A "Shining" kind of day

Isn't it such a big kick in the face to come home after Christmas, get everybody back into their routines, feel really good that you are getting to the gym on a regular basis, start putting the house back together after the assault of having all three kids home over the holidays, and then, a week later, have several inches of snow completely derail all of that?  The boys were out of school Monday and Tuesday and went in late today, and Ruby's little preschool seems to be indefinitely cancelled.  People, I depend on those few hours when all of my children are under the care of other people for my very sanity.
It's getting a little frightening around here.  I found myself taking a very, very long shower today in the middle of the day, while presumably Gus and Ruby were watching Max and Ruby, and even though I was pretty sure that there would be some consequence to pay for my neglect of the children, I couldn't seem to get out.  I was just standing there staring into space, scalding my already dry skin and wondering what I could possibly do with the two of them once I got out.  Indeed, when I got out and got dressed and went to face the music, there seemed to be water everywhere.  Ruby loves to fill up cups with water, then dump the water into other containers and pretend she is cooking.  So there was water all over the floor, the couch, pile of single socks that I keep out in the middle of the living room in case the mates show up one day.  Except, somehow, the water smelled like pee, so I am a little suspicious that in this instance she might have filled the cup up with water from the toilet (which of course the boys never flush if they only pee in it), but I pretended to myself that that was not the case and just treated it like a regular water spill - ie, lazily allowed it to dry on its own).  Anyway, that did take up a little piece of time, and then there was the 45 minutes it took to get Gus and Ruby out the door and into the Y for Gus' indoor tennis practice, discover that it too had been cancelled, and turn around and go back home.  Some days are just like that.  Time seems to stand still, and everything you try to do just seems like a big dead end.  Those kind of days suck the life right out of you, and when they are over, and you are standing in the kitchen eating some enormous leftover cake the neighbor brought over with a big spoon right off of the cake plate, it's just pretty sad.  From the cake-eating, I moved to the couch to watch TV, only to find that Modern Family had been replaced by the memorial service for the victims of the Arizona shooting.  And, of course, watching the grieving families and listening to President Obama speak so thoughtfully about loss of those lives made me so sad and so grateful for just a normal day with my family.  I don't mean to be too Hallmark Hall of Fame, but it is such a miracle that we don't appreciate enough every single day.  It's so hard to be mindful of that when there is so much whining and spilling and dirty dishes and shoes tracking in wet dirt and all, but I always feel sick to think that there are mothers and fathers who would give up everything for just one day like that.  So I'll get up again and try to do better tomorrow.  Right now I have to go deal with someone up out of bed at 11 pm - with pleasure!