Falter?

It's always nice to settle into routine and just go with the flow of life - school, work, play, etc.  But of course things are bound to be shaken up at some point and new challenges will be offered up.  So just let me say, things are changing in Tahoe.

This last week I was the unlucky one in the family and came down with a nasty head cold that was bad enough that I had to shut down the Meals By Maggie kitchen on Thursday.  Initially I thought I just had a bad case of allergies as both Ben and Sam seemed to be suffering from the sniffles with no true cold symptoms.  But for whatever reason, my symptoms turned to aches, coughs, congestion, sniffles and an incredible headache.  I was pretty much out of commission for a full two days and still have what a girlfriend and I who are both fans of the old television series Friends fondly call the "Sexy Phoebe Phlegm Voice." 

By Friday afternoon I was feeling better and was even able to be the Mystery Reader at Ben's preschool for "I" week.  I read a very funny book called I Wanna Iguana and even put on one of the boys' dress-up capes and appeared as the "Incredible I" at the preschool.  Ben was excited to have me there and it brought back fond memories of my own days reading aloud to students in my own classroom.  

The "Incredible I" - photo taken by Ben.

The weather was also changing from cold and cloudy to cold and snowy.  By Saturday morning we had several inches of snow at lake level with closer to a foot at higher elevations and still it kept falling.  We all went outside on Saturday morning to shovel out what the plow missed at 5:00 A.M. (yes, a little too early for a girl who is not a morning person).  The boys both have kid-sized snow shovels and after a couple of years of "helping" Ben is actually getting pretty good at effectively moving the snow.  Sam is just now at the point of being able to push and lift the snow but his attention span is still too short to do much more than just have fun.  And Brian was pretty enthusiastic using his new toy - an electric powered snow shovel.  You might call it the middle child in a family with a regular snow shovel and a snow blower.  One of the things the boys noticed was the thick layer of leaves under the powdery snow.  This prompted Ben's observation that it's still Fall because winter doesn't start until December but why was it snowing in the fall?  We explained that storms come through Tahoe in the fall as well and this was kind of the start of our winter.  Ben was not happy with our explanation because he knew that it really wasn't winter yet.  We compromised and said if it was Fall but felt like Winter then maybe we should call it something else - Falter. 

Leaves under the snow - it's Falter!

The snow continued to fall throughout Saturday and into Sunday when we woke up to at least another 18 inches.  Brian and Ben cleaned out the driveway some more then we all loaded up in the car to make the drive over Mt. Rose to Reno for a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's.  The drive was not an easy one but with Brian behind the wheel we all felt safe.  The boys had a great time before we headed back up the mountain leaving the sun shining behind us in Reno and straight on into blowing snow in the basin.  We arrived home and settled in for some quiet time before going to our church for a potluck party to celebrate 20 years in our current building.  Despite the weather, there was a pretty good turn-out for the party and we all enjoyed some good food and good company.  Ben didn't eat much at dinner and we took it to mean that he'd rather be playing than eating and didn't think too much of it but encouraged him to fill up his belly because his next meal would be breakfast.  We arrived home well after the kids' normal bedtime and began the process of getting them settled in when suddenly Ben burst into tears and said his tummy hurt.  We had noticed that he'd had gas pains earlier in the weekend and thought this was more of the same.  As we were asking him what we could do for him he suddenly spewed a fountain of vomit across his bed and himself.  We cleaned him up and calmed everyone down and soon he was asleep.  The night progressed well with no more sickness and Ben woke just shy of 5:00 this morning and told me he'd had an accident in his underwear.  Again the clean-up process began and again he settled back to sleep until after 9:00 A.M. when he awoke again with messy unders.

Now it's nearly 10:30 and we have a couple of feet of snow outside with more forecast over the next day and a half.  Ben is snuggled in on the couch feeling sad that he won't get to go to school today.  And I am wondering if we are actually going to make it out of town for Thanksgiving with my family in Yreka.  I guess at this point only time will tell.