Waving the White Flag, As If You Could See It in All This Snow

This weekend, while struggling through an unshoveled stretch of sidewalk, my 3-year-old just lost it.

"Winter is horrible!" she said. "I want to throw this month in the garbage."

Tell me about it, kid. This is my second winter as a mom in Chicago, and last year at this time I gave birth, which kind of staved off the JanuFeb cabin fever doldrums.

But this year, oh, this year. The kid sicknesses, including three cases of pneumonia and one hospitalization among two kids. The crazy, crabby way my daughter behaves while taking antibiotics. The alternating severe cold, severe overcast and piling precipitation. They've all conspired to make me something I swore I'd never be as a SAHM: a near shut-in.

And when I get cabin fever, I make crazy decisions. Like today. Despite the fact that it snowed enough over the weekend that I was able to reach out my bedroom window last night and make a sizable snowball from the accumulation on our porch roof, I decided to take the stroller to the grocery store.

Sure, I knew that some people would not have shoveled, leaving me to mush on through. So I brought my tougher stroller and my waterproof shoes.

What I didn't count on was the warmth of the day, and the way it turned all that new snow into wet cement. We were able to push through some snowy stretches, me cursing the property owners under my breath. The crossings at intersections were especially difficult, with little Lake Michigans forming at each corner and only the smallest walkways shoveled out between the plowed snowbanks. Who's responsible for carving out walkways at the corners, anyway?

On the way back from the store, we ended up walking along the edge of a busy street because I just couldn't face another snowy sidewalk now that I was laden with bags. One of my bags fell off the stroller as we were crossing. This is after my girls had a rare simultaneous meltdown in the store, the baby because she's teething, the 3-year-old because of my latest great offense to her (deciding to buy the baby's birthday party ice cream on our next shopping trip). And of course, I thought it was a good day to try using coupons, hehe.

But the one moment where I realized how much life has changed since moving away from San Francisco came when we were struggling to cross our own little street to our house. Since we don't have driveways, I was trying to cross at one of those little sidewalks carved out on the parkway. But my stroller was just stuck in the muck. I was not making it.

Our nice mail carrier, sympathetic because she has tried to push her mail cart through snow, helped me out. We managed to get across one parkway, only to be stuck again on the other side of the street. This time, I pulled, the mail carrier pushed, and I lost a shoe in the snow. I ended up on my butt on the wet pavement, both my kids crying, my stroller sitting in the street as I looked for my shoe.

OK, Chicago, I get it. I GET IT. Next time it snows (i.e. tomorrow morning), no matter how much I need to get out and breathe some fresh air and use my legs, I will take the damn car.