Icecapades (in 3 short videos)

I wanted to call this post, “How I almost died while checking Emmett’s poop.”

I’m not sure the best place to start this story. I guess a little background:

1. For about 48 hours, ice poured out of the sky. Not snow. Ice. It had something to do with a warm air current preventing snow from forming, but a lower air current being cold enough to freeze the rain. I’m no meteorologist, but I’ll tell you this: That weather situation? It sucks. Lucas could barely find his footing:

2. Our backyard is scraggly on the best of days. The soil is all clay, so grass grows in clumps, and the terrain is very uneven. With all that ice, our backyard turned into an ice skating rink:

3. Cooper does not want to go to the bathroom in that.

Everything in the city was closed yesterday. The university closed for the first time since something like 1976. The power company has 55,000 people STILL without power. So last night, we settled in with the dogs, popped some popcorn, and listed to the ice plink against our windows while hoping that our house wouldn’t shatter to pieces. After we ate the popcorn, we both ate a cupcake. Not wanting to get up from the cozy couch, John tossed the cupcake wrappers in the bowl with all the unpopped kernels.

Time passed.

Cooper had to go to the bathroom. But he hates this weather and will “pretend” then run back to the door. So we bundled up and shuffled the three dogs outside. Emmett went right away then dashed back in the house.

A minute later, after Cooper had gone, we all went back inside (can you see where this is going?).

While we were waiting for Cooper and Lucas to go, Emmett had licked the popcorn bowl clean, ate the kernels, and swallowed the cupcake wrappers. Not a scrap or crumb was left.

Sigh.

So this morning, with the ice even thicker, I ventured out to “check” Emmett’s bathroom. Even in my heavy winter boots, I slipped and slid over to his pile, nearly falling a dozen times. And that’s how I almost died checking Emmett’s poop.

No cupcake wrappers have appeared. Yet.

With that, I’ll leave you with Cooper’s attempt to “get” Lucas: