Jess Blankshain leaves the Christmas lights up 'til January

It's a "scream sing the bridge to Death by a Thousand Cuts even though you're happily married" kind of Wednesday

Did not expect celebrating positive strep tests to be such a regular part of parenting

Some day I will learn not to check my phone when a sick child wakes me up early

Lessons learned from the Blizzard of '26:
- snow filled ziplocs make great cooler ice packs to save your perishables
- LED beanies are amazing, as are kid-friendly headlamps
- try not to have both parents get the flu immediately before a blizzard

I love that the thing we apparently learned from the early days of the pandemic is that it's totally reasonable to expect people to supervise their children's virtual learning while also continuing to do their own jobs

We also seem to have had a strep + flu situation 🤦🏼‍♀️

I am complaining about day 2 at home now that I have the flu

Of all the days to be home with a sick kid, can't really complain about getting the one where we can watch skating and hockey finals live

For those playing along at home, the solution was to abandon the frozen pipe and reroute through the house creating more radiator. Did require a professional but was done in an hour.

Sooo anyone have tips for thawing a pipe in an inaccessible crawl space?

Scotch magic tape is wonderful but Scotch gift-wrap tape is an abomination. Don't make my mistake.

And then you have a fresh Market Basket pizza before the Bears game starts

Pro tip: middle of a Patriot's game is a great time to go to Market Basket

Toddler figured out how to get a leg over the top of the crib rail send help

Raise your hand if you drank coffee at 4pm because you knew you'd be up late working and then were wide awake past 1am and now it's the next morning and you just want to go back to bed but you can't because you have kids and a job 🙋🏼‍♀️

My experience with getting bangs has made me much less skeptical of people not recognizing Superman with glasses on.

Kid 1 and Kid 2 figured out how to lift Toddler out of the crib this morning. Unclear whether this will result in more or less sleep for me.

Shout out to the daycare teachers who send you a photo of your child playing happily ten minutes after they had a meltdown at drop off

Good news: I remembered to make overnight oats last night.
Bad news: I forgot salt, again 🤦🏼‍♀️

Nothing says last day of winter break like frantically grading exams while the toddler naps and the big kids play video games in the tent that has taken over the living room

Not the morning to discover there's no coffee in the house

TIL tonies still work after a trip through the washing machine

There were also construction site and dinoland sections so I think the guiding principle was "why not?"

Space Force written in Christmas lights with a star in the middle

Space Force yes, others sadly no

View through a car windshield of Christmas light displays showing the Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima and the names of the military services

I have so many questions about how/where one procures these

The logistics of the cover up after the capture were truly mind boggling

How America captured a German submarine right before D-Day The U.S. Navy sunk many German U-boat submarines in World War II. But then they captured one, right before the D-Day invasion.

If you're ever looking for something to do in Chicago, I highly recommend seeing the U-505 at the Museum of Science and Industry. Amazing story and really well done exhibit. taskandpurpose.com/history/germ...

I have some grading you can do!

Kids think I have access to the Santa tracker on my phone because I work for the military and I'm not going to tell them otherwise

Kid 1: If you're on the naughty list you still get presents on your birthday