It only gets better from here

My baby turned 4 yesterday! Four candles, four years since that freezing night of his birth, four. I relived his birth in my dreams last night, the howling wind kept me awake. I have no desire to be pregnant again or to have another child, but would love to have just one more birth like his. We labored at home until it was almost too late, he arrived 1/2 an hour after we got to the hospital, no anesthesia, no tearing, no nothing. A perfect 9 pound, 6 ounce midwife delivered VBAC.

Today I'm trying to relax about the fact that we did very little yesterday in homeschooling land due to the big, big birthday and are doing even less today. Trying not to let it worry me, trying not to feel like we are "behind" or "lazy." The fact is that we are cold.

The furnace went out this morning. It was 60 degrees when Mark left at 6, but he didn't think much of that as we set the thermostat for 64 at night and it was bitterly cold. I didn't get up until 7 and it was 58 degrees then. Still no worries. When I walked past with another cup of steaming (literally) coffee almost an hour later and noticed the thermostat read 56, I started to panic. I took the fish upstairs, called Mark, called a service guy, woke up the older two to get them tidying up our incredibly messy post-birthday home and started to work on the basement.

I've always called our basement a toxic waste dump. It is a dump. It is where we dump every possible thing we just can't throw out. We have good intentions - save boxes, bubble wrap and packing pillows for eBay sales; save the boxes we got from blueberry picking this year for next year; save fabric for weaving, knitting and other projects (OK, this borders on a compulsion); save, save, save. But don't bother to organize anything, or put it anywhere but at the bottom of the stairs! I worked up a sweat for half an hour moving junk from one place to another, sweeping up corn from around the freezer (don't ask) and cat mess from behind it (ditto) in case the guy had to get to the breaker box. I cleared in front of the furnace, moved all the hanging clothes (remember the dryer?) to the other side of the basement and cleared a path to the water shut off.

I guess because the temp was 56 when I called, they sent someone really quickly. We had half an hour and did an amazing job! Our guy was very nice, got it working, cleaned it, changed the humidifier filter and dropped the temperature to 53 in the process. No we're back to a balmy 56 and out nearly $300. That's our third major appliance to break - dryer, car, furnace. I think we are done now. I hope we are.

It really is too cold to concentrate on anything. We tried getting on the couch under blankets, but the Little Man was just too squirmy, too four to pay attention to The Story of the World. They are now all on the top bunk - hot air rises - playing DS and other electronic things under the blankets. I might try to get more interest in Babylon when the house hits 60.