Snow Day, Plan B

Today's activity was supposed to be "Play in the Deadly Historic Blizzard", but it turned out to be waaaaaay windier and colder than the romanticized snowflake adventure zone I had imagined us romping in.  Instead of the foot of powder I was anticipating, today's blizzard brought thousand mile per hour winds carrying clouds of snow dust, gravel, chunks of sidewalk and the occasional wayward chihuahua.  I wasn't going to spend a half hour wrestling kids into boots and snowsuits, just to have them blow away with the neighbor's dog.

To make things worse, my second cup of morning coffee, while delicious, had the sudden, urgent, and unexpected effect of sending me racing to the bathroom, leaving the kids unsupervised for a few moments.  The girls took advantage by opening the fridge and dumping out a jar of mulled wine that had been recently given to us, the bulk of it flowing safely under the refrigerator.  Powerless and unable to see from the bathroom, I was forced to visualize the situation through Sam's cryptic narration: "Sisters...what have you done?!  You dumped out a bunch of beans and now Daddy is going to have to clean it all up with a cloth!" This did not prepare me for the actual non-bean-related scene I would encounter:

I think those "beans" are raisins

With our planned Tuesday activity postponed for a gentler historic blizzard, we had to turn to "plan B".  Here are a few of the activities we tried:

Plan B(a): Giant Bubble Wrap

At first mention, "Giant Bubble Wrap" sounds like something regular-fun that becomes really-super-fun through elargement, similar to  Pee Wee Herman's Giant Underpants.  In this case, however, I was just using that term in place of "radiant-heat thermal underlayment" in a Tom Sawyerish attempt to motivate my kids to help me with my work and think they were having fun. 

As I got ready to work, I noticed a reddish wet spot on the concrete floor.  Closer inspection revealed that the mulled wine puddle under our fridge had found its way through the floor boards and was dripping onto the water heater like some sort of Chinese wine torture.  Perfect.

Sam was content for several minutes attempting to bore holes in the brick wall with a phillips screwdriver bit in my cordless drill.  The girls found some forgotten, dirty toys to fight over.  The kids had some fun rolling on and over the giant bubble wrap as I worked, but I scrapped the project in less than a half hour.  The girls had stripped off their boots, sweatshirts, and snowpants, and were crying.   Sam was bored, and I wasn't getting any work done.  

Nice try, Daddie.  The "work with me" idea worked badly enough that I'm beginning to wonder if biographer Mark Twain may have fictionalized portions of Tom Sawyer's fence-whitewashing incident.

Plan B(b): Finger Paint

We finger painted.  

Sam finger painted with brushes and insisted I wash his hands when they got paint on them, so I don't know what you call that.  

Iris painted in her coat, which made her look kind of like the Ally Sheedy character from The Breakfast Club.  

The kids were prolific in their work and I'm hopeful we'll be able to chop some of the pieces down for use as Christmas thank-you notes.

Plan B(c): Couch Fort 

Making a Couch Fort is a standard part of every day at our house, and as such doesn't warrant much mention here.  I mostly included this to showcase Iris' no-pants, no-shirt, winter coat with flats outfit.  It's like the racier, pantsless Ally Sheedy character they didn't dare script in an 80's movie.  This was one of five distinctly different outfits that Iris sported today.

Fun Rating: 7 out of 10.  Not bad for plans B a through c.  Thank goodness I pulled the plug on the bubble wrap thing.  We'll do our snow games another day.

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