Tails of a Working Mom: Brr! It's Cold In Here!

It’s been pretty cold outside the last couple weeks. I’m talking freeze-any-exposed-skin-in-a-second cold. For those who don’t know me very well, let me clue you in on a little fact: I am not really a fan of winter. The only thing that makes the winter season bearable to me is all the holidays. I LOVE Christmas! But the cold and snow? Not so much. I love to look at snow, but I HATE driving in it. And I hate being cooped up inside all the time since it doesn’t take much for me to come down with a bad case of cabin fever and get ants in my pants. So when winter rolls around, I panic a little as I look toward all those cold days (and inevitable sick days) ahead.

Another thing I hate about winter is bundling up. It’s hard enough for me to remember to put on my coat and gloves; it is even harder to get the kids ready to go. In summer we can just rush out the door in whatever we are wearing, but this is not the case in winter. Winter requires hats, gloves, boots, coats, blankets, etc. And with children, this can be quite a process.

Take Tuesday for instance. We are running a bit late for daycare and work and I manage to get Frog Face in his coat, carseat, and then covered with a blanket. After wrestling those stupid baby socks back on his feet (why won’t they ever stay on?!) I get Goober in her coat. She has this thing with her hat and mittens lately and LOVES to wear her hat and mittens, which for the most part is good. We head out the back door to our detached garage and I lock both the house and the garage behind me. I get both kids in the car and strapped in when I hear the dreaded “Mommy! My hat!”.

We had forgotten her hat.

Her coat has a nice warm hood but apparently this isn’t good enough. I am a bit flattered though because the hat she loves so much is one I crocheted for her. But we are already running late and all the doors are locked and we are strapped in the car. I’m not going to unstrap her, lug the huge baby car seat back into the house through the freezing cold just to get her cat. I explain in a calm and patient voice that we will get it tonight.

This apparently is not acceptable.

Goober turns on the drama queen switch and proceeds to cry the entire way to daycare. When we get to daycare, she refuses to get out of the car and I finally wrestle her out onto the sidewalk, where she stands and cries. I get Frog Face out of the car and try to head to the building only to discover that Goober has gone all limp noodle and refuses to walk herself. So I end up practically dragging her into the building since I can’t carry her because of Frog Face. We drop Frog Face off in his room (Goober crying the whole time) and I pull her down a side hallway to hold her and talk to her and try and calm her down. No luck. So we head to her room and I end up having to leave her crying in the teacher’s lap.

Not the best way to start my day.

But apparently after she had her little melt down she did wonderfully the rest of the day.

Did I mention I don’t like winter? Of course, if it was summer, instead of a hat it probably would have been her sunglasses or something like that. She is three after all.

It occurs to me that my mentioning Goober meltdowns may portray her as a bad child. She is actually an amazingly loving little girl whom I adore. But like all children she has her good days and bad days. Today was a good day. She ate her dinner well and we played happily until bedtime. Daddy was a kitty and mommy was a puppy and when we made our sad animal noises she would give us kisses to make us feel better. She didn’t fight bedtime either, unlike her brother who has been fighting sleep tooth and nail the last two weeks or so. But that is a story for another post. I am just grateful they both slept well enough tonight that mommy got a bubble bath and is now enjoying a cup of hot tea on this cold winter night.