Notes from the First Day of Winter

What's that? The calendar says it's still fall? Yeah, well, tell the calendar to take a look out my window and shut up. Snow has been falling since about 9 a.m. It didn't start sticking until about an hour ago, though.

Before it started to stick, I loaded the children up in the van to go out to the local orchard to pick up A.'s buckets of apple cider. In the past, we've pressed our own cider that A. has subsequently turned into many gallons of hard cider. But there were no excess apples this year, so A. decided to just buy the sweet cider. He made me promise that I wouldn't lift the five-gallon buckets into the van myself*, lest I damage myself or the other human currently residing in my body. So I had the lady at the orchard carry the buckets to the van for me.

I also bought two ten-pound bags of apples. Cubby carried one. Charlie carried the other. I carried nothing.

Put 'em to work young, I say.

Tonight is the St. Martin's Day celebration at Cubby's preschool. I once again volunteered to bring meat--we eat a lot of meat, so I figured I might as well supply it--and once again, I happened to choose a roast that was all tied up with string. A beef roast this time, which I browned, stuck in a Dutch oven with onions, and left in the oven all day.

Way easier than baking something or peeling potatoes or whatever.

Around 4 p.m., I pulled the meat apart in lieu of slicing, since it had been in the oven so long it was falling apart anyway, doused it in storebought barbecue sauce and dumped it all back into the Dutch oven.

My name is Kristin, and I am a lazy potluck contributor.

But at least I managed to get the string off this time. I'm sure that will be appreciated.

* I didn't mention the fact that Charlie, who I must still lift and carry regularly, weighs a lot more than five gallons of cider. I'm okay with being weak if I can get away with it.

A.P.D.--The Bedtime Edition

Before we begin with today's frivolity, please go here to read the first post I ever did for Veterans Day and take a moment to remember what today is. 

And now, on with the show!

Have you seen this map of average bedtimes by county in the United States? It's fascinating. It is also, I suspect, skewed by the fact that the responses came from people wearing some super-techie activity tracker device that I had never heard of. This is pure conjecture, of course, but I would bet that people who are more into gadgets and technology stay up later.

But let's carry on with this discussion anyway, because I found the results shocking.

In case you don't want to read the whole thing (though you should), the most notable point is that the earliest average bedtime in the United States is 10:31 p.m. That's on Maui. Not that it makes a difference where it is, the point is that this is the earliest average.

Most other places are around 11:30 p.m. or midnight. My own county apparently averages 11:23 p.m.

I know this is not unusual. We don't personally know any adults here--our age or otherwise--who go to bed before 10 p.m. 

Except us.

A. and I are in bed every night by 9 p.m. Okay, maybe sometimes 9:15, but those are our late nights. Many nights, we're in bed before nine. We can't even blame it on the exhausting little humans who suck our energy, either, because we went to bed at nine before we had kids. I usually went to bed around nine when I was in college for God's sake.

According to this map, this makes us very, very weird.

But, as I mentioned, I have my doubts about the true representativeness of these numbers. So let me put it to you, my lovelies, for a totally unscientific but no less interesting survey: What time do you usually go to bed?

Cubby Shreds

This morning's filthy weather--the dreaded "wintry mix," which is pretty much the worst kind of winter weather--kept us inside all morning. This is always, always a nightmare with my two small mountain men. They do not relish indoor play. It turns them into the caged feral animals they are.

By 9:30 a.m., Cubby was acting and sounding exactly like Taz from Looney Tunes (not kidding--he's never seen Taz, but the resemblance is uncanny), and I realized drastic measures were in order.

So I broke out the 30-Day Shred DVD.

In my current semi-crippled state, I was not doing any shredding of my own, but Cubby was happy to jump around and do push-ups and windmill arms and whatever else. For about ten minutes, anyway. It was a short workout, but he did a lot of jumping. The entertainment value of a four-year-old attempting the coordinated movement of a jumping jack is significant.

Charlie assured me he was a big boy and could do jumping jacks, too. This was also amusing, though he didn't even attempt the arm movements.

That look of glee on Charlie's face was strangely absent from my own face when I was doing this workout myself.

They even found their own handweights.

Maybe Jillian Michaels wouldn't recommend using an electric screwdriver and a lantern flashlight, but whatever. Sometimes we have to make do.

I don't think they're going to do the whole thirty days, but at least it got us through ten minutes of this interminable day. I'll take it.

The Honest Truth . . . That You Will Never Hear

In response to the "How are you feeling?" question directed at an obviously pregnant woman, the pregnant woman always says "Fine," or "Good."

That's a lie*.

The truth is ugly. The truth is little sleep and exhaustion and carpal tunnel in the hands and plantar fasciitis in the feet and back pain and aches in all the muscles and panting from walking upstairs and feelings of suffocation when forced to bend over.

But who wants to hear that? No one. And who wants to say it? Not me.

So how am I feeling? Fine. Thanks for asking.

* So is the conventional response of, "Well, you look great!" but the social niceties must be observed.

Pathetic Even for Me

I have admitted more than once that holidays aren't really my thing. I seem to do better with the day-to-day than with the special occasion stuff. But this Halloween might have been a new low even for me.

Wednesday was the day that Cubby went trick-or-treating with his preschool at the village businesses. Also the day that the library story hour was dedicated to Halloween. So that was costume day for us.

Cubby decided about three days before Halloween that he wanted to be an astronaut. Very luckily, the astronaut suit from last year that my mom randomly sent still fit him. Cool. Cubby's done.

Charlie . . . well. My plan was to put overalls on him, plus our explorer's helmet, plaid shirt, rubber boots, and gold panning pan to sort of look like a forty-niner. Charlie wouldn't wear the overalls (he's had an aversion to them pretty much from birth that I guess has not abated). The helmet has gotten cracked and wouldn't stay on. He didn't want to hold the pan. So he was dressed in jeans, a plaid shirt, and rubber boots.

So Charlie was . . . Charlie for Halloween. Whatever.

I also forgot the camera that day, so there are no pictures.

Also also that day, Cubby brought me one of the volunteer pumpkins from the garden and asked me to make a jack-o'-lantern. Turns out, those volunteers had such a rock-hard skin, there was no way a knife could cut it. And that's a no on the jack-o'-lantern.

You can see that pretty much everything I touched turned to fail for this Halloween.

However. Thursday when Charlie and I went to the Mennonite farm to buy eggs, I also found they were selling pumpkins. So for two bucks I got a jack-o'-lantern pumpkin that we carved yesterday.

I even got a picture of the children cleaning out the interior. Thrilling.

And then this morning Cubby decided to put his suit back on to play astronaut, so I got a day-after-Halloween costume photo.

Cubby as astronaut and Charlie as . . . Charlie. Doing this thing he does when I ask him to smile for a picture.

Maybe I'll do better next year. But I wouldn't bet on it.

I Never Would Have Made It To Oregon

I recently finished a very interesting book called Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey, by Lillian Schlissel. It's a somewhat scholarly book based on--you may have guessed this--the many diaries kept by women who were on their way west in wagons.

It's a really good book, especially if, like me, you've always been fascinated by pioneers, but what really struck me was how many of the women on these awful journeys were pregnant and/or had very young children. And what's even more amazing in the case of the pregnant women is that they didn't even mention it in their diaries--their personal diaries!--until they delivered the babies. In one case, the woman had something like seven children and delivered her eighth three days after arriving at their stopping place. After a particularly grueling end of the journey that required her to walk up a slippery, wet mountain trail while carrying her toddler.

Also amazing is that the diaries aren't continuous bitch-fests. You know mine would have been. Not whiners, those women.

So I shall restrain myself from whining too much about all the frantic Halloween activity yesterday morning with Cubby and Charlie and story hours and trick-or-treating and preschool parties and OH MY GOD so much sugar. I just won't. Because I'm pretty sure the covered-wagon women wouldn't have much sympathy.

Good Thing I Got All That Churchin'

I am, like so many others, a lapsed Catholic. But before I lapsed, I was really Catholic. Youth groups, retreat leader, religious education instructor, all that good stuff. None of that now, however, which means that Cubby's religious education has come solely from the MiL and the times he deigns to go to church with her.

But it sure is handy I have that background, otherwise I would have had a hard time figuring this one out:

Cubby: Mom! Charlie can say, "Glory to goddis."

Me: What?

Cubby: Glory to goddis!

Charlie: Gory to godith!

Me: Wait, what? (Totally sounded like " blahblah goddess," but I was pretty sure that's one of the few words Cubby doesn't know.)

Cubby: GLORY TO GODDIS.

Me: Ohhhhh, glory to God in the highest?

Cubby: Yes!

Me: Yeah, that's actually glory. to. God. in. the. highest. "Highest" like high up there.

Cubby: Oh.

Me: And peace to His people on Earth.

Cubby: Yeah.

Amen.