All this is to say, it’s cold here. Nose-numbing cold. Ear-burning cold. Booger-freezing cold.

We are so out of our element.

To prepare others who may one day find themselves in a land where no one thinks twice about icicles hanging off their bumper, I have drafted a survivor’s manual* with tips and tools for staying warm — and conserving your socks — through the winter season. Toss your earmuffs on the radiator, wrap your non-mouse hand around a mug of hot chocolate, and enjoy.

1. Buy snow chains.
Put them in the car before you drive two hours to the wilderness to go sledding.

2. Buy mittens. In bulk.
Your children will lose one approximately every 3.72 days.

3. Listen to the teacher.
When your son’s teacher sends a note home that he needs weatherproof pants to wear at recess, don’t ignore it. If you do, she’ll tell you, in detail, how he cried his beautiful brown eyes out over his wet jeans and socks.

4. Follow the New Yorker’s lead.
When driving in treacherous conditions, make sure to have a New Yorker in the car. Watch her. If she’s not flinching, gripping the armrest, or dialing a tow truck, chances are, you’re going to be okay. (Stop flinching, gripping the armrest, and wondering if you should call a tow truck.)

5. Bake for the neighbors.
When you back your car into the bushes and the tires refuse to free themselves from the roots and snow, it will become crystal clear to those around you (and possibly those on the next street over, depending on how loud your engine is) that you have no idea what you’re doing. Neighbors will come to your rescue. For more than an hour.

Bake for them. Bake lots. And use your super-secret-and-scarce cache of chocolate chips.

6. Boycott Facebook.
Do not, under any circumstances, read Facebook updates from friends who are wearing shorts, getting their RDA of Vitamin D, and walking to the mailbox without dodging icicles.

7. Look for the sleigh.
Your car is stuck in the snow near a picturesque village. Your children are either (1) unhappily frozen to their sled seats or (2) flailing in knee-deep drifts. Odds are even that a horse-drawn sleigh will come to your rescue. (In Romania, at least.)

8. Beware of the sun.
One day, the sun will finally burst through that gray infinity of sky. It will. And you will give in to the temptation to hang your laundry out. Then? You will get busy doing dishes, chauffeuring tiny people, rearranging boots to minimize snow meltage, sneaking spoonfuls of Nutella, and worrying about the snow-laden power lines outside.

You will forget your laundry. And, yes, it will be frozen.

*These tips may or may not be the direct result of personal errors. I’ll never tell.

Have you ever learned about winter the hard way? Ever gotten a talking-to from your child’s teacher? Ever frozen your skivvies?

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Fluffy Bunnies in Romania:
Read the tales. See the photos.

Dandelion

Atomic Tangerine

Midnight Blue

Brick Red

Unmellow Yellow

“Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A beauty bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. It would explode high in the air — explode softly — and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth — boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn’t go cheap, either — not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination.”
— Robert Fulghum

What crayola colors do you see in your part of the world? Which are bursting through the cold, dreary winter? And did you covet the box with the sharpener when you were a kid?

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Fluffy Bunnies in Romania:
Read the tales. See the photos.

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See more colors at Beth’s on Thursday.

Want to know what seven pillows, gunshots, and a remote control have in common?

I’ll give you a hint: They almost led to my undoing.

Head over to Rebecca’s to read the punchline (and more about the actual punching that accompanied it).

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Fluffy Bunnies in Romania:
Read the tales. See the photos.

And on Monday, we lost it. Lost it.

It happened during a sledding adventure that included an hour of squishing wiggly children into scarves and socks and snowsuits. Once bundled, we eked along an icy path behind their school. Six small mittened hands attached themselves to my elbows and pockets for a little extra purchase.

Finally, finally, we made it to the hill, where children with purple hats and orange coats and blue sleds flitted around like bits of confetti from a busted pinata. It started to snow. Of course it did.

Lollipop and Giggles walked halfway down as a friend coached them on beginner sledding techniques. They got on … pushed off … gathered speed … and crashed.

Sledding? Done.

Up next? Wipe tears. Distribute juice boxes. Cluck soothingly. Count children. Count mittens. Assess potential injuries. Pick up trash. Retie drooping scarf. Count children. Count mittens. Cluck soothingly. Pick up trash. Collect wandering baby. Reassess potential injuries. Count children. Count mittens …

Eventually we felt brave enough to trek back to the car. We blasted the heater. Buckled up. And wondered why the baby was screaming.

No nummie. No nummie anywhere. Not in the seat, under the seat, behind the seat, in his pocket, in my pocket, in the bag, in the parking lot, on the sidewalk, in the school, at the top of the hill, in his other pocket, in my other pocket. No. Nummie. Anywhere.

Which wasn’t all that bad, really, because I had more at home waiting to be sterilized. (Did you really think I’d move 6,000 miles away from Target for a whole year and not bring a couple of extra pacifiers?)

What I didn’t bring? An extra clip. You know, the thing that keeps the kid from chucking his pacifier on floors where giddy bacteria can hop on for a joy ride?

And our clip? Was with the nummie. Lost. Gone. Nowhere.

So I did what any self-respecting mom without access to FREE Super Saver Shipping would do. I went to Pinterest. And found this tutorial.

It required a scant eight materials. I had two of them. Still, I pressed on and MacGyvered something together out of felt, buttons, a hair band, and a clothes pin.

Is it durable? Probably not. Are the buttons a potential choking hazard? You bet.

But does it work? Oh, yes. Oh, yes, it does. We are all, finally, comfortably numb once again.

Have you ever lost something vital to the sanity of your household? Do you improvise well? And do you think gluing AND sewing the buttons on is enough to keep Bun from eating them??

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This post is part of MEP’s Real Women of Pinterest series. Join in as we celebrate collaborative creativity (and the power of glue guns).

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Fluffy Bunnies in Romania:
Read the tales. See the photos.

“Hear! hear!” screamed the jay from a neighboring tree, where I had heard a tittering for some time. “Winter has a concentrated and nutty kernel, if you know where to look for it.” — Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau’s jay obviously knows something we don’t. We are winter novices. Where we come from? The city all but shuts down with the tiniest dusting.

So these daily snowfalls we’re having in Romania, these slick sidewalks and frozen trash-can lids, this maze of wet-boot tracks trailing through our apartment building … Well, it’s strange.

And not altogether pleasing.

We took the kids ice skating last weekend. My daughter fell and cut her hand before she’d even gotten in the rink. Before she’d even gotten her skates on. Things did not improve, tears were shed, and we soon headed for warmer ground. And frothy mugs of hot chocolate.

Yesterday, after school, we tried sledding. First time down the hill? The kids hit a bump, tumbled off, and face-planted in the snow. They could not be talked into a second run, no matter how much we coaxed and soothed. The only remedy was the car heater. Cranked on high. To sufficiently thaw frozen noses and eyelashes.

Yes, we are winter novices. And we are ready. For sun, for spring, for a day without perpetually wet mittens, for a day without mittens at all. It’s coming soon, right? Right??

Is there winter where you are? How do you (and your children) make the best of it? And how do you hold on till spring?

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Fluffy Bunnies in Romania:
Read the tales. See the photos.

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Grab some hot chocolate and see more cold at Beth’s on Thursday.

It started to snow as we shuffled up the hill. Round, lacy flakes settled on the top of Bun’s boots like doilies on an armchair. Just enough fell to cover the icy, slushy muck piled on the edges of the road. We navigated past buses, taxis, and magazine stands, taking a left and a right and another left with only a vague idea of where we were headed.

But eventually, we found it, a little orange shack nestled close to the university dorms off Strada Republicii. Imprimante, the sign said. Through the open door, I could see copy machines lining every wall, purring happily as they spit hot toner fumes into the air.

I pulled out my USB stick and handed it to the guy inside the shop. He popped it into his computer, punched a couple of buttons, and sent my 200-page file whirring through one of the machines onto perfectly white double-sided A4 sheets.

We both stepped outside to wait. I distractedly entertained Bun and wondered if I had enough cash to cover my project. How much did copies cost in Romania anyway? The guy stood on the other side of the mat and lit up a cigarette.

While I furtively glanced around for a price list and tried to shield Bun from the secondhand smoke, a girl walked our way. She had on a hot pink jacket and a red knit hat. Her hands were tucked in her jean pockets, and her cheeks were rosy. I figured she was a student, just back from the holiday break, maybe about to cram for her physics exam.

She stopped at three large green dumpsters a few feet from us. I wondered if she had a juice bottle or a croissant wrapper from breakfast to throw away. Instead, she put her hands on the edge of one of the dumpsters and heaved herself into it. She tossed a couple of trash bags onto the sidewalk and jumped down beside them.

I turned away, shocked and a little revolted, as she ripped open the bags and began rummaging through them for something she could eat.

For 10 minutes or so, we stayed there. All four of us. Me staring fixedly at the yellow highlighters for sale on the back wall of the shop. Bun hollering for a rock from the sidewalk. The guy smoking his Marlboro Light. And the girl digging through the garbage. The oblivious copy machines hummed contentedly behind us.

Nobody said anything. The girl didn’t look at us. We didn’t look at her.

Eventually, my project finished and the guy stacked my papers and rang up my total: 21 lei. Seven bucks. For 200 copies. I marveled over how cheap it seemed and tucked the receipt into my wallet. Without really thinking, I grabbed some bills to give the girl and tugged the stroller through the gravel toward her.

Just around the corner was a little grocery store. A loaf of bread, bag of apples, and some chips would cost about three bucks. I knew because we often stopped there, my husband after the bus deposited him on our corner after work and me when I needed a pastry fix from the bakery inside.

The girl could easily buy food for a few days with what I would give her. But something stopped me.

Was it the warning a fellow expat had given me about Romanians and money, about the perceived mathematical and social gap between “rich” foreigners and “poor” locals? Was it my fear of making the girl feel ashamed? Was it my own embarrassment? Either way, I quietly stuffed the money into my glove and walked away.

Marshmallow-sized snowflakes continued to slink lazily down from the sky. The scent of freshly stacked reams of paper and the sound of wet, rustling plastic slowly faded as I pushed the stroller down the street, up the hill, and away from a kind of poverty I could no longer pretend didn’t exist.

What would you have done? What if you had been the girl? How do you reconcile social problems in your community with your own comfortable lifestyle?

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Fluffy Bunnies in Romania:
Read the tales. See the photos.

So we hit the road. In the rain. On highways named E60 and M1. With an equal number of children and suitcases.

Espresso with a shot of sanity.

Normally, we drive 17 hours across the States to get to our parents’ homes for the holidays. In one day. It’s a hellish, survival-of-the-fittest kind of trip with way more marshmallows, McDonald’s fries, and gas-station cappuccino than anyone needs. Plus, we wing it with activities for the kids. (Read: What do you want to watch now?)

I decided that probably wasn’t the best strategy this year.

Especially because they don’t have marshmallows in Romania. And there’s not a McDonald’s every 4.2 miles. And the gas stations wouldn’t deign to sell powdered cappuccino.

So, I went a’Pinteresting for tips on traveling with children.

Game Boys (& Girls)
First, I searched for car games I could print. And struck out. Road-sign bingo? Nope. Different signs. The license plate game? No states. Tic tac toe? My kids would never get past who got to be X.

Does anyone see a Q??

But I did find enough ideas to come up with my own Europe-appropriate games (Count the Romanian Flags) and continent-neutral ones (Rainbow I Spy). We also attempted the Alphabet Game, except we passed more sheep than billboards.

Which was equally fun.

It’s in the Bag
I also put together a special bag for each kiddo. Inside? Puzzle books. Reading books. Crayons. Magazines. Paper. Stickers (with a gentle reminder that cars are allergic). Popcorn. Pretzels. Cheerios. Goldfish. Graham crackers.

They loved these. Lollipop meticulously went through the entire puzzle book and then moved onto the magazines. Giggles meticulously ate every single snack and then dumped his bag on the floor so he could pick everything up with his feet. (Whatever keeps them occupied, right?)

Chocolate bribes: they work.

I kept the baby’s bag by me and supplied him with various snacks, books, and toys when he started to scream.  None of it really worked, except to remind him that he was still in the car and still not able to sleep and still wearing a wet diaper. But it did pass the time. For both of us.

Sweet Treats
Since no road trip is complete without sugar, I stocked up on tried-and-true Barni cakes and promised one every hour if the kids behaved during that hour. And when their treat bag was empty? They’d know we were close. No need to ask “Are we there yet?” every 37 seconds.

They still asked, of course. But they also understood both the incentive to behave and the time frame of our trip. And they were too busy buzzing on chocolate to notice my distress as we passed semi after semi with no business driving on those narrow, curvy Romanian roads.

Trimming the Tree
Since we spent Christmas in a hotel, I wanted to have some kind of tree to spruce (ha! spruce!) up the generic white walls, white radiators, and white down comforters. So I made a felt tree, trunk, and star, thanks to a glorious Michael’s-inspired care package from my mom. The kiddos were in charge of ornaments.

Have tree, will travel.

I gently suggested they trace shapes with cookie cutters. Or attempt to freehand circles. Or cut something remotely ornament-like. But they preferred the pattern-free-and-with-abandon method, creating polygonal potpourri that any Cubist would be proud of.

They loved it. I loved that they loved it. And Bun loved to undecorate it. It was perfect.

Onward, Ho!
In the end, we made five trips to five different cities. Lollipop completed approximately 2,219 puzzles. Giggles drew on the back seat with purple and green crayons. And Bun discarded about half a bag of Cheerios on the floorboard.

But overall?

There was peace on earth … and in our silver Opel.

How do you keep your kids occupied in the car? Have you ever spent Christmas on vacation? And how many Disney movies is too many?

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This post is part of MEP’s Real Women of Pinterest series. Join in as we celebrate collaborative creativity (and the power of glue guns).

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Fluffy Bunnies in Romania:
Read the tales. See the photos.

Here’s why.

Two Lives
I’m living two lives. One is here, in Romania, filled with things like walking to the brutărie, drying towels on the radiator, and spending Saturday mornings at the pirate-ship playground. In this life, we indulge in îngheţată and Orange Fanta. And pleasantries like mulţumesc, cu plăcere, and bună dimineaţa roll off our tongues, at last, with ease.

The other is there, in the States, filled with things like dear friends struggling to have a baby, property taxes due, and fresh tortillas any day of the week. We schedule midnight calls with our vet’s office and do Internet searches for “canine hypercalcemia” and “parathyroid tumor” while people shop at Target and routinely obey stop signs.

Two Legs
Here, in this life, I spent a quarter of the year on one leg. While my fractured tibia healed, I sat on the couch and watched dump trucks, taxis, horses, and the city soccer captain’s Porsche drive by. A nanny cared for the baby I couldn’t hold, feed, change, or tuck in.

In November, I tentatively put weight on my newly repaired leg. I steeled myself for that awful feeling of my body collapsing like a useless lawn chair, just as it had on a dusty Tuscan road back in August. It didn’t. It held.

Just like me.

Two People
And just like my marriage. Night after night, I unleashed a day’s worth of frustrated, angry tears on my husband after the children had finally gone to bed. Twice a week, he hauled in six bags of groceries after putting in 10 hours at the office and 2 as chef, bubble-bath-giver, story-reader, and blanket-tucker. Then he helped me into the bath and into my pajamas and into bed, just as if I were a fourth child. Too many nights, I played the part by being petulant and pouty.

But we’re through it. We’ve regained our equilibrium. We held.

Two Hours
Without the ability to wash laundry, prepare grilled cheeses, and mop parquet floors, I suddenly found myself with time. Two hours with Lollipop to shake sprinkles onto sugar cookies with abandon. Two hours with Giggles to glue-stick sparkly confetti onto paper plates. Two hours with Bun to put together and take apart and put together and take apart Legos.

Not long ago, I would have considered this time wasted. Wasted. When there were dishwashers to empty, couches to clean under, and photos to sort. There still are, of course. There always will be. But none of that seems quite as important, now that my children invite me to tea parties and kitchen-table art classes and pretend grocery stores, now that I say yes.

Two Years
This week, I celebrate two years of blogging. It’s a pale yellow post-it tacked haphazardly on the pages and pages I’ve lived over the last 12 months. Four months preparing to move overseas. Seven months in Romania. Three months with a broken leg. Five months of physical therapy. (With more to come.)

Oh, and 341 blog posts to date.

I’ve held.

I’ve written my way through many of motherhood’s challenges. I’ve embraced the chaos, noise, and discarded sandwich crusts that come with three children. I’ve sifted through all the rocks, crumpled-paper bits, and walnut shells in tiny pairs of blue jeans and found the silver lining.

I’ve said yes. Yes. To all of it.

What number defined your 2011? Do you mark anniversaries, or do they sneak up on you? And how long have you been blogging?

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Fluffy Bunnies in Romania:
Read the tales. See the photos.

All we lost was a pair of earmuffs, a hat, and a black crayon. And maybe a few shreds of sanity.

What we gained was an unforgettable international adventure that included buses, subways, trams, a horse-drawn carriage, a thermal bath, monkeys, seals, a giant Ferris wheel, ice skates, ketchup-flavored Cheetos, glue guns, castles, and butterflies.

And two shots of Slovakian moonshine.

Here’s what made the top 10.

Austria, Slovakia, Hungary: Kid Favorites
10. The longest, fastest escalators in the history of the industrialized world in the Budapest metro.

9. The baboon at Vienna’s Natural History Museum. And his colorful butt cheeks.

8. The big pile of dog poop in the square with the giant Christmas tree.

7. Any machine that involves inserting a coin and watching it get squashed into a souvenir, voilà!

6. Kinder eggs. (Seriously, the U.S. is missing out.)

5. McDonald’s. Anywhere.

4. Graffiti. Anywhere.

3. Elevator buttons. Anywhere.

2. Their first water slide. And bumper car. And can of pineapple soda.

1. The rotating, self-sanitizing toilet at our first hotel. (Hours of fun. Hours.)

Austria, Slovakia, Hungary: Grown-Up Favorites
10. Aforementioned Slovakian moonshine.

9. Kids who refuse to eat anything except single-serving packs of peanut butter. (More mushroom soup, sweet cabbage, schnitzel, and strudel for us!)

8. 38-degree-Celsius heated pools. Ahhhhhhhhhh.

7. Gone with the Wind. And Legends of the Fall. And The Lion King. In Slovakian.

6. Hotel balconies and windows with wide ledges … For dirty-diaper storage, of course.

5. Locals. Who speak English. And offer directions. And help lift strollers onto buses. And return dropped mittens. And offer gingerbread to cranky children.

4. The espresso-cappuccino-hot-chocolate machine at the hotel breakfast buffet. Refill? Yes, please.

3. Highways, glorious highways. Romania, take note.

2. Being quiet and still so the kids can fall asleep. Then accidentally falling asleep ourselves. Before 9. Three nights in a row.

1. The five of us. Together. No matter what country we’re in.

What did your children enjoy most about Christmas vacation? And you? And have you ever had a Kinder egg??

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Fluffy Bunnies in Romania:
Read the tales. See the photos.

“The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear.” — Buddy the Elf

We’re in Vienna for Christmas, part of a 10-day vacation that will also take us to Slovakia and Hungary. The best part? Navigating the city by bus, subway train, and trolley. The worst part? Walking to, from, and between the various buses, trains, and trolleys. I’m newly back on two feet and still achy and slow. The kids take about twice as many steps as we do on their tiny little legs. And the baby wants nothing to do with the stroller, which we would all give our earmuffs to ride in. To keep the mood light (and occasionally drown out the crying) as we traverse the city on our way to the Butterfly House or the Riesenrad or the nearest mulled wine vendor, we sing Christmas carols. Lollipop and Giggles take turns belting out the Romanian ones they have learned at preschool, arguing over who’s pronouncing the words better. My husband and I opt for standards like “Jingle Bells” and “Rudolph.” And Bun chimes in with the occasional “Hooah!” or mitten toss. We’re spreading Christmas cheer — and handfuls of Cheerios — uptown, downtown, and through town.

What’s your favorite Christmas carol? Ever sung it loud for all to hear? Ever made it through a winter vacation without losing someone’s glove, scarf, muffler, blanket, or hat?

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Fluffy Bunnies in Romania:
Read the tales. See the photos.

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See more festive photos at Beth’s on Thursday.