The naughty list....

seven seems like a good age for batshitedness, that combined with cabin fever, and perhaps some possible anxiety over extended family (not sure if that's as much of an issue as it has been in the past)

getting out in the snow is a great way to unwind and wear kids out

Maybe he is missing his girlfriend or other friends. Any possibility of arranging a play date for them?

Need a more descriptive meaning for batshit crazy to be of much help. I've not heard that phrase used much. Is it similar to pulling a Tom Cruise? (Remember Tom Cruise jumping all over the furniture on Oprah's show?)

Yep.

My first thought was cabin fever.

Sozlet was getting batshitty after just a weekend of being cooped up. I'd send her out but it's been super-cold, "windchill advisory" cold. Might have sent her out anyway if I didn't have other options, but other options I have, and I took her and a friend to the ginormous science museum and they ran around (literally for much of the time) for three hours and the batshit index went down several notches.

To add one more thing, aside from the cooped-up-ed-ness she always gets antsy when there's a break from school. She misses the routine, misses her friends, just kind of has to recalibrate. The first week or two after school is out for the summer is always bad too. Playdates seem to be the best cure.

Christmas anticipation can be weird for all sorts of people.

The hamburgers had a good friend who ended up in hospital with breathing/lung problems about 4 Christmases out of 5 for as long as I knew her (40 something years).

the kneebones connected to the brainbone

An excursion or a play date would be grand, but here is the status of my car:



We aren't going anywhere soon. The two close by neighbors that he plays with have both left for the holiday.

Bio-grandma did call yesterday to say that they were snowed in and wouldn't be able to make it over with his gift. We have a good relationship with her though and haven't heard from any other the others (except some cards) so I don't think that's the problem. (Yeah!!!)

Pulling a Tom Cruise -- hadn't heard that! Yeah, kind of like that with a huge dose of defiance thrown in.

Missing the routine of daily life probably has a lot to do with it. Last week was no school/school/no school/school/no school; nobody knew from morning to morning what the day would hold. Now that we have a couple of weeks off maybe things will settle down.

I agree that anticipation of the holiday can get some people crazy and partly the reason that I was wondering if it was some kind of age-phase. This is the first year that he knows that Santa doesn't leave presents for him but I think he still wants to believe. We only have a couple of gifts (easily identified as book) under the tree right now and I know he gave very intense thought to what he wanted for Christmas this year and put together a small and reasonable list. He's wondering when I might have a chance to go shopping (I finished a month ago) since we're snowed in.

My three are okay - but we are not cold enough to keep them in. I am pretty sure that would undo us. If we did not have the trampoline and the ability to play football out in the yard, I would be pulling my hair out right now. Don't get me wrong - they are excited - but they have outlets for it.

I know I already said this so forgive me for the repetition -- but we WISH we had snow like that...!! It's fabulous for playing in and getting out a lot of energy, honest. If you don't want to go the ordering-boots route, I'm sure that layering and some ingenuity will get you there. (Does he have galoshes, something like that? With a lot of socks and some cinching, they'll do.)

Too bad about neighbor kids being out of town, that definitely would help. But that kind of snow is a goldmine.

Actually, it isn't "good" snow unless you're skiing or sledding (and the only good, safe sledding hill around here requires driving to get to (and that is where Mo got into so much trouble with Mr. B. yesterday)). It's powder. You can't make a snowball or fort or snowman out of it. It won't stick together.

We did break down and buy snow pants and snow boots the other day just so we could get outside but really, this isn't the fun kind of snow.

I've got nothing to do but fiddle with photos so here's a happy snow picture:

Cool!

Yeah, I know what you mean about powder vs. stickier snow. Definitely more you can do with sticky snow. I still had a ton of fun in powder when I was a kid though. Just running through deep snow, making deeper piles if the snow wasn't that deep and flinging myself at them, making snow angels, playing with my dog (has Diamond been out? what's he think about the snow?), etc.

Just thought of one game that can be played in powder (needs to be at least two people though) -- can't think of the name of it but it's a kind of tag. You make one big circle (one circuit is fine, it doesn't have to be that deep at first, just so you can tell where it is) and then bisect it once or twice. (Think peace sign.) Then you play tag, but you have to stick to the pathways. Bigger is better (25-foot diameter, say, if you have room). You and Mo and Mr. B would be most fun, but fun with only two, too.

Most important thing from a batshit perspective -- running around and expending some serious energy.

Great that you have some gear!

That sounds fun! I guess it's easy to tell that I did not grow up in snowy areas.

Get this -- I was just playing a word game that Phoenix linked on another thread and the letters to unscramble were "SOZOBE" the anagram is BOOZE!

No way! Funny.

I'll try to think of more powder games/ activities. My dad is visiting, he might have some ideas too.

Mostly I think I just went out there and flailed around though. I LOVED having a pure white unbroken expanse of snow in the backyard all to myself -- and then proceeding to trash it.

One other thing I remember doing is just normal outdoor stuff but in the snow -- frisbee, football, whatever. Diving catches were big. (Cushioning!)

Diamond thinks the snow is fabulous until he cracks through and his belly starts dragging. Playing fetch is a lot of fun -- the ball sinks and he has to dig it out.

Wow, look at all that snow! You guys really got hit hard up there. We had a very brief couple minutes of snow flurries here on the Valley floor last week but most of it has stayed up in the low foothills.

Would using a garden hose to spray some water on the snow before nighttime freezing temps help add some water content to the surface snow for fort and snowman building?

You could make it a contest for digging out pathways around your house. Each person start at one end and the first one that reaches the middle gets their choice of family activity for the rest of the day.

Or, have a decorating contest. See who can make the goofiest faces from those odd shaped mounds of snow that used to be plants and furniture objects. The snow might be too powdery for rolling into snowman bodies but you can still work with the concept by adding faces to snow-covered objects.