Cabin Fever is Real

I've tried to keep my posts positive and upbeat so you all don't worry about us, but I think I'm officially ready to be done with winter now. November was amazing, with snow and moderate temperatures everyday -- it was like the winter we all dreamed about as kids. And then there was December, with two frigid cold snaps, but we were busy enough with visitors to not really notice. January my parents were here so we didn't let the cold slow us down much. But now we are in week two of being stuck inside and we are all going more than a little bit nuts. I had been so excited to see a high of -11 in the forecast for Wednesday that I promised the boys that we would go outside and play. And then Wednesday came and it was windy! So even though it did get up to -11 the wind chill factor never got above -30. SO disappointing. So here we are, two days later, still dreaming of escaping this prison and enjoying some fresh air. On Monday we did get out to the shopping mall that has an indoor play area, but it wasn't without collecting frost on our eyelashes while waiting for the bus. On Tuesday I took the boys across the road to the indoor play area and on the way home I was wearing Lev on my back. We were waiting at the crosswalk when an older man came up to me and said something about Lev's nose; he proceeded to make some adjustments to his garb. When I got home I discovered he had covered Lev's entire face with his

scarf! So now I know the answer to my question: How many square millimeters of exposed flesh is acceptable? Zero!

Anyway, we shall survive. Certainly spring will arrive sometime in the next two or three months. Blah. Finn says "what should we do?" at least a dozen times a day. And so we build things with Legos, the boys take lots of bubble baths, and I collect snow from outside our windows to play with on the balcony. And we build forts with pillows and paint with watercolors, play lots of UNO and attempt to do kids yoga. Oh, and Lev is in this phase of wanting to kiss everything and everyone, so he frequently chases Finn around the apartment trying to give him a kiss. :-)