This isn't an entry about the weather. It's an entry about...

Well, it's not about weather. What's going on outside my window right now? That's not weather; it's a slow act of torture. I've got all the blinds pulled down, but I can still hear the tiny bullet sounds of rock-hard pellets of ice striking my roof, my windows, my walls. We're being slowly but inevitable encased in a large block of ice, never to escape or feel the warmth of the sun again. This is the end, I know it; my doom is to never see Spring, ever again.

I've begun to believe that the weatherpeople are purposefully lying to us. If they told us that we were going to have to go through weeks and weeks of snow, sleet, and ice, possibly with no end in sight, they know that the suicide rate would shoot through the roof. Instead, therefore, they tell us that warm weather is right around the corner, that even though it's cold today, tomorrow it will be in the high fifties! All this weekend, they promise, skies will be sunny and grass will be awakening under our toes. When the promised loveliness never actually materializes, they say, with rueful voices and chuckles, that a nasty cold front came "out of nowhere," but that it's sure to warm up by next week.

Right.

Sam is absolutely done with winter. He wakes up in the morning, rubs his eyes, points to the window, and crows, "Go! Go!" He brings me his coat, announcing, "Go. Car? Go." He's not talking about playing in the snow, folks; this is the boy who will go far out of his way to avoid having to step on a single patch of the white stuff. Yesterday, right before his nap, a brief patch of slightly warmer air passed us and let me open the window for a while. Sam giggled in glee, hopping around the bed and demanding to be lifted to peek through the screen. He slept, with the window open, for a much longer time than usual, relaxed in the welcome fresh air.

Today? He probably won't sleep at all.

I swear, I'm going to move to Tahiti, or Bermuda, or possibly Guadalajara; when my toes are freezing, politics don't hold a candle to other priorities. I just want to feel the sun on my face and sense it with more than my eyes. I want flowers and T-shirts and sunscreen that smells like coconuts. All of the cartoons on PBS this morning are snow-themed; I thought this station relied on "contributions from viewers like me." At the rate they're going, the only contributions they're going to be getting is a snowball sniper attack as they leave the station.

But, then, I'm trapped in my nature-constructed igloo, so I guess they're safe from me for now.

Okay, think of something else. Something happy, to take my mind off the not-weather. Unfortunately, these past few days have contained little except the frustrating. Sam's constipation issues continue, regardless of his newfound love of Milk of Magnesia (though yesterday, three days worth of the stuff finally caught up with him, with less than picturesque results). He has an appointment with his doctor tomorrow, and we'll see what she has to tell us. I did buy some Baby Fleet, and every once in a while I take one out of the box. "See this, Sam?" I say. "I don't want to use this, and you don't want it, either. If I were you, I'd quit holding it in, pronto." He chuckles at me and tries to grab it out of my hand.

I just wish the nurses and doctor would quit asking my whether potty training was traumatic for him. For Pete's sake, he's only twenty months old; we haven't even begun to introduce the toilet!

Even as his vocabulary grows, it shrinks. By that, I mean that he's now generalizing "car" to mean "something really, really neat." Just now, when he cried, "A car!", I glanced over to see that he'd managed to bring up the menu on the television and was gleefully setting the clock.

Mostly, though, our days are taken up with dealing with his newest and most annoying stage: hitting. He hits when he's mad; he hits when he doesn't get his way. He hits when he's bored, and he hits when he's playing. Sometimes he throws in a little variety by head-butting. I know that it's a toddler thing, and there's little to be done but correct and distract him, and perhaps to try to avoid potential hitting situations in the first place. Let's face it, though: toddlers are inevitably thwarted in their desires from the moment they wake up in the morning. They want to drive the car, play with the stove, hide from Mommy in the department store. They want to know what's behind the baby gates and safety latches. There's not much we can do to make frustrations disappear entirely, and it probably wouldn't be healthy to do it if we could. So we deal with their aggravation, and at some point, we deal with the hitting. I'm not happy, but I'm coping.

Yesterday's frustration is most niggling in my mind, though, and it doesn't even have anything to do with Sam. I think I can't help but stew over this one because it's still sitting on top of the chest freezer in my kitchen, taking up room. I was attempting to build a new wall display unit for my hats, using lattice work and dowel rods. Apparently, the guy at Lowe's sold me the wrong size screws, and now all my dowels are splitting. Gah! So back to the store I go (once the block of ice that is my car melts, of course) to buy more dowels and different fasteners. Eric, who cut the dowels into small pegs for me the first time, says he might be able to use the drill press at work to make the holes for me this time. Take two, everybody.

You know, I like working with tools, but boy, is it ever heartbreaking when things don't work. You can't just start over, like you can with a knit project.

Next weekend I think we're going to Pittsburgh to meet up with my family. Eric's parents were supposed to be there, too, but that's fallen through again. I'm a little bummed about that, mostly because I know how awful Rita probably feels. They can't come because Ronnie can't get away from work, but Rita's feeling depressed enough lately without having the chance to see Sam slip through her fingers once more. I wish there was a way we could get down there soon, but I don't see it happening.

Anyway, I'm not sure of the details as to when we'll be going, but the trip will be nice. There's an indoor pool at the hotel, which Sam loves, and Mom's birthday on Sunday means there will be cake. I'm looking forward to the getaway. Assuming, of course, that the doors have thawed enough to permit our escape.