Windchillin'

Well, the dastardly GI virus has chewed us up, spit us out and moved on. But the winter doldrums appear to be firmly entrenched. Finally got Hank back to preschool on Wednesday after what felt like an interminable absence. The three-year-old class at our local community center takes place three days a week, which works out to twelve days a month (or so). What with four sick days and two days off next week for MLK and the inauguration, we’re down to six measly days for January, which leaves poor old mama deprived of a considerable chunk of precious downtime. We are definitely not getting our $140 this month, I can tell you. There’s no such thing, by the way, as free preschool for the middle class in Virginia. My niece, who’s also three, goes 5 full days a week for free in DC. (Not that I’m quite ready to give him up full time just yet.) Here, we pay until kindergarten. Our well-regarded county-run program is a bargain compared to some of the other places around. But still, it hurts to cough it up every month, especially when your kid’s not even in class.

This winter is shaping up to be a bit of a drag I have to say. We’re in the middle of a major cold snap. Seventeen degrees feels pretty damn bitter to me, although I’m sure my readership in the upper Midwest is snickering right now. I should note that winter in the Virginia countryside does have a silver lining. I love to look out at our frozen pond with a little icing of snow. The muted hues and watery January light are lovely. The coziness of the kitchen. A down quilt and flannel sheets, etc.

None of this, of course, was in my mind on Friday as I undertook my first major outing with both kids in the new year. A routine trip to an indoor pool in a nearby town for swim lessons turned into a nightmare when the heat in my car wouldn’t come on. Most normal people would have turned right around when the check gages light came on, but I was hell bent on getting out of the house, and just kept driving and waiting for the heat to kick in. It didn’t, and after 20 minutes in the car, both kids were screaming as their little extremities started to freeze. I started to panic as we neared the rec center, and I started smelling smoke. By the time I hustled my little popsicles into the building, all three of us were in tears, and the kind staffers took care of us like refugees. I had to call Christian out of work, and he showed up with a good samaritan friend of his and some antifreeze. They managed to get us home (miraculously, with heat). The good news is that the problem is apparently related to the thermostat and should, God willing, be relatively easy and inexpensive to fix. And, while we were waiting to be rescued, Hank made it to swim class (a little late) and wound up getting a private lesson, as the cold had apparently deterred his fellow ducklings, those wimps.