I Got the Fever

Cabin fever, that is. Or would that be Blackrock fever? I don't live in a cabin, thank God, but even in our big-ass house, this winter is getting really old.

What's that? You're sick of hearing about the historically bad winter weather and those of us who are getting very tired of it? Yeah, well, we're sick of living with it, too, believe me. And if I say I have cabin fever, you can be assured that it's real bad around here, because I am the most extreme homebody you will ever meet. I do not like to leave our property pretty much ever. But with all this damn snow, the older kids don't want to go out to play because they can't go anywhere. They're stuck just wandering around on the semi-shoveled paths and the driveway that keep getting drifted over. It's boring.

So if they don't want to go outside, that means they are inside. With me. All day. ALL DAY.

It's ugly.

This is why I made the desperate decision this morning to go to the grocery store in the Small City. With all three children. So that's a forty-mile round trip in the car plus three kids to wrangle in a store, all to get some tortillas and milk. And this would be the first attempt to get through a store with all three children to manage.

It sounded like a good plan. This is how crazed I'm getting. We just had to leave the house. HAD TO.

I had A. start the minivan before he left for work so it would be all warmed up for our big adventure. And then he got stuck in our excessively long driveway, because he strayed too far to one side while backing down and ran into one of the enormous piles of snow that hem in the whole driveway. He shoveled himself out and advised me not to go anywhere.

I figured he was probably right, so we all settled down into the living room, where Cubby and Charlie immediately began fighting over a pencil or something equally insignificant, and I was all, "ALL RIGHT. EVERYONE PUT YOUR BOOTS ON; WE ARE OUT OF HERE."

I figured if we got stuck in the driveway, we could just walk back up to the house and at least we would have gotten out of the house for five minutes and had an adventure. In the five-degrees-with-wicked-wind cold. Hooray.

To my surprise, however, we did make it down the driveway and all the way to the grocery store, which was also navigated without any drama (this time). Then back in the car in possession of such thrilling items as bananas and cheese and back to our crazy driveway tunnel, which I once again managed to maneuver, despite slaloming the whole way and very nearly grinding to a complete stop halfway up.

And that was it. Our big outing. To the grocery store. But that was two hours during which I was not sitting in the chair in the bay window holding a baby and listening to Cubby and Charlie squabble over paper or whatever. It ain't exactly a cruise to the Bahamas, but it's the best I could do.