Friday already

It's been a super short week at school thanks to Winter Storm Jonas. It's already Friday.  The boy's school is having a pizza party, courtesy of a birthday girl's family.  Of course, my son doesn't eat pizza because he hates all things that have sauce on them.  So, I still packed him a lunch even though free pizza is being provided...for the entire school...

Have I mentioned that the boy is OBSESSED with Star Wars? All Nerf guns have become laser blasters and anything swordlike is now a light saber. Darth Vader and Boba Fett are his favorite characters, although he also likes to pull his hood of his sweatshirt up and pretend to be Emperor Palpatine. He even has fingers that shoot lightning. Apparently, the dark side of the force is strong with this one.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Surviving a Blizzard

Jonas has come and gone, leaving over two feet of snow in its wake. Luckily, we never lost power, even though the winds got pretty fierce. We were snowed in for three days though. Three long days, unable to go outside, everything within walking distance of our house closed.

Once the roads were plowed-ish, we could finally go to the grocery store. Getting out of the house was a wonderful experience. While retail locations began to re-open their doors, schools remained closed.  The side streets were (and still are in a few places) unsafe if you're traveling at the posted speed. The snow is melting during the hottest parts of the day, and refreezing into lovely little death traps known as black ice.

It was a slippery excursion to school this morning, but we made it safely. I think everyone at my house is relieved that school has resumed. The boy gets to see his friends and Mama gets a quiet house for a few hours. My husband even lingered at home for a bit after the boy and I left for school, just enjoying the silence.

Being locked inside for days because of the snow is no joke. Irritation is quick to spread and attitudes go from fun to cranky in 0.2 seconds.

While I love the snow, I'd much prefer it in smaller doses, spread throughout the winter, instead of a winter's worth of snow in one weekend. Think we can work on that, Mother Nature? Great, thanks.

Peanut butter jelly time!

The boy recently discovered a new youtube channel. The kid that makes the videos play a game called Roblox. We do not own this game, though the boy has asked for it more than once. It looks Minecrafty in the videos.

I'm unsure exactly how it happens, but randomly, the peanut butter jelly song will come on. The boy thinks the dancing bananas are hilarious. I have flashbacks to when my brother in law made me listen to that song on repeat.

As I made the boy a peanut butter and jelly sandwich this morning, I knew what doodle had to be drawn today.

For those of you that ow have the song stuck in your head, you're welcome. For those of you lucky enough to be unfamiliar with it, save yourselves from the exposure. It's not worth it.

We may or may not have a doodle tomorrow. With what appears to be a blizzard rolling in, I'm unsure whether the boy will have a full day of school or any school at all. Winter is such a fun guessing game.

The birds know what's up

In case you hadn't heard, they're predicting another snowmageddon for the east coast this weekend. Yes, I did just resurrect that terrible buzzword. We're still in the 24 inch range last time I checked. So, naturally, I bought the boy a sled today. They called for snow flurries today, and we've got nearly an inch so far. It's still snowing as I type this. It makes me hope they haven't underestimated the snow totals for this weekend. 

Winter and snow have been on our minds a lot this week, so today's doodle is about that. It also revives the mom joke. It's been a while since I sent the boy to school with a lame joke.

My apologies for the blurriness. It says, 'Why do birds fly south for the winter? Because it's too far to walk.' Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk

The birds have a good thing going. They enjoy the cooler temps of the north in the summer, and then fly south to stay warm in the winter. While snow is lovely, I envy the birds for their sunny escape right now.

The weather outside is frightful

Somehow, this past weekend, winter realized it had been dragging its feet and showed up with a vengeance. Hey, friends, sorry I'm late! Here's that windchill you've been missing. Oh, and I brought a little snow."

It got seriously cold very quickly. Woke up this morning to a windchill of -10 degrees. They're forecasting two feet of snow this weekend. Thanks, Winter, for making up for the lost time.

Finding the motivation to get the boy ready for school this morning was difficult. I knew how unpleasant it was going to be once we got outside, and, honestly, I didn't want to go out there. The things we do for the love of our children.

I tried to find a silver lining in this frigid weather. This was all I could come up with. Brrr.

Missed Thursday Too

It seems I'm struggling to get back in the daily blogging saddle. I'm determined to do better next week. Seriously.

The boy has been waiting for this day for months. For Christmas this year, we booked a weekend at The Great Wolf Lodge for the entire family. I've been asked at least four times a week if we were going to the Wolf Lodge. It was such a relief to finally be able to tell him we were.

Because it's a bit of a hike form our place to the lodge, the boy only had a half day of school today. That means no lunch at school, so no doodle today.  Here's the one from yesterday.

This little guy's name is Wiley, and I almost managed to make him look like the wolf he is. He was the boy's reminder that there was only one sleep left until our trip.  

And now we're here. And he's actually still awake, even though it's ridiculously late, because he's so wound up and excited that he still can't sleep. I'm off to see if I can get him to sit in one position long enough for his exhaustion to catch up with him.

Whoops, Wednesday

So, I thought I posted yesterday's doodle, but apparently, didn't.

They were calling for a bit of snow here yesterday, not enough to accumulate, but enough to get the boy excited and make it finally feel like winter. I decided to celebrate the impending flurries with a doodle.

Of course, we ended up getting zero flakes of snow here, but we did get a wind advisory as a consolation prize. Hooray for rattling windows and gusts of wind that make is sound like banshees are patrolling the air outside of your house. 

So, we wake up to ridiculously cold temperatures this morning, thanks to said banshee wind. I think our high today is supposed to be a balmy 28 degrees. Naturally, there isn't a cloud in the sky, so snow will not be happening today either.

We will be going to soccer this afternoon. Thankfully, class is held inside, so I won't have to bundle up and bring a space heater to watch the boy run around with the ball.

Today's doodle combines the fact that we have soccer practice this afternoon, and a flashback to Saturday, when we took the boy to meet the zoo's newest panda, Bei Bei. It was just a ball of fluff sleeping in a box, but it was an adorable ball of fluff, and so tiny! I hope to take the boy back to see the pandas another day. Maybe they'll all be awake and more playful.

I found this image via a google search and thought it was perfect for today. The color scheme alone proves that pandas and soccer balls are meant to be together.

And we're back!

It feels like the boy has been out of school for an eternity, when really it has only been two and a half weeks. First the holiday, and then a cold that just wouldn't quit. He still has a bit of a cough, but it no longer sounds like a lung is coming up, so he's made major progress.

I sent him back to school this morning after struggling to resume our old routine. We've become spoiled with late night television binges and subsequent late mornings. Our show of choice at the moment is Nickelodeon's Avatar series. It is likely that this is my favorite animated series of all time. If you've never seen it, please do yourself a favor and get watching! It's available to stream for free if you have an Amazon Prime account.

I figured I would send the boy back to school with a familiar face.

Meet Aang, the most adorable air bender ever.

Even the avatar was happy to see the boy go back to school today. It's so wonderful to have him feeling like himself again!

Extended vacation

The boy was supposed to return to school on Monday, so of course he caught a cold and has been home with me all week, receiving nebulizer treatments every four hours like clockwork.

While I haven't been doodling for lunches, I have drawn a few characters for the boy.  His recent favorite activity is to dictate stories to me. I write them down and we staple them between two pieces of construction paper to make a cover. For his latest story, I asked him what his characters look like, and he gave me very detailed descriptions of both. I drew them and colored them in to his specifications. He was pleased with the outcome, so I assume the characters look something like those he imagined.

These are the boy specifications about what the characters should look like.

These are the drawings he got. They aren't wearing slippers because I couldn't figure out how to make slippers work without making their feet comically large.

Our very professional cover.

The boy wrote the first line and decided it was too difficult and asked me to finish the rest. His words read: Once upon a time a

The boy doesn't like for the text to all be the same color. He lets me know when it's time to switch to a new one.

El fin.

This may be my favorite activity to do with him. My next step is figuring out a way to laminate and bind them so they'll survive for longer than a week in the hands of a very active four year old boy.