My goodness March has been flying by.  Literally.  We had a wind advisory here yesterday and I believe it snatched up at least three or four days of March and done flung ’em somewhere into April.

Incidentally, my hair just LOVES wind advisory days.  Generally, I will make it out to the porch steps, and then my hair will LOSE ITS MIND and go all Bridget Jones in the convertible scene.  Subtract from this scene:  Hugh Grant, British accents, simmering looks from Colin Firth, and glamorous weekend getaways.  Also, add the following:  two toddlers, an angry cat trying to escape the house, whining, and the sad understudy of a Toyota Matrix instead of a convertible. But otherwise:  All THIS IS SPOT ON, I TELL YOU.

My sweet boys have been a bit befuddled by the weather lately.  This is entirely my home state’s fault.

We live in Kansas: The Wheat State.

Forget wheat or soybeans, I think we should just call it what it is:

Kansas: The Weather Here Will Make You Nervous. 

I think Kansas needs to start airing PSA commercials about its climatic issues, or at least publish some sort of pamphlet, so that when my toddlers get all questionney I can just toss it at them and say, “Read this.  Kansas will explain.”*  This is the state where one day it can be sunny and 62 degrees and then decide, “Enough of this!  Let’s totally freak people out on the facebooks!” and go for snow and ice the next morning.  I am not exaggerating one bit.  (Ok, I KNOW, I DO exaggerate nearly all the time, like a million times a day and all, but NOT when it comes to the weather.  That’s silly.)

So, Blonde and Red and I keep having these conversations:

“Mom? Mommy?  MOM?  It’sa raining now?  But der’s snow all over da car and I think, slippy stuff?

“Ice, dear.”

“Well, I thought you said Spring had uh SPRUNG OUT?”

“That was yesterday.  I was overly excited.  I sprung out.”

“But… Spring is when we can fly our kites?  When is it SPRING?  Ders SNOW ALL OVER! WHEN kites?”

“Well.  Soon? I don’t know.  Stupid snow.”

“MOM!  Dat’s a bad word!”

“I’m sorry, kid.  I saw a crocus yesterday and I got a little giddy. No, don’t ask.  ‘Giddy’ just means GULLIBLE.  Because Kansas just smacked us upside the head.  Tomorrow, a hurricane.”

“WAT.” Both toddlers freeze.  This is rare, so I dial back my snark.

“I’m just kidding…  sorry.  Sarcasm foul.  I’ll take a timeout.”

“Whats ‘gullibough”?”

“Darling boy.  You.  And I love you for it.”

So, in defense of the Midwest, I would like to add that Kansas does provide us with all four seasons.  Heartily.  We have BIG snow, and SCORCHING heat, and TORRENTIAL rains, and we do BLUSTERY like nobody’s business.  We just like to mix them up an awful lot. This is terribly confusing to toddlers. I feel sorry for preschool teachers in Kansas.  How do they survive the weather chart in the morning?

Fear not nervous Kansans!  I have found an immensely helpful tool to deal with all of this:

TELEVISION.

And when I say television, I mean:  IT’S REALLY COLD OUTSIDE AND I’M SICK OF IT SO LET’S HUNKER DOWN.

Now, don’t start tsk-tskking me.  We get outside.  We do.  At times we head to the park, or rake up leaves, putter in our garden, and play soccer and frolic about like daft lambs.

And at other times, we watch The Magic School Bus on Netflix and learn about the weather.

We start with Magic School Bus In the Arctic, (only fitting), and ended up with Magic School Bus All Dried Up (in the desert – wishful thinking).  We’ve watched The Magic School Bus Kicks Up a Storm and Makes a Rainbow, and even The Magic School Bus Gets Eaten.  That last one isn’t really weather pertaining, but it’s really cool and gross and my boys love the whole lower intestine part.  That, my friends, is fabulous television to a toddler.

I have to say, I love this series. It’s old school 80’s style, with a lot of cameos:  Little Richard, Dolly Parton, Ed Asner, Dan Marino (I kid you not).  There’s the lovely Lily Tomlin as Miss Frizzle, the “Get messy and make mistakes!” teacher who is bat-poop crazy and totally certifiable, but heck. It’s just a cartoon.  They can get away with that stuff.

We watch and then we understand a bit more about WHY the errant snowflakes are still whisking by our windows, or how the water cycle affects us all so much more than we ever knew. (CONDENSATION, YA’LL.  IT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND.)

Thank you, Oh Magic School Bus, for helping me with the six majillion weather related questions I have been weathering (I KNOW, RIGHT! You see the pun?? SEE IT!?  I am awesome.) for the past few weeks.

… And since we also need a bit of viewing for the older crowd:

Here’s one other little Netflix nugget I would like to share with you:

COLIN FIRTH.  POST- BRIDGET JONES.  IN ALL HIS ADORABLE FIRTHY-NESS.

Insert British accent here:  Do watch.  Have a cuppa.  Enjoy all the lacy dresses and parasols and flippancy.  Nobody does flippant like the British, by jove.

 

And nobody does Dreamy like Mr. Firth.  🙂

*Pamphlet-teaching is awesome.  I use ’em all the time.  I have one entitled:  “Why My Mom is Muttering” and “Poo Does Not Belong There.”  These are brilliant and helpful.

Disclosure: I’m a member of the Netflix #StreamTeam.  Netflix comp the service we were previously paying for in exchange for my monthly posts and ramblings about movies and family viewing.  I love this.  I watch movies and then chatter about them.