Snow Day? They should call it Heightened Productivity Day!

I'm not a homebody. I like being out in the world. Spending too much time at home tends to make me claustrophobic. It doesn't help that I share a small apartment with four very large characters. They are large and they are loud and they are messy. So, at the end of a day spent at home, I have:

A huge freaking mess
A headache from yelling at the kids to clean up the mess (and still, it remains a pretty sizable mess)
A headache from the general cacophony of kids at play and kids in fights and kids being kids.
A guilt complex from how much screen time they'd had
Did I mention the headache?

To stave this off, when we are stuck at home, I go into Super Intense Prpductive Mode.

So when my kids hear "snow day!" they think, "Yay!! No school! We can take it EASY!"

And I think, "Time to get shit done." If you dramatically re-enacted this scene for television, this would be the musical montage where you'd see close ups of me rolling up my sleeves, tying a doo rag over my hair and punching my fist into my open palm  in the universal, "It's on!" gesture.

I get VERY productive during snow days. Very. And I cannot help but involve the children in my intense industry because the largest project is always the "Rehabilitate the Children" project. Which is totally great from a multi tasking point of view. If this continues, my kids may very well be the only ones in the U S of A to hate snow days.

The real secret to my success for last week's snow day was that we dragged Nonny over to stay at our apartment for the blizzard. It was supposed to be this historic storm, and we didn't want her on her own. Also, we needed her to mop the floors and then wash the mop and generally help me take my Mommy Dearest act to new levels.

We did laundry.

We made chili.

We cleaned out our closets.

We changed the bedclothes.

We practiced math word problems.

We matched the mountain of unmatched socks (well, 20% of them, the rest have no match. But we hold out hope for them! Single socks will not be tossed away in our house! On a related note, we may be borderline hoarders. Not sure.)

We made piade, which are Italian tortillas.

Then the kids were poised for revolt so we let them play Just Dance for a while and then we made homemade Italian crema to forestall mutiny.

We super glued every item in the large pile of toys and accessories and hardware and home decor that has required super gluing.

We paid bills.

We cleaned out the high cupboard that only David can reach without a ladder.

Primo did most of his big school project on the Civil War and Seconda wrote an essay for a summer program she's applying to.

We scrubbed the bathtub and threw out the 8 year-old bath toys which probably carry dysentery.

It was so much FUN!

Then, when even Nonny could take no more productivity, we watched Pee Wee's Big Adventure and everyone, even the doubters among us, laughed their tired asses off.

And when the kids found out there was school the next day, I think they were more than a little relieved.