As I might have mentioned before, I woke up this morning to find that it was snowing yet again. It was coming down pretty heavily; but I had an OB appointment. So we started getting into our coats and boots about an hour and fifteen minutes before. Then we made our way out to the driveway and Bella whined as I cleaned off the car. I decided not to repeat my error of last Thursday, buckling her into the car seat while I scraped, and instead let her wander about in the driveway. I sang Christmas carols as I worked and she followed me around, whining when I went around the corner of the car out of sight. I do think she cried less that way than if she’d been closed up in the car, however.
The roads weren’t nearly as bad as I’d feared and as we turned into my sister-in-law’s neighborhood, I was twenty minutes ahead of schedule. But their neighborhood hadn’t been plowed yet and I got stuck going up the hill. I backed down and decided to go around the other way, where there’s a sharper curve but a more gradual hill. About halfway up that hill, I got stuck again. But I was only a few houses down so I called and my brother-in-law came out to help me get unstuck. When he got in the car Bella, who’d been whining and whimpering, started screaming and sobbing.
My brother in law backed us out and drove us in the very long and roundabout way that I didn’t know about. I dropped Bella off and left her playing happily with her cousins while I sweated about getting to my appointment on time. They make you reschedule if you’re more than 15 minutes late.
I was late; but not too late. The doctor’s appointment was the usual quick in and out: pee, get weigh, blood pressure, tape measure, fetal heartbeat you’re done.
I was a little worried about getting back to their house. The plows still hadn’t come through and more snow had accumulated. But I made it. Bella was happy to see me; but had had a great time, miss sunny chatty girl, and was well fed with pizza and freeze-dried snap peas. I stayed and chatted and played with my baby niece and had a sandwich but finally I couldn’t put off going any longer. Bella was rubbing her eyes and needed to go down for a nap.
As I buckled her in, I said a quick Hail Mary and a prayer to my guardian angel and St Christopher. I got in the car, buckled myself in and Bella asked for her cup. The diaper bag being behind me, I couldn’t reach the cup from my seat so I got out, opened the back door and found her cup for her. Just then two plows came up the hill and around the corner, leaving a nice clear path down the hill for me. I whispered a small thank you and drove carefully home.
The first plows to go through their neighborhood all day happened along right before I started down the hill. Had I started even a minute sooner, I might have plowed into the plows on their way up the hill. Angels watching over us indeed!
