I’ve been amused all day today as I watched friends and acquaintances who live in MD upload “Snow Day” pictures onto their Facebook accounts.  All of these pictures feature a thin layer of snow punctuated by giddy schoolchildren eager to wear their overpriced snowsuits for the first (and likely last) time in 2009.  

I cannot pretend that I am impervious to the cold (as most native Vermonters would have you believe of themselves), because I spent my entire childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood in the mid-Atlantic.  When I moved to Vermont 7 years ago, I did not know what a frost heave was, and I was horrified to find out that owning two sets of car tires (one for winter and one for summer) was commonplace.  Since moving here, I too have become one of those crazy people who has walked to work in a pair of snowshoes.  Generally speaking, I don’t mind the cold nor do I mind the snow.  The darkness that descends on us in November, December, and January can be trying, but by February it is no longer pitch black at 4PM.  That said, this is the first year where I really NEED the sun to shine longer and the temperature to be just 10-15 degrees higher.  Holden goes through periods of boredom during the day where diversion is welcome.  Today it was 12 degrees out—too cold for a walk.  It’s not worth it to put him into the car and go to the mall.  One of the great things about Vermont is that it does not have malls quite like the mid-Atlantic.  In Vermont, you can walk the entire length of a mall in 5 minutes.  This is a great thing—but when it’s 12 degrees out I wouldn’t mind having something like Towson Town Center around so I could kill a few hours effortlessly.

Thus, our day was spent solely indoors.  I tried to read H a story first thing this morning, but he insisted on turning the pages at his own pace and then insisted on holding the book himself, and finally insisted on chewing on it.  Somehow in the process, he managed to shut his finger between two of the mighty cardboard pages, which elicited panic and crying.  The rest of the day was frought with noncommital whining.  Holden doesn’t like to be on his belly, so he rolls onto his back.  But then he can’t get up.  So he whines.  If I put him in a sitting position, he promptly gets onto his belly, realizes (again) that being in this position affords him nothing but misery, rolls over, whines, repeat ad nauseum for hours.  I tried picking him up, cuddling with him, walking him around the house, going from window to window and describing the view from each:  “From this vantage point, you can clearly see the heaps of snow demarcating the westerly-facing portion of this parcel of land, our home.  From the other vantage point in your bedroom, the Budweiser can that props our neighbor’s window open is being obscured by falling snow.”  This is the dialogue to which Holden is exposed, hour after hour, until I finally sigh and look at him with desperation:  “What do you want?!”  

I finally resorted to just leaving him on the floor for a moment.  I let him fuss for a minute, and then he promptly busied himself with rolling around, drooling on my yoga mat, and to my horror, discovering both my knitting needles and a lighter in quick succession.  

Somehow through all of this, I have managed to re-submit a manuscript and actually work on my job talk.  With the acrid aftertaste of coffee in my mouth, yesterday’s pajamas, and the throbbing pain of another sinus headache, I am managing to get through my work, a little bit at a time.  I feel energized just by thinking about running experiments and teaching again.  I also feel that if I can make progress, piecemeal—in between feedings and pumping, playing and bathing—that I can really do this right if I have an office with a real desk, chair, and paycheck.  Our little condo is shrinking by the day.  I have literally thousands of articles in banker’s boxes in our basement—I keep a rotating stack of articles in our living room, along with my laptop balanced precariously on the ottoman.  My stacks of papers and notes are nomadic, inhabiting different, increasingly remote regions of our living room as Holden becomes more and more mobile.  Our living room is office, playroom, library, exercise room, movie-watching and music-listening room, and kitty litterbox room all rolled into one.  In order to do any one activity, things must be moved and put into another, temporary place.  It drives me crazy, the amount of time I spend moving things, only to move them again soon thereafter.

In another few weeks, it will be spring.  Mud Season will be upon us.  I can take Holden out for walks in the 40 degree weather.  We just need to make sure we don’t track in too much dirt while we’re out.