A Snow Day with a Toddler is not All It’s Cracked up to be.

Oh, it’s been a rough day.  First, we woke up to no school, which meant no preschool.  Well, duh.  It snowed 18 inches last night.  But then!  Charles woke up mashing his fingers into his mouth in a desperate effort to alleviate the pain of teething molars, so I knew it was going to be a good day.

 

I decided to make a puffed oven pancake.  If you don’t know what this is, well, let me just say that the buttery, eggy goodness of it has been the bright point in my day.  It’s also called a dutch baby, and I have my own recipe… probably adapted from the ones in Joy of Cooking (the old version, as it isn’t in my new version at all) and the Better Homes & Gardens red-and-white checked cookbook (you know the one – we all have it):

 

Place 1/4 cup butter in a 9x9 glass baking pan and stick it in the oven while it is preheating to 400 degrees.

 

Mix the following in a big bowl:

1 cup milk

1 cup flour

1/2 cup white sugar

4 eggs

1/4 teaspoon salt

 

When the oven is done preheating, pour the mixture over the melted butter and bake the mess for 25 minutes. 

 

Breakfast time was okay, actually, with a minimum of tears.  But then Leland called and we went from “lazy day at home” to “4WD chauffeur” in an instant.  Which then required a quick shower, dressing, and backing the car out of the garage.

 

I understand that most mothers have days they wish they could redo.  This was one of them.  Not that I got upset or shouted or went crazy or anything, but just that nothing went smoothly at all.  Charles didn’t want to wear clothes.  Then he did, but he changed his mind five times about which shirt to wear.  He refused to brush his teeth, but as soon as I took the toothbrush back to the bathroom, he wailed for it.  It took multiple time outs for him to allow me to put his diaper and pants back on after he decided, again, not to wear pants.

 

We got to work and the mood was sour.  After all, our productivity looked to be shot for the day.  I started packing orders, which makes my hips sore, while Charles watched YouTube videos of Thomas the Train in my office.  We went home to have lunch and he wanted mac n cheese, then he didn’t.  Then he ate it and left the table to play with books, but he didn’t want me to put the leftovers away.  He did help me to vacuum by following me and the big vacuum around with his little one, so that kept us all occupied for 30 minutes or so.  Then he didn’t want to nap, but I desperately needed one.  So I laid down and shut my bedroom door, and Charles fiddled with my makeup and underwear drawers for an hour.  Then we watched Beauty and the Beast.  Then I thought we should go outside to play before going back to the office to pick up Leland and make the postal and bank trips, but Charles got halfway into his snow pants and threw the kind of fit that just deflates me.  I can’t deal with it in any way that seems constructive.

 

I changed out of my snowpants (and by “my” I mean “Tony’s,” as there’s no way mine would fit right now) and scooped up screaming Charles and strapped him into the car and we went to run our errands.  We weren’t even out of our driveway before he was asleep.  He is still in the car.

 

I am exhausted.  Tony’s working late.  But!  But, Leland just got here (a neighbor dug his car out) and we are going to make pizza and salad.  Perhaps things will be getting better soon.