It is going to be a long winter!

Yesterday, the cold hit – and it hit with a vengeance. With wind chills approaching -18C, it was a chilly day. The sun was shining, but it was still one very cold day. With all four babes home yesterday, I realized just before 8am that getting them all dressed and to Kathleen’s school before the bell at 8:45am wasn’t going to be an easy task. So, I phoned my lovely neighbour, Mary from New Zealand to ask if she would walk Kathleen along with her son to school. In exchange, I would relieve her 4-year-old daughter from the fairly short, but slow walk to and from school. That was my smart point of the day!

I decided that as long as I started 30 minutes before the end of school, that I should be able to dress three kiddos and walk the short distance to school in time for pick-up at lunchtime. I was wrong. My well thought-out plan – sling Sean, push double buggy with Andrew and Deckie to save time – quickly evaporated when I realized that the poor double buggy frame was frozen shut (… after I left it out in the rain earlier this week). I wasted a lot of time with the buggy frame and so was now short on dressing time. First chill of the year – and nope, I hadn’t quite figured out where all the winter clothes components were in this house (I wouldn’t have known in the other house either – for the record). After a bit of running about, I had the troops dressed and out the door. All was well, until Andrew fell on the ice and began crying (fear, cold & anger – no damage). I stressed (because we were now late for the pick-up and hadn’t left the driveway), and he cried more. With a little bit of encouragement, we made it to school – Andrew walked, Deckie rode and lost his mittens and Sean was all tucked into my winter coat, all snug as a bug. Kathleen’s teacher is very accommodating because I am typically late and most parents at the playbround are very taken aback by the multiple offspring that I get a few extra free passes on my tardiness.

I then repeated the whole thing again for our skating on Friday afternoons. I thought I was so organized – scraped the ice from the car, packed all the skating gear in advance, laid out the winter clothes required for the trip to rink – I was organized. All but one factor – rain, ice, snow, and freezing temperatures – and the minivan doors freeze shut. You forget these small things after a warm summer. Neither side door opened on the darn minivan. You would think car manufacturers would have figured out this rather small (???) inconvenience. How the heck do you get kiddos into their car seats if the doors don’t open? I will admit squeezing the kiddos into their seats through the hatch really isn’t as hard as one may expect. Sean, still in his infant bucket (until tomorrow – he is too big now), was a bit more of a challenge squeezing him between the driver’s seat in the front. We did it and we were only 15 minutes late for our lesson. I will eventually learn.

I think Jim realized why my stress can peak easily – getting the four of them out of the house today challenges even the most balanced partners. At least, the minivan door and the double buggy frames were no longer frozen!