This is why I drive a gas-guzzling SUV with four-wheel drive - so in weather like this, I can at least get to the store to get baby food, which is the item I forgot to stock up on before the storm hit. The baby fruit, anyway, which Geiger* has come to expect at the end of every meal. Last time we had a storm like this, diaper rash cream was the forgotten item, and Mad Libs* ended up with the worst case of diaper rash I've ever seen.

We're twelve hours into a thirty-hour storm. By tomorrow, I bet we can't get out of the house without snowshoes, which we don't have. They're on my Christmas list, but I don't think anyone took me seriously enough to actually buy them for me. After we took this picture, we had to break out the snow shovel to get the door closed again.

That's my Australian Shepherd, Bella, peering over the snowdrifts that have piled up to our doorknobs. At two o'clock this afternoon, the snow in the front yard was above my knees. When I went out to run the few errands that seemed really urgent, such as picking up baby food and going to the bank, visibility was down to a few car lengths, and there was at least a foot of snow just sitting on the roads.

*Mudbug and Boo have earned the new nicknames of Geiger and Mad Libs. Mudbug has always liked it when I click my tongue, and about a month ago she started doing it herself. I can sit in my office chair and she swims around the room (she doesn't quite crawl yet, but she can swim rather quickly) and all I hear is *click*click*click*click*click*. Boo has started interjecting odd words into his sentences. They're the right part of speech, for instance, ordering his vanilla steamer with no foam and no belly buttons. Thus the Mad Libs moniker.