Freezing in Houston!

This has been the craziest, longest winter in my life. What is even crazier is the snow we've gotten two years in a row. This is a picture from December 4, 2009.

"Since 1895, it has only snowed 33 times in Houston, about once every 3½ years on average. Until 2008 and 2009, it has never snowed two years in a row. In 2008, it snowed on December 10 and 24, in itself a rarity, with the first one setting a record for the earliest ever. This was quickly broken the following year by a major storm on December 4." - Wikipedia.org (Climate in Houston)

So today it didn't snow after all just north of downtown, as forecast, but it did in some of the more northern parts of the city and up in Huntsville. I picked up the kids from their after school program and we made a quick stop at the grocery store for some juice I had to buy for a teacher appreciation breakfast tomorrow. When we got off the truck we saw some little bits of ice falling. It was exciting for about a minute but we quickly realized it wasn't going to turn into snowfall. That's okay, it was cold enough.

We've been going through a lot of changes in the Ruiz home this week. I have believed in co-sleeping for a while now, and I still do when the children are younger, but we had gone a little over board I think and I hadn't been able to get the kids out of our bed. Last week my husband decided that enough was enough and that maybe at this age we were doing the children more harm than good.

So on Thursday the children moved into their own beds and room permanently. It's been painful for them and they are still waking up during the night and telling us they hear noises, but they are doing it. Even last night my little one came into our room and told us that he was hearing noises. I was ready to scoot over to make room for him, but my husband told him to go back to bed and I was shocked when he did. I was so sleepy I just turned over and kept sleeping, but in the morning I was amazed to see that he was sleeping soundly in his bed.

We are also putting them to bed earlier and I only read a little bit of To Kill a Mockingbird to them tonight. I am hoping that by going to bed earlier they are less tired after school, especially my son. Some evenings he's so cranky it makes it hard to go the gym. I go anyway but there have been a couple of times that he is just crying and carrying on OR that he falls asleep on the short ride from his after school class to the gym. This SHOULD help my working out! It's already helping my writing because they've been asleep since 9:30 and that gave me some extra writing time.

My husband just kidded with his Anglo friend, who has been shocked by our chidrens' bedtime and sleep culture, that we have finally acculturated and our kids are now officially non-Hispanic. (LOL) He told him that they've been asleep since 9:30 in their own beds and in their own room.

On another note, I met with my soon-to-be editor today and she's agreed to look at more of my novel. I'm excited! Forward on! Leap fearlessly! I can't wait to start getting more feedback from her. I told her that I am going to have to edit prior to her editing, kind of like I clean house before the cleaning lady. But knowing that I have to send it to her for editing will force me to edit. I'm excited!

Lots of changes! More to come soon!