This pregnancy has, thus far, been kicking my butt. And in case you didn't already know (or gather it from the opening sentence), I am pregnant. But alas, I am closing in on the the first trimester and for the past few days, I have wakened each morning feeling alive and happy. The morning sickness has vanished and I no longer require fourteen hours of sleep per night. So once again, life is peachy.
Yesterday, school was canceled due to 'weather and illness'. When Mae and I went outside to feed the dogs in the afternoon, I couldn't help but notice that the snow on the ground was the perfect consistency for snowball-making. I wasted no time doddling and immediately challenged Mae to a snowball fight. Throwing her feeding pail in the general direction of the house, she grabbed up as much snow as she could handle in both arms and threw it...directly into the wind so that it flew right back in her face. After pummeling her with about a dozen snowballs, I then took the time to properly teach her how to pack a snowball. We then noticed Kenny and Kyler standing behind the sliding glass doors, smiling slyly. We threw a couple of snowballs at the doors and laughed when it scared them. What we didn't know is that they had already snuck out the front door and pre-packed a whole bucket of snowballs. Mae and I did not have a stockpile, so when the doors slid open, all we could do was turn our backs and hide our heads as they catapulted endless snowballs at us.
After the snowball fight, Kenny decided that we should build an igloo. The way he suggested it made me think that he'd had prior igloo-building experience. Wrong. He got out the snow shovel and started digging up our yard into one giant snow pile. His idea was to pack it all down, then dig a tunnel through it. As the pile reached about four feet high, I told him we should pack it down. I jumped on top of it and sank down a few inches. Kyler followed my lead, then Mae. There was just enough room for one more person to join in on the packing-down fun, so Kenny took the opportunity and jumped on...and fell right through. This caused a large rupture of laughter from the rest of us and Kenny's such a good sport that he even laughed along. It wasn't until just then that I realized that he was wearing Mae's bright purple stocking cap, complete with enlarged pom pom on top. So many reasons to love him!
After completing the "igloo", we hauled our frozen fingers, toes and noses back into the house, created a large pile of snowy coats, scarves, gloves and hats in the doorway, then settled down for some hot cocoa and a movie.
I wish this was a 'snow life' instead of just a 'snow day'.
Here's us, driving home from swim lessons on a much-too-cold and darkened winter evening (yesterday). Mae is in the back seat (behind me as I'm driving) playing video games. Kyler has scored a card-collector's album from Shopko and is excitedly tearing into it with the dome light turned on just above his head. And Eric Clapton's 'After Midnight' is on the radio. This becomes more rare with each passing day, so I crank the radio up, grab my bottle-of-Aquafina microphone and sing my heart out. We're happy as can be, just hip-hopping down the highway and having ourselves a rip-roaring time. I notice a car to my left and am instantly annoyed because I can only assume that they are watching my singing performance and are, most likely, making fun of me. I choose to ignore them as there is a pretty good chance that I don't know them and never will.
The chorus ended right as Mae advanced to the next level in Mario Kart. Taking a small break, Mae noticed something and blurted out loudly, "Uh oh. Oh NO, Mom, look to your left!" I turned my head to the annoying car in the next lane, still keeping pace with us, only to see a State Trooper beside us. He, too, had his dome light on and I think it was on purpose just so I could see him give me his, "Really?" look. In less than one second, the backseat light was flipped off, my hands went to 10 and 2 and my eyes were focused on the road. I can't even say if I threw my microphone-bottle on the floor or put it back in the cup holder as I was in such a panic that I don't remember.
Now that I was driving as safely as possible, the trooper stepped on his gas pedal and sped ahead of us. The remaining fifteen miles it took to get home were the most boring miles I may have ever put in as far as driving time goes. Still, paying a ticket for 'obnoxiously singing and dancing while driving' is not something I ever want to do.
I woke in the dark of night to the sound of a high-pitched, blood-curdling scream in the distance. It happened so quickly that I couldn't tell if it was real or I had just dreamed it. Either way, I sat upright in bed, quite shaken. Not more than a couple of seconds passed before I heard it again.
I instinctively jumped out of bed and ran to the kids' rooms to check on them. They were both sleeping soundly. I walked to the back door and cautiously unlocked it. I slid it open just far enough to pop my head out and there I stood and listened for at least two minutes. Everything is darker in the country. And scarier. There are no street lights or patrolling police officers out here. Just the two dogs who, oddly enough, were not barking at all. The only thing I saw in the whole two minutes I stood there was my own breath. I shut the door and relocked it. I went to the front door and repeated the process, hearing only silence.
I checked on the kids one more time, then reluctantly headed back to bed. As I pulled the covers over myself, I again heard the scream, just exactly as I'd heard it the first two times. Upright again and shaking even more, I was wide awake and glanced at the clock in case I would need to report the time to the police because certainly, they would need to be called soon. Somebody, somewhere was suffering something terrible.
I decided that before I went to investigate again, I would wake Kenny up. I wasn't about to head out into the darkest dark and coldest cold night all by myself. And anyway, he's way better at dealing with trauma than I am. As I inched nearer to him and was just about to shake his arm, I heard the scream again.
And that is when I realized that the horrific, high-pitched little girl or woman-scream was actually the sound of my husband's nighttime nose-whistle. Needless to say, I did not get much sleep after that.
