I can't handle all this excitement

Last night we sent the girls down to clean the playroom. It's something that pretty much always needs to be done. After a while Natalie burst upstairs, FREAKING OUT. I have never seen her like that. "This is so BAD! I'm going to be in TROUBLE! I don't think we can get it out! I don't want to tell you!"

What on earth is going on???

"There's a bead UP MY NOSE." I took her in the bathroom and peered up her nostril, thinking I'd just grab a tweezers and pull that puppy out, and it was so far up I couldn't even see it. Ella started running around upstairs with her hands on her head "I AM SO WORRIED!" I took Ella downstairs to show me what the bead looked like. Meanwhile, Natalie, who thought she was going to throw up, ended up blowing the bead out her nose into the toilet. Apparently my strange children had poured plastic beads all over the floor and were sticking their faces in them, until Natalie inhaled one. Good times.

Today Natalie stayed home from school, unrelated to the bead. She's had a cold or allergies that's making her cough every 15 seconds. The sun finally came out today, so we opened up all the blinds. When she walked past a window, I saw her scalp looked dark. I took a closer look, and it was purple. It looked like a horrible dark bruise or something. Or like when you wrap something around your finger and it loses circulation. I asked her if her head hurt or was itchy. She said both. So I put Zoey down and headed to webmd to prepare myself for the call to the nurses. I was about to pull up the articles on psoriasis and some kind of sarcoma and then some other things I'd never heard of but sounded very scary, when Natalie came wandering in the room.

"I think I know why my head is purple."

"Really? Why?"

"It's sand."

"What?"

"It's sand."

"Wait, do you have purple sand at school?"

"Yes."

"And it got in your HAIR?"

"I think so. I told S. not to throw it, but she still did."

So I checked her head again, and sure enough. It wipes off. Because it's sand.

Can you imagine where this story almost went? I almost called a nurse hotline and told them my child had a purple, bruised looking scalp. At which point they would, no doubt, have told me to head straight to the ER, DO NOT PASS GO. Where a doctor would have looked at her head, and said, "She has colored sand in her hair. I prescribe a SHOWER for her problem."

And then I would have actually died from embarrassment. But at least I'd already be in the ER.

The snow has hit the fan.

Last Thursday it was 55 degrees. The snow was melting to where I could see patches of grass. Whole yards in some places. I was getting my moldy allergy on.

Yesterday when I woke up, I could still see the grass. Then we went to church. And on our way home we drove through 6 inches of snow. Church wasn't THAT long. It spent the rest of the day doing a winter mix of snow and sleet. Not the pretty, fluffy, snowglobe looking snow. Hard snow. That pelts you in the face and stings something fierce. This was the kind of day that would have shut down the entire south for days. But here, nothing was canceled. Still had to go out to swimming lessons in the afternoon. School was still on time today. I still needed Diet Coke at Target. Life moves on.

I am looking so very hard for silver lining today. I have come up with this:

1. The kids weren't cooped up with me for yet another day after having 1 1/2 days off last week for teacher inservice.

2. My allergies went away when everything froze again.

3. I won't have to go to the mailbox since it's Presidents' Day.

And that's what I've got. February is never my best month. Every year I say, "I'm going to take a trip to somewhere warm next February." And then I forget about it. Until it's February. And too late to schedule a trip. Thankfully, there is only one week left of Stupid February.

March? I've got news for you. You'd best not try bringing snowy back, because I have no interest in it.

Hey reader.

I'm just assuming there's probably just one of you left by now. And it's probably my sister (who knows what I've been up to anyway). I was going to tell you that I was taking a little bloggy sabbatical, but that's probably obvious since I haven't posted in nearly a month. Funny, one of my resolutions was blog more.

I've had plenty of ideas swimming around. Loads of half-written posts in my head. But when I sit down to actually write them nothing happens. I guess everything seems a little silly.

Perhaps after a few more days of my mood lifting with the mercury, I'll be back. Not that it will be better or interesting, but if you happen to drop by Ye Olde Blog, there might actually be something here.

I'll leave you with the latest kid story. Today the girls begged for cold lunch. "Can we PLEASE have lunch boxes??" So I made them some lunch, and for an extra loving touch I put little notes in. Isn't that fun? Won't they feel loved?

After school I said, "Did anybody have anything interesting in their lunch?" Ella said, "I did. A note from you..." {insert me waiting for sweet response} "...that was embarrassing. Other moms don't put notes in their kids' lunches. But it's ok...at least nobody saw it."

Yes. Well. At least nobody saw it.