I often write about not quite fitting-in on various Mommy Blog sites because I’m a Gramma these days, not the mother of young children.  Nowadays, I’m just a boring…”Mom” without the “my” at the end.

Hold on a sec..

The experiences are still the same, regardless of how many years have passed since I carried extra Balmex and baby wipes in my purse because the diaper bag overflowed with bottles, diapers, blankets, clothes, teething rings and items probably no longer in existence in baby world.

                                      
But today was different; it snowed again in the Northeast and probably far beyond; in a matter of seconds, I became a re-born Mom-my!  A good portion of the U.S. has been blanketed by the white stuff for weeks now and with today’s snowfall, this meant….one more snow day; kids home from school and up at the crack of dawn to start terrorizing parents already on the brink of insanity as they cowered inside their snowbound homes, looking out windows covered with tiny hand prints and grime.

Far to the north, in an undisclosed part of Maine, a hapless mother frantically searched for earplugs as two of her children embarked on a screaming match that made the house windows rattle.  My fear is that my friend, known here as No. 7, will resort to inserting “rocket men” into her ears for relief.  What are they, you ask? 
                                                                  

Now, back to the start of this Gramma’s day….

• Received call from daughter, one of her dogs managed to split its tail.

• Dog continued to wag said tail creating interesting art work on walls of house. 

• Ran to help daughter administer first aid to dog’s tail

• While pouring peroxide, the sound of tormented wailing could be heard in the kitchen

• Granddaughter warmed bagel in microwave, handed plate to her brother.

• Plate was hot, resulting in burns on Grandson’s hand.

• Wailing turned to angry screams from Grandson to his sister….”I HATE You!!!!”

• Administered cold water and bag of frozen peas plus Neosporin to Grandson and RAN out door to head for work, afraid to look back.

I rendered some Grandmotherly advice to my friend in Maine, and to my daughter; both liked the idea but agreed that Social Services might not find it helpful…or amusing. 

As I told both of them, it’s doubtful that anyone working with CPS has ever been held hostage by tiny terrorists during these endless snow days.

                                                                                               
My front door…it’s open, please come on in! 

Ignore the Nobody gets in to see the Wizard sign; sarcasm can be found even in my decorating schemes.  Inside, I’m doing my usual, yearly complaining.  I hate putting away Christmas decorations, hate it, hate it, HATE IT!

I pause to take a deep breath and think calming thoughts of warm summer days, beaches, country fairs, butterflies and flowers in the garden…Deer!… trampling and eating all of said flowers…sigh…better think about something else.

Allrighty…I am my own worst enemy regarding Christmas.  I push the limits with decorating, shopping and cooking; doesn’t make me public enemy # 528 but…that’s how I feel at this very moment.  Why?  I’ll tell you why…I collect….Snowmen.  Yup….at last rough count, the white, bulbous cheery little bundles of snow joy approach the magic number of almost 900, give or take a few dozen.

                                                            
How did it all start? 

Well, many years ago, while doing some holiday shopping, I noticed a sad ceramic snowman, broken and shoved to the back of a display.  It was a one-of-a-kind with a broken, snowy arm and minus its carrot-nose; a tragic shell of the snow person it once was.   Oh, how it called my name as I approached the shelf it rested on!  You and I both know that no other living creature would have purchased it…except for moi, and so I did.  Took it home, dug out my craft supplies and in due time, a happy new, rehabilitated snowman emerged from its former destruction with a fresh new nose that rivaled that of any nose Joan Rivers has had in recent years along with a mended right arm that most surgeons would admire with envy.

From that moment on, it became a mission, one of Snowman Rescue, at least for a while.  Once the collect-every-cute-snowman-in-sight bug bit me, it was all downhill from there.  The decision was made to go all out with an all-Snowman decorating theme. 
Special ornaments and decorations collected over the years were given to my daughters in order to make room for what was to come, and still does, as my obsession has grown to epidemic proportions. 

The down-side of this is the time involved in getting everything unpacked each year and placed; village pieces that create individual snow scene vignettes are tucked into the shelves of the living room wall unit.  One of our cats always managed to leap to the top of that unit, hiding behind the snowmen but would always get snagged when he poked his carrot-less nose out of the display.  Every room wears its share of snow men, women and children, including the bathrooms where smiling little faces grin at you while you’re uh…..you know.

It takes me usually about one week to cart everything down from our attic and unpack, then at least two to three weeks to complete decorating, including our tree; that is a story in itself.  Color-coded branches that take almost three hours to insert in their place and then fluff-out in order to produce a realistic look.  Purchased this green giant from one of the now bankrupt and closed Treasure Island stores; it’s a modest twelve feet tall; cathedral ceiling height at its highest point is eleven feet <insert husbandly scowl>; no biggie, just shortened the top branch where the star rests <insert wifely smug facial expression>.  This tree is soooo wide that it stretches almost half-way across our living room and peeks into one entrance to our dining room area. 

                                                
Tree hitting ceiling> 

           Tree peeking-in>

I also got a little creative with the big empty space in our wall unit where a television is supposed to be.   Nope..NO TV in our living room, that’s a place where I want people to sit and talk and be focused on each other, not a bunch of overpaid, testosterone-driven baseball or football players, the O’Reilly Factor or anything else.  That room is a gathering place for stories, laughter and memories and with a woodstove elsewhere in the house, I missed having an upstairs fireplace sooooo….I made what my husband tells everyone is…Patty’s fake fireplace.