can do math.  A lot of math.  Quite well.

He can ride a scooter and dig in the dirt and line up his Hot Wheels cars in a perfectly straight line.  He can take a Lego kit and build something entirely new and possibly even better than the picture on the box and the instructions indicate.  He can sing.  He memorizes songs and he sings them all the time, and he has the sweetest voice.  

He gives great hugs.

Unlike many 7 year old boys, my son does not want to be president.  He will probably never BE the president.  But I am pretty sure he will help engineer the president's state-of-the-art rocket ship for when he travels to address the citizens who colonize Mars.

Its my job to make sure he has all the tools he needs to pursue his dreams.

Harder than it looks on film

I love how in the movies a character, usually portrayed by someone who looks a whole lot better than I do in blue jeans, will experience a transformative moment, immediately understand the whole point and the lesson in one fell swoop, and then BOOM!  Off she goes to live happily ever after.  More likely than not this is how she will cope with every new learning experience forever. 

OK, sometimes we'll see a character who takes the entire damn movie to learn the lesson, but what I never ever see is the character who learns it, forgets it, learns it some more, backslides, remembers, and continues to do this same tango forever ad nauseum.

Why is that?  Am I just doing it wrong?  Or are the people on the screen portraying something so patently un-doable that lamenting my inability to do the same is a pointless exercise?

Yesterday I wrote a completely tongue-in-cheek sarcasm-ridden paean to my ex.  No, it didn't go live.  Nor should it ever see the light of day.  But god DAMN it felt good to write it. 

It felt commensurately HORRIBLE to read it and understand how far I have failed to progress in my self-stated quest toward elightenment and compassion.

I continue to presume that I understand the reasons why people do things that affect me.  Good or bad, I assume intent.  Maybe sometimes I'm right, but how would I KNOW that?   Its not like I ask for confirmation or anything.  "Do you refuse to actually speak with me on the phone because you prefer parenting via text messages?"  And see, I'm still kicking around in the shallow puddles of hostility.

It still hurts, though.  I want to be better at this coparenting while divorced gig, and the truth is, the whole thing pretty much sucks ass right now.  My ex lately communicates solely via texts on the cell phone.   He still has yet to acknowledge the existence of SG.  On the rare occasion when he's had to be within the same vicinity as my husband, his main tactic is to simply avoid looking directly at him.  Is this because he hopes it will make him ACTUALLY disappear?  I have no idea.  And I assume intent. We speak on the phone and he speaks in monsyllabic monotone, and the writing on the wall screams "I DON'T WANT TO SPEAK TO YOU."

How do you parent your kids with someone who you've never been able to truly discuss problems with? 

I don't have the answers.  And I'm not really pleased with the way I'm reacting to things.  I don't feel I've grown very much as a person.  That bothers me.  I recognize so many times that I've ignored the high road, done and said things I take no pride in, wanted to continue to spread the pain around rather than let the healing begin.  I still seem to take an unreasonable amount of time wanting another person to be other than they are, which is a bloody useless effort.

If I had any balls at all, I'd calmly set some boundaries and leave him to respect them or not respect them.  If I gave some decent thought to what everyone's going through, I'd acknowledge that there might be a lot of reasons he's doing the things he does that have nothing to do with the motives I've so handily ascribed to him.  Maybe he's in pain.  Maybe his job is stressful.  Maybe he's having relationship problems.  Maybe the autism diagnosis is hard for him to wrap his head around.  Maybe a lot of things -- maybe none of them.  But the point I keep forgetting is that it isn't at all about WHAT HE IS THINKING.  It is a thousand percent about how I'm reacting. 

Maybe this is how the process of personal growth really goes.  Maybe I'm supposed to figure these things out one painful step at a time and everytime I think I have a grasp on something I'm supposed to then get complacent and lose sight of things. 

Maybe.  Or maybe I AM just doing it all wrong.

 

 

 

Most DEFINITELY in my backyard!

Its about damn time.

Washington State is poised to pass a bill establishing marriage equality.  Senator Mary Margaret Haugen announced her support of the bill this afternoon, providing the last vote needed for a majority in the state Senate.

I'm trying to find the right words to express my joy and delight without being too far on either side of emotional/rational.  I am thrilled for my friends and family and for every couple in my home state who will now be able to enjoy the same freedoms and protections in their relationship as straight folk.   Its for damn sure they'll show a lot more respect for the institution than a few right-wing conservative politicians we could name.

I'm proud that my state is laying grounds for true liberty and equality for ALL of its citizens by structuring this bill to protect the rights of all people to marry without restricting the freedom of religious organizations to determine who they will or won't perform weddings for (even if think that's pretty bigoted and completely antithetical to the way God asks us to love one another, not to mention DUMB).

There are going to be many churches who will be delighted to open their doors and their blessings to gay couples who want to finally have that church wedding they've always dreamed of. 

Its so exciting!  Wedding registries!  Invitations!  Printed napkins!  Balloons!  Gowns!  Tuxedos!  CAKE!!!

I just hope someone remembers to invite me.  Man, I love wedding cake. 

 

The snow fell and I right along with it

Finally, it came.  Boy, howdy, did it come.  We got a good six inches between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.  School was delayed, meetings were cancelled, we pretty much didn't leave the house except for putting the kids on the bus and getting them back off. 

The kids had a blast playing in the snow.  All Wednesday it was the perfect snowball snow - fluffy, just wet enough to stick together to form a ball.  Race Car man quickly got over his aversion to socks when he discovered how cold his feet got in his snow boots without them. 

We found out Wednesday night that school was cancelled for Thursday and the kids were beside themselves with the excitement of playing outside all day long.

We woke yesterday to a light freezing rain that continued all day long.  It left a two-inch layer of ice crystals on top of our snow and coated every tree, fence, mailbox and vehicle in a sheet of ice. 

I did leave the house, though.  Had to.  We we were out of dog food and milk, two things that in this household are required to keep the earth revolving around the sun.  And then, I had the followup appointment for Race Car Man's evaluation.  He had to retake one test series, and then we met with the psychologist.

I answered a lot of questions.  My son answered some questions.  The doctor was kind, measured, and very patient.  As he interviewed me, he completed an evaluation.  We clarified some questions.    He will compile his report and send it to us, probably in a week.  But of course, as a parent, you want to know the answers to your questions, even if you think you know what they are. And so I asked him.  And he very kindly and gently shared the results of the evalution form he had just completed with me.

I've had to learn some new phrases about myself over the last couple of months - some easier, some harder.  I've had to learn how to say "I am a wife" after a few years of wanting to be anything but. 

I had to learn how to say "My brother is dead" and saying it still causes a surge of anxiety and pain that feels like its going to break my sternum in half.

And as of yesterday, I have one more to add.

"My son has autism."

 

 

 

 

Waiting on the snow to fall

If the weather.com forecast says "no significant accumulations expected," but the National Weather Station advisory reads "accumulations of 4 to 8 inches likely," which one am I supposed to believe?

I had a coworker once whose fiance' was attending college for a degree in meteorology.  He wanted to become a TV weather announcer.  My only thought was, "really?  You have to go to college to learn how to lie to people?" 

For days the news has been prepping us for snow.  Lots of other places around the state got snow, anywhere from a dusting to a few inches.  Not us.  We got lots of clouds that looked like they might drop snow on us, and the temperature plummeted at a satisfying rate all afternoon on Sunday, but when push came to shove, the snow did not fall.  It was very disappointing, let me tell you.  This entire WINTER has been disappointing.    

Its not that I want to spend months shoveling my car, shoveling my walk, picking snow lumps out of the feet of horses and dealing with children who want their hats, gloves and boots put on so they can go out in the snow for five minutes and then come in because its "too cold."  Its not that I want to make my daily commute on a block of snow and ice. 

Its rather that I believe every winter should have at least one or two decent snowfalls, for the same reason I believe that every summer needs at least two or three consecutive days of weather over 100F.  You can't appreciate summer without snow, and you can't appreciate winter without a heat wave. 

Growing up in the Seattle area meant that we would have winters where there was no snow at all, but every couple of years we would get at least one good snowstorm and two to six inches of accumulation.  About every decade or so we would get a huge dump of snow that left the schools closed and gave us enough material to build some really excellent snow forts.  I remember my first really big snowfall.  I must have been four years old.  The snow fell and fell and fell, and when I went outside I could barely walk because it was up to the top part of my short little legs.  My brother made a snow tunnel.  I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Another year we got a really great snowstorm that dropped five or six inches of snow over the course of a couple of hours.  It didn't start falling until late in the day, though, and it was close to bedtime.  My brother and I stared out the window at the huge flakes illuminated by the streetlights and begged our mother to let us play outside.  Dad was on shift at the fire station that night, and even though we had school the next day, Mom let us put on our snow clothes and go throw snowballs and make snow angels even though it was quite late.  Seattleites do not tend to drive when there is any accumulation of snow on the ground, so our street was completely deserted.  We made snow angels and stood under the streetlamp, catching snowflakes on our tongues. 

New Jersey winters were a little sporadic as well.  There was always some snow, but every third year brought a memorable storm.  It was a revelation to me that life didn't have to come to a complete standstill becuse of snow.  My first snowstorm came on a night my ex and I had plans.  I watched the flakes coming down and figured we were going to be staying in.  By the time we would have needed to leave for our reservation there were at least three inches on the ground and the streets had a good inch of compact snow.  When my ex asked me why I wasn't ready to go, I was totally confused.  Out we went, and there were just about as many cars on the road as there would have been on a clear evening.  Amazing!

 The first year we bought our house on Serpentine Drive, we had a huge storm.  The snow in the driveway was up past the wheel wells on our cars.  Our street didn't get cleared for a couple of days, so we kept the heat turned up and wished we had snowshoes.  That was before my daughter was conceived.  The winter she turned two, another big storm brought us several feet of snow.  It drifted up shoulder-high agains the slider door in the back yard, and we had to dig a path out so the dog could go to the bathroom.  It was piled so high that our dog could stand on the snow and put his paws and head easily over the top of our six-foot fence.  The township "officially" closed all the roads and were weren't supposed to drive, but my work wanted at least a couple of bodies to staff the phones, so I snuck out the back roads in my Jeep.  When I finally made it to the office, there was a huge snow berm all the way around the strip mall parking lot.  I couldn't see any way to easily get in, so I got a running start and just plowed straight through it.  Didn't get stuck, either. 

The first winter after I came to Tri-Cities we had a doozy of a year.  Lots of snow and cold that year, including a week of single-digit temperatures that froze the frost-free pump in my barn and left me lugging five-gallon buckets of hot water from my bathtub to the barn to fill the stock tank.  

I've been waiting for the snow to start falling here since Sunday afternoon and I am started to get a little unhappy with the weather gods and the meteorologists;  the former for failing to give us even one school delay or closure for snow this year, and the latter for making sweet white promises they cannot keep.