Out of the Mouth of Ains: Snow Daze Edition

Being home for a week with your kid, unable to even get out of your driveway for two of those days? Eh.

I love being with my child. I do. But being snowed in with a child is something completely different, and after about 12 hours it loses its charm.

On Monday night, with the storm arriving within hours, Ains and I made a run to the store. Not for milk, bread, and eggs like the rest of the tri-state area when the White Death approaches, but for real necessities: Ainsley's asthma prescriptions, beer, and entertainment.

If I don't already have a book I'm working on, I always pick up a book pre-snowstorm. I let Ainsley pick a book, too, and usually a coloring or activity book (or 10) so that an hour after the first flake falls I don't hear, "Mommy, I'm bored."

This time Ainsley picked out a High School Musical activity book. While we were waiting for one of her medicines to be refilled, she started taking a little quiz inside the book.

She held it up, grinning ear to ear.

"Mommy, I'm 30% ready to fall in love!"

Ummm....okay.

It was a little Cosmo-style quiz to gauge how close you are to being ready for a boyfriend. "30% Ready To Fall In Love!" was the lowest level available, and Ainsley learned after marking all A's on the quiz that that was her level.

I told her that she was 0% ready to fall in love and that that was something that would just have to wait until she was older. I explained that Troy and Gabriella, the HSM wonder couple, were juniors in high school when they first made ga-ga eyes at each other.

She actually looked relieved.

"So, I won't be 100% ready to fall in love until I'm a lot older. Probably 10 or 11."


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Ainsley became obsessed with our power going out. All of our local newscasters warned us in the non-stop storm coverage that we were going to have widespread power outages. I also made the mistake of telling her one night during tuck-in that if the power went out overnight I'd come get her and put her in bed with us; she has the coldest bedroom in the house even when the heat works fine. Thus I found myself reassuring Ains every time she started freaking out.

"Mommy, will our power go out?"

"Probably not."

Five minutes later...

"What do we do if the power goes out?"

"It probably won't."

Then on Wednesday morning the lights flickered and the TV went dark. Things got quiet as I held my breath and waited, hoping it was just a momentary loss. Alas, no luck.

I looked over at Ains. She shot me a look, and then looked down at her Barbies and continued playing. But as she looked down she mumbled under her breath,

"I told you the power was going to go out. I knew it was going to go out, and you just wouldn't listen."

Well. Consider me told.