The Whole30 Starts Tomorrow

And this face is exactly how I feel about it

Also the skin around my eyes is pure tissue paper these days because I am the oldest ever,

And! I kind of feel like the world might end, so why should I spend what could be some of my last 30 days not eating sugar?  It's insane.

Don't worry, I will bitch about it all month long, so stay tuned.

Dorothy and I ran errands yesterday-- super exciting ones.  The grocery store for butter because I forgot to order it with the rest of the groceries.  The other grocery store to pick up the groceries I ordered.  Old Navy to exchange a pair of pants for Cooper that i have been meaning to exchange since DECEMBER. And the dollar store for more Valentine craft supplies.  It's GREAT to take little kids to the dollar store because they ask for treats and you can always say yes because everything is a dollar.

Example:  This $1 Trolls balloon totally made Dorothy's day:

hockey weekend in pictures

Poor Dorothy was feeling so under the weather after school on Friday that she finished her lunch and chirped that she was going to bed to take a nap, AND SHE DID.

 Then she woke up, "read" her favorite book, and went back to sleep

 Luckily, though, she rallied so that we could go to all of the stores in a 15-mile radius to find a fucking SLED because we are down to only 2, and there are 4 kids, and what a pain in the ass it is to try to do a family sledding event with 4 kids and 2 sleds.

Menards for the win.

 I gave the boys the super fun task of sorting through our huge change jar to pull out all the quarters in anticipation of a game room at our hockey tournament hotel.

 And then SLEDDING.

Saturday, we packed up the car and headed to Marshfield for a hockey tournament.  Super fun, and I really wanted to go because last year Dorothy and I sat the out of town tourneys out and Ben and the boys had a blast. And now that Ive gone, I will just say that Ben can go to Green Bay by himself next month.

The kids, though, have become excellent hockey spectators.

 With excellent hat head.

And they love a good skeezy hotel pool.

 Family slumber party.  Everyone asleep by 8:45, including us.  We were going to watch a move on HBO family, but Dorothy and Cooper thought the Sesame Street 2-minute spot before the move was the movie, and we totally went with it.

 They love a good skeezy hotel breakfast.

 The team Harry's team played in the semi-final was SO GOOD (because they are a AA team playing at an A/B tournament with his kind of weird).  But the game was closer than that scoreboard makes it seem (LOOK AT THE SHOTS ON GOAL DISPARITY).

 On the way home, we stopped at Chili's for lunch, and the kids loved it.  They asked why we had never eaten at such a wonderful place before.  We were like um because Chili's sucks, but then we got the check and it was only $38.  We can't even eat at Chipotle for $38, man.

Dorothy and I passed the time by taking a series of ridiculous selfies.

Best. Day. Ever.

I was TOTALLY dreading yesterday because, as you can see from the above shot of my planner, my time was basically mapped out from the moment my eyes opened until 8:00 when Harry's junior high open house (I KNOW!) ended.  And then I would still have to bring everyone home and put them to bed.  OMG.  It kind of gives me a stomach ache just to look at it.

But I did all my Tuesday night prep after I got home form seeing Split with a friend (it was scary and definitely worth a $5 Tuesday), and I went to bed pretty early to a gentle snowfall.

I woke up Wednesday morning at the prescribed 5:00 and got right on my elliptical, and about 3/4 way through my workout, I got a text that the big kids' school was closed due to hazardous weather.  I tore upstairs to check, and it didn't actually look very snowy (4-6 inches-ish?) but it was sleeting like mad, and the roads were a sheet of glass.

And then I did the happiest happy dance EVAR because all of our activities are tied the the school district, and they were ALL CANCELLED!  Preschool?  Closed when the district closes.  Dance class?  Gymnastics?  Tutoring?  Hockey?  Open house?  ALL CANCELLED.

It was my own little Wednesday miracle.

We stayed in our jammies all day.  All of the 10 year-old boys in the 'hod went to a friend's house for laser tag and lunch.  We went sledding at the school because no one has a broken arm anymore.  We built a snowman. I took a 2 hour nap when we all piled on the couch with pillows and blankets and snacks to watch Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.  It was basically the best day ever.

Tuesday night, I swung by the dollar store on my way home and got enough v-day craft supplies for all 4 kids for $9.  But then Harry was like NO WAY, JOSE.  So, he'll have to pick out some pre-made licensed character valentines later because he is obvs too cool.

 But everyone else loved them.

 Harry, pre hanging out with friends.  He was in that spot on the couch for at least an hour when he first woke up.

 Dorothy loves to sled so much now that she is all fixed.

 Pefrect snowball snow!

 They made me pull them all the way home in this sled.

 Jack learned the fine art of rolling huge snowballs.

 We baked, also.  And Dorothy ate her weight in cookie dough when my back was turned.

 Cooper got this really cool Star Wars art set for his birthday, and he finally opened it yesterday, which killed a pleasant 30 minutes.

 We even took another trip to the school for more sledding.

 I got Ben this microwave popcorn thing for Christmas, and it is AWESOME.

 Cooper also ate like a whole tube of Pringles.

 DIDN'T WE LOOK SO GLAM?

Harry made Oreo milkshakes, which I highly recommend as an pre-nap snack should you be luck enough to enjoy your own snow day.

And when Ben finally came home, I busted out the champagne because we survived!

Kids are never too young to learn about systems of oppression and word play, right?

Ben convinced me to dump my FB profile picture of me holding my patriarchy is for dicks sign, so I did, returning to the professionally photographed perfect little family picture I had before.  Ben always objected to the sign's vulgarity because the march was going to have children (but! not my children! I pointed out), but I loved it.  I had an Audre Lorde quote on the other side (Your Silence Will Not Protect You, it said in glitter letters, i's dotted with glitter heart stickers) because to me, the frivolous vulgarity of patriarchy is for dicks felt like I was dismantling the master's house with new tools, and I am almost never in public without my kids or as a non-mom person, so that felt empowering, too.

I read lots of criticisms, though, of cis white women with vulgar signs that reduced feminism to reproductive parts while women of color and trans women carried signs that meant something more.

I think the pussy signs and the pussy hats were a given, since POTUS copped to being a pussy-grabber and all, and the uterus signs were generally supporting Planned Parenthood, but what did the vulgar for vulgar's sake signs get us?

I don't know, but I do know that I love wordplay (dicks like jerks! and also dicks like penises!), and I think our patriarchal political system is a valid concern.  Also?  It was hard to encompass a complex march agenda on a simple sign, you know?

Nailed it!

 I shouldn't get too excited about being able to check "no yelling" off my morning to-do.  I mean, who in their right mind would yell at that little lump of adorable?

And the laundry check was a hard-earned one because I was trying to spin the same loa for 3 hours before I thought about googling what the hell an "nd" flashing on the screen meant.  It means no drain, FYI.  Because all of this shit was in the drain:

And you know why most people probably put their front-loading washers on pedestals? Because they let out a ton of water when you clean the drain, which is something I might know if I had ever cleaned it in 4 years.  (see above).

Ben's a great house cleaning partner. There, I said it.

This is the only picture I took today.  It's of the creepy stuff  that Dorothy was cooking up in her kitchen:

Ben took all of the kids to the Wisconsin Dells for Harry's hockey game (Harry followed up yesterday's hat trick and 2 assists with a goal and an assist-- it was a good weekend, and his team won 2 out of 3), and I stayed home to clean the entire house.

Usually on the weekend, Ben cleans the boys' room, the toy room, and the family room, and I clean the whole upstairs, plus the downstairs bathroom.  And I feel really put upon and think that Ben's work is so much easier than mine even though he usually has all 4 kids crawling all over him while he works. But today, it took me 2 and a half hours --working straight through with no interruptions-- to clean the basement.  Yikes.  He's a great partner after all.

And then we watched the Packers game with friends and Harry almost got totally beat up because he wanted the Packers to lose which in Wisconsin IS NOT FUNNY.  Not funny at all.

I am going to try to have the best Monday morning EVAR (no yelling, cinnamon rolls for breakfast, everything laid out the night before)-- wish me luck!

MARCH and also a hotel pool

 Dorothy has been SLAYING the fashion choices lately.

I knew that I would not be able to deal with the Inauguration and ANY OF THE NEWS yesterday, and the kids only had a half day at school, so we decided to take them to a local hotel with a fun but totally low-parent-maintenance pool.

NAILED IT.

Everyone was happy.  Early dismissal was not a slog.  I didn't have to clean up dinner because the kids ate it under the covers of a hotel bed, and I saw NOTHING until everyone was asleep when I could watch the balls, which I always love.  Also, POTUS is an endearingly bad dancer, and Pence can really cut a rug in his Men's Wearhouse tux.

But really, the pool idea was genius.

There was this funny little water feature with a pump that cased an "explosion."  It was an early fave.

 As was the hot tub, even though the chlorine fumes from the jets were so strong we all devloped barking coughs.

 Really it was the perfect size for the little kids, and Harry and Jack loved playing basketball, and we had the whole place to ourselves.

 I stopped at target on the way for junk food.

 And we adjourned to our room for pizza.

 And!  I was not the only person squeezing January's body into August's suit.

 LOOK AT THIS OUTFIT, tho.

 We bathed everyone at the hotel, but we didn't stay there.  Instead, we went back at dawn when the kids woke up (more like 6:45, but you get the idea).

 Ben went out for a healthy breakfast:

 And then he took everyone to hockey (Harry got a hat trick and 2 assists, which always happened when I am not there) and I loaded up the minivan and went to the women's march, which was amazing.

My town only has 250,000 residents, and our lying liberal media is telling us that 100,000 of us were marching today at the capitol. There were kids and dads and so, so, so many moms. My favorite was the Forward! Marching Band that played traditional songs and also No Diggity and We Are Family and caused spontaneous dance parties up and down State Street. But! I also loved the chants, especially "Tell me what democracy looks like/ This is what democracy looks like" and "Walker still sucks, too." I cried from the joy of it all and posed for lots of pics for people who loved my vulgar sign. Stay woke, friends.

LOOK AT ALL THE PEOPLE!

 I love this mall!  When the weather isn't horrible, I walk across it almost every time I go to campus.  there are usually food trucks here, and there are a bunch of coffee shops just a stone's throw away, and it's where we saw President Obama in 2010.  It's been one of my favorite places for 13 years, and today it was overflowing with pink hats and clever signs and audacious hope.

 Gorgeous, huh?

 A wall of bodies stretched from Bascom Hill to the Capitol, and we enjoyed every slow step along the way.

 These butterfly-winged stilt walkers are RIGHT!

 The most Madison thing EVAR, the Forward! Marching Band.  They restored my faith in humanity.  I even saw my dissertation adviser dancing in the street.

 I HAD SO MUCH FUN!

 More pool:

 Ben and the Prius and all the kids also had to do all of the errands.  He's the best.