Here’s what I meant to do today: wake up, write a quick something for the blog, do the wake-ups and lunches and walk to the bus, write an article, work out, pick smallest kid up, and go to a meeting. Here’s where we are: snow day.
I should write something pithy now, but I’m completely stymied by a sense of panic at the productive day vanished and far from the embrace of the kids’ nearly spring gift of a nothing required day. There will be opportunities to play, for sure. It could be really loud here or really quiet. It’s not a huge deal, really. It’s just… disruption and even this many years into the life-with-kids experience I hold some hope out that routine is the norm.
Parenthood’s dirty little secret is probably that there is no norm.
This morning, though, I am grateful for the peek at white rooftops from the midnight blue sky lifting through purple and charcoal into whatever stormy hue it takes on. I don’t know if we’ll see the sun, but the reveal into morning on a snowy day is soft and pretty.
I’m grateful that I was awake and downstairs for the superintendent’s robocall. The interim had a much better phone voice; now that this guy is leaving two seconds after he arrived I hope the interim will return so we can all be soothed, even if falsely so—given the actual challenges our little city’s schools face right now. To that end, I wrote the City Council yesterday. Even small actions feel better than nothing at all. To see how engaged my teens and their peers are about the proposed cuts to the arts at the high school thrills me. Community engagement is a necessary life skill as far as I’m concerned; the school’s teachers and administration should be celebrating.
Poring over proposed budget cuts
Remy’s letter to Obama about gun control
Third, I am grateful to go through life with a truly lovely dear husband. You shouldn’t just say these things on anniversaries, you know. He’s interesting and smart and cute and finishes all the crossword puzzles and more than enough of the dishes.
Hillary made a statement in support of gay marriage. 2016 here she comes? My fingers and toes are crossed.
Catherine Newman wrote a blog post about her boy in the men’s bathroom that should make you mad while you laugh so hard you have to wipe away tears.
If you’re local and worried about the schools, here is how to reach the City Council. If you’re not and worried about anything, write a letter, call a Congressional rep’s office. Doing something feels better than feeling helpless.
