Winter: I'm over it

I used to like winter. I loved snow days... time to sit around and read and stay warm, drinking cocoa and taking a break from the daily grind. I even enjoyed driving in snow - it was kind of exciting and different to slide around a little bit. I felt like I'd mastered the elements when I got where I was going, in spite of the bad weather. I laughed at people who were afraid to drive in snowy weather.

Now I have kids, and I hate snow.

I hate everything snow stands for. I especially hate the way it looks a couple of days after the storm, when everyone has driven over it and it's no longer white - it looks sooty and dirty and old. Hate that.

Someone who doesn't have to shovel walks and driveways really has no right to hate snow the way I do, but I do.

I hate having to bundle the kids up against the cold, finding two pairs of matching mittens, boots, hats that inevitably get taken off before we're even out the door, leaving a still-cold head and mussed hair.

I hate the virusses (virii?). We've been lucky this year, knock wood, but flu season isn't over yet.

I hate driving in this crap with my kids in the car - slipping and sliding is no longer exciting, it's terrifying. The plow didn't come through our neighborhood until almost 11 am today, making short work of plowing me in, after BJ shoveled the driveway. Nice.

I hate the changes in our schedule - the preschool delays, the closed gymnastics because the furnace never ignited - because it freaks the kids right out when our schedule is disrupted.

I hate the kids' fascination with stomping through the snow, because they get their pants wet, and when I finally get them all buckled into the warm car, and it starts to melt, they complain about their cold legs and feet. They freeze on the way to wherever we're going, and they roast when they get there from all the layers. I even have to do more laundry than I do in decent weather, because they have to wear two shirts, or change their wet socks three times.

I hate that we end up staying home most days because I just do not want to bundle them up and get them into the car, then bundle them out of the car to get where we're going, and then do it all again in reverse when we leave.

I want to go back and slap my 25 year old self for freaking out about the possibility of moving to Southern California. I told BJ, "I can't POSSIBLY live there."

I was a moron.

The only consolation is that Claire looks so stinkin' cute in her cold weather gear. Observe:

You can't see them behind the bag (the princesses have staged a full-scale invasion of our house, and won), but she has hot pink boots with butterflies on them (hand-me-downs from the fabulous neighbor Chelsea), which she calls her "flies" even though she is perfectly capable of saying "boots." Too cute. That, and the remote starter on my car are *almost* enough to make winter bearable...

But not quite. After all, she'd look just as cute in a sundress.