March snow and craziness in Tea at the Cabin in the Woods

We are looking at another winter storm this week with expected snow of up to 14" before Thurs is over. I am not sure if winter will ever end this year. It looks as if the more shoveling we get the more the disc's in my lower back become inflamed. I went to the chiropractor to get things straightened out once I realized one leg was slighter longer than the other. This has happened before and I knew the signs when my left leg was going numb and spuratic twinges of sudden pain began to appear. Unfortunately, the treatments seem to be making things worse instead of helping. UGH!!! So now I need to figure out how to deal with the impending snow and shoveling and not make the back any worse. Ah HA! I will double up on anti-inflammatory oils and probably Aleve. Unless someone has a better idea.

On the bright side: I have finally begun writing a novella that has been rolling around in my head for sometime now. I am now into about page 25! Hopefully it will be good - after many more revisions but first I need to get it done.

Oh, I got to spend a couple days being a GREAT Aunt this weekend. We went to visit my niece and her family. They have a 27 month old girl and a 10 week old baby boy. What lovely little beings these children are. the 2 yr. old is extremely advanced. I did the normal nerdy thing I usually do with the little ones after my niece asked me to evaluate them like I would for one of my classes. Our little girl tops out at a mental age of 4 and IQ around 140, her emotional age is pretty on target as demonstrated by the temper tantrums when "Mommy" was feeding the baby and she wanted to be held - to put the baby away. She is small in size but HUGE in personality and is already categorizing, knows all her letters, colors, numbers and was reading a few words by sounding them out. OUCH! I wonder if the baby is going to also be as bright. He demonstrates all the appropriate reflexes. He has colic and was pretty uncomfortable much of the time, so I did not see any social smiles. he is tracking and responds to sounds, is cooing and looks at faces, he even started mimicking - so I assume the smile will be a bit delayed due to his not feeling like smiling. We came up with some plans to help relieve the colic and my Niece is going to spend a little more time with face to face time. I asked her to try to get baby girl to also give baby boy more face to face... this could be interesting. "Daddy" is really good with the kids and gives them as much attention as he can. They are very invested in the kids. Maybe the fact they are 37 and 39 years old has something to do with the time they spend with the children. It may also explain why they are so very tired! hahaha.... I love these kids and it was wonderful to spend time with all of them. Hubby took photos and when I looked at them the family resemblance was striking. My niece looks more like me all the time and if someone saw the photo they would think I was her mother, not her aunt. My guess is my sister will not be overly happy about this. I sent her the photo but she hasn't responded as of yet. But we (Sister and me) look a lot alike too.

Okay, so onto other things. Daughter is doing fine, Son is hanging in there and we are all taking things one day at a time. Life sometimes gets in the way but we all survive. I hope you are all well and that life is treating you well.

Until Later.