The Queen's Rambles

First off, thank you all so much. You are all wonderful, insightful and supportive. I want to give a special shout out to my queen of ramble readers since the blog refuses to e-mail me comments so I can’t e-mail anyone back. THANK YOU.

Lest you think I am a paragon of cool, calm and self-control, I’ll tell you that I lost my shit on my sister yesterday. After her little 6 am make-up stunt we had a horrible morning. Elsa was whining and biting and biting and whining. I was exhausted. I was done.

My sister showed up about 10 with the plan of dumping her youngest son off with me (miracle of miracles, she actually sent her two older kids to school). I got in her face and we had words. I asked her why in the bleepity-bleep she would ever think it’s ok to wake some one up at 6 am to do her make-up. I told her I didn’t know how she had custody of her children and gave examples of the unbelievable shit she pulls. I raged.

Then she said she was leaving and I said “OH NO YOU ARE NOT.” I made her stay and watch Erik while Elsa and I took a two hour nap. She was chomping at the bit, because two hours of staying in one place is hell to her.

Do you think any of that went through her thick skull? Absolutely not.

Today she showed up with the kids at the hospital. Laynee had on a pair of Lexie’s high heels and the youngest only had one shoe. Then she wanted to leave them in the garden with me while she went up stairs. Do you think I want to be seen with a bunch of rag-a-muffin kids and have people think I am too lazy/stupid/ignorant to make my kids wear shoes?

My dad is doing very, very, very poorly today. I thought he was going to slip from this world while we were up there, but he is still hanging on. They are removing all the life support type stuff from him and will be moving him out of ICU (old timers, I keep typing ICQ) if they think he can make the transition. I want to change my tickets to stay another week, but my mom has absolutely forbid it. I want to be a support for her through the funeral, but my dad’s brother has really stepped up to the plate and is doing a lot of the planning with her. As long as she doesn’t have to fight off my sister and has the support of my uncle she can probably do it without me. I just feel guilty, but I don’t want to be here. My family needs to go home. I don’t know how much a ticket change would cost. I don’t know what to do. I feel like I am being selfish by going home right when things are getting even worse. Surely he can’t make it two more days. But what if he keeps making it and making it and we end up out here all summer?

I can’t be here all summer. It would turn me into a horrible person.

Honestly, I don’t ever plan on coming out here again. With my dad and grandma gone, I don’t feel like there’s anyone that needs to see the kids. I know Erik loves his cousin, but it just makes me sad to see them. Every year will just get worse.

. . . I want to bash her head into a brick wall.

My mom has been locking all the doors for the first time ever. She doesn’t feel safe with my dad gone (not sure what good he would have done) and her dogs are pretty useless as far as guard-dogging goes. My dad’s friend changed out the main lock and we’ve been very vigilant about keeping things locked up. My mom might forget, but I never feel safe in this town.

So what happens at 6 in the bleep-bleeping am? My sister starts ringing the doorbell, pounding on windows, and making a general racket. Elsa and I both woke up, so there went two hours of sleep.

What was oh-so-important that she had to wake up a very tired, sort of sick mother and her family at that ungodly hour (I know you worker bees probably don’t think six sounds too early, but just imagine it is two hours before your normal wake-up time)? Her make-up. She forgot her foundation and she couldn’t start her day without it. Why? WHY? Where the fuck does she have to go?

And why is her make-up spread out all over the country? She has a house. Isn’t that were her make-up should be?

Oh, and then she wanted me to french braid her hair and got mad when I wouldn’t do it. I have no freakin’ clue how to french braid hair. I have terrible fine motor skills and have no desire to learn.

It is 9:30, I am exhausted. Elsa is exhausted and needs a nap but the phone won’t stop ringing and I can’t turn the ringer off because I don’t want to miss a call if something happens to dad.

When Elsa gets tired she starts biting. Her bites now break the skin. I look like I’ve been attacked by a vampire. If anyone knows how to make a 13 month old quit biting please advise. I am at the end of my rope and am ready to duct tape her mouth closed.

If I have to be up, I would like to take a shower. I’m going to have to shower with Elsa. She will bite me.

I am hating life right now.

Poor, poor me.

I can’t wait to go home on Sunday. I miss our routine. I miss our friends. I miss my husband. I miss a clean home with no crazy people.

It has been really tough being the sole care giver while so ill. My mom is up at the hospital all the time, as she should be, so can’t help. My sister helps a little but I can’t depend on her and even when she’s here I have to supervise. All the kids are sick, so what does she let them do? Go play outside in the freezing cold with no shoes on (at least Erik was smart enough to put shoes on).

Coming to Oregon is always good for me because it makes me appreciate my real life so much more. I don’t think we better come back, though. It seems like things are worse and worse each time we come. What will happen next time? Murder? Car accident? I don’t know, and I don’t want to press my luck.

I swear if I was reading this journal I would be shaking my head, thinking this lady was full of shit or drama or negativity or something. It just isn’t possible for so much shit to be poured upon one person in such a short amount of time.

Oh, I know people deal with much, much shittier things. Last year one of my LJ friends (not sure you want to be named) lost her job, found out her husband was having an affair, and had her mother go through an acute health crisis in a four day span. My crap isn’t nearly that bad, but it is draining.

I was hoping my kids would avoid illness, but wasn’t holding out too much hope with my strep and the three cousins’ earaches. Sure enough, Erik woke up this morning complaining of a sore throat. Elsa was harder to judge, but she slept way more than normal and was cranky so I figured I better get her looked at as well.

We have totally crappy insurance that only covers practices in MD, DC and VA. If that’s not stupid, I don’t know what is. I think Mike’s parent company doesn’t understand the importance of good health insurance because they are based out of Spain. I’m pretty sure Spain has government sponsored insurance.

Anyway, that obviously wasn’t going to stop me from getting my kids treated. Doctor’s visits are actually really cheap out here, though I would prefer not to have a reason for a doctor’s visit.

We walk in, I explain we’re self-pay because I already know this. The lady gives me an evil look that says I’m scum. I was not pleased. I know we looked like scum. All our clothes are covered in dog hair. We were all sick. We didn’t exactly put on our Sunday best. But you know what? Who cares. Don’t make assumptions.

Finally we are called back to the person who makes sure our paperwork is right and that we have a source of payment. She got a lot happier when I showed her my medical debit card and thawed a little. I can see why she was stone cold. The people going through there were not exactly high class, but doesn’t everyone deserve some dignity when they are sick?

This lady was dumber than a box of rocks. It took her over 30 minutes to get us checked in. When I went on Monday there was a friendly, smart young lady who took all of five minutes to get me checked in. So it should have took ten minutes to check in two people?

Then the guy who leads you to the room and takes your vitals came in to see why she was taking so long and kept telling her everything she was doing wrong. She had Elsa’s name spelled as Else Passom. My handwriting is bad, but not that bad.

We went to our exam room, finally, and ended up sitting there for over an hour. There was only one patient ahead of us. I’m pretty sure the doctor went to breakfast before he came in. It was a nightmare, as you can imagine. We were in the dedicated women’s wellness room so there were things for Elsa to get into that she just didn’t need to be getting into.

Erik has strep. Elsa has an ear infection.

I was explaining to the doctor about her reluctance (understatement of the year) to take medicine and he decided the best thing would be to give her a kind of antibiotic that only needed one dose a day. The problem? It would cost $40. I told him that was fine. He was still shaking his head about the expense and I kept telling him it was fine. Sure, I’d rather pay $4, but this is about my daughter’s health. I have $40 for that. I finally told him that I knew our clothes were dirty and we weren’t looking our best, but that we don’t bring nice things when we visit Klamath Falls and I could well afford the extra expense if it would benefit my daughter’s health.

I was about to lose my shit at this point. We’d been there almost 2 hours. Two hours with a very sick five year old who refused to swallow, so was holding a cup full of spit. Two hours with a very active 13 month old who wanted a nap. Mama was not happy.

We drove home in a blinding hail storm, so that was just another level of joy.

Thankfully my sister was able to come over and watch the kids while I went to the pharmacy. My sister actually took my advice about something and didn’t immediately get in Elsa’s face when we arrived. Instead she took her time and made friends from afar, so now Elsa really likes her. Mama does know best, sometimes.

Anyway, the pharmacy was nuts. I thought it would be a quick in and out, but the pharmacist had tagged my case and wanted to talk to me. They needed Elsa’s weight (at this point everyone was calling her Elsie and I was getting perturbed. How bleeping hard is it to pronounce ElsA? I didn’t realize the dumb ass receptionist had spelled her first name wrong) to make sure the dosage was correct. Sure enough, the dosage was way off, so they had to recalculate and get permission from the doctor to give me the new dosage.

Also, they wanted to make sure I really wanted ear drops.

Ear drops? What ear drops?

The $297 numbing drops the doctor prescribed.

Wha?????

Either he took me seriously about having money or he was trying to kick me in the face. I declined the drops. Elsa doesn’t even seem to notice she’s in pain. And guess what? They had pain reliever/fever reducer suppositories! I stocked up on those and will use them if she seems troubled.

Erik took his meds right away and perked up around 6 pm. You’d never know the kid who was bouncing off the walls was the same kid who couldn’t move 2 hours before. I hope the trend continues.

I tried mixing Elsa’s meds in stuff I knew she liked, but she refused. I know we have to finish the course and we can’t screw around so I was really worried. I finally just tried a dose of the stuff straight from the dropper, and danged if that baby didn’t just suck it up and want more. It must be tasty. What a relief! I think I will have enough to give her the full course because the pharmacist said there would be some left over in the bottle.

I swear I am going to write that pharmacist a thank you note. She took a lot of time on a very, very busy day to work with me.

So that’s the kids.

Me? I was at the very end of my rope today and didn’t know what to do, but am feeling much better now.

My dad?

He lingers.

Yesterday they put him in some kind of sling thing and hoisted him into a wheel chair. My mom said it was horrible. My sister thought it meant a miracle was happening. She’s been telling everyone that a miracle is happening and he will be coming home and it will save his soul, my mom’s soul and the souls of all his drunkard friends. She is going to be the most devastated when that doesn’t happen because she’s not preparing herself. I don’t know that you CAN prepare yourself, but it seems like it will be better to assume the worst so you kind of have your head in that space.

I felt well enough to go see him today and I cried nearly the whole time. They need to be giving him more pain medication. I happened to get there right when it wore off before his next allowed dosage and it was not good. He was wild eyed and pleading for more meds. He has a big mask on so you can’t really hear him at all, which sucks because he wants to communicate. I could hardly stand it. He wanted something from me and I wanted to give it, but I had no idea what it was. I patted his hand a long time and tried to talk to him but I didn’t even know what to say. He looks really, really bad.

My mom just found out about the patient advocate at the hospital and is going to try to talk to her tomorrow if she is in. My mom is ready for all these little games to be over and the nurses told her to talk to this lady. The nurses aren’t supposed to have opinions, probably, but they know my dad is not going to make it and they shoot a lot straighter than the doctors. Probably because the nurses have to deal with the families all day and night, not just five minutes here and there.

It sounds terrible to say you want to end it, but he is just suffering. He is begging for a beer. He is in incredible pain. The nurses say he won’t do anything at all to help them, which means he will never recover because he won’t help himself. I don’t know how much a long term stay in the ICU costs, but I can tell you that Medicare only covers 80% of the cost. Drawing it out just to. . . I don’t know. . . not be responsible for making a decision? is just costing my mom a shit ton of money and not adding anything at all to the quality of dad’s life. It sucks. It really, really, really sucks. Modern medicine is wonderful, but it sure complicates these end of life issues.

So that’s the scoop today. Let’s cross all fingers and toes that we all kick these illnesses and are healthy for our trip home on Sunday. Mike went home on Monday and he seems to have strep. I told him to get his butt to the doctor sooner rather than later so I hope he goes in tomorrow. I’d never had strep before and didn’t realize what was happening. How do you tell the difference between strep-get-to-the-doctor-now and duh-just-a-virus sore throats?

Oh, and did I fail to mention Mike and I celebrated our 8 year anniversary yesterday? Or at least we tried to talk on the phone while Elsa screamed bloody murder in my ear and made it impossible for me to hear anything. We know how to do anniversaries, don’t we?

My throat was getting so bad that drinking water made me cry. I have had a fever for four days. I just wasn’t getting better and my lymph nodes were the size of baseballs. I did something completely out of character and went to the urgent care. I figured they wouldn’t do anything for me, but I was going to start crying until they gave me something.

Luckily I didn’t have to cry.

Actually I did cry, but not because they made me cry. I was just so run down and in pain and emotional that I couldn’t quit. She took one look at my throat and didn’t even bother to do the strep swab. She said I have one of the worst cases of strep throat she’s seen in years. No wonder even drinking water feels like sucking down red hot ground glass. I am so hungry that I bought some slimfast. The little tiny gritty pieces were like swallowing needle spiked rocks.

Anyway, I have a z-pack and I am hoping it will work fast. It has already given me digestive woes. I have yogurt as a preemptive strike against a yeast infection. We’ll see what happens.

My dad is now on a feeding tube and morphine. I think they are taking him off the drugs later today. Death in modern times is so difficult. They could keep him alive a long time with the drugs, but he will never be able to go home when he is off them. He can’t even breath without his oxygen mask. They expected him to be ready to go sooner, but they underestimated his strength. Imagine how long he would have lived if he wasn’t a raging alcoholic?

My sister is trying really hard to be helpful, but she can’t focus. You can’t trust her for five seconds. She was really ragging on me to let her take Erik to her house, but that just was not going to happen and I told her exactly why: she drives like a maniac, has a drug dealer living in her garage and everyone over there smokes pot because they have medical cards. Erik is not gong over there. He was pissed at me because she kept making excuses.

He is so ready to go home. His two older cousins are both sick, thus they don’t want to play. Grandma isn’t around at all. Mike flew home today. It is just one big ball of boring over here.

I really should have taken Ellen’s suggestion and bought earplugs. Bud, the giant lab, has been fine. He was just excited the first night we were here and couldn’t decide who to sleep with. However, my mother is insane. She got up at 2:30 this morning and started washing dishes and cooking a bunch of food. I guess that’s how she deals with stress.

Ok, I gotta go see if I can eat some pudding or something. I’m starving. I haven’t had anything but a glass of slimfast today. Do I know how to party, or what?

As usual, a trip to Oregon turns into oh so much fun. I came down with some horrible flu thing yesterday and my throat is totally raw. I spent most of the day curled up in bed. I am not allowed up at the hospital when I am sick, so it just seems stupid for me to be here. I know it’s not stupid and I’m glad we came, but this sickness is making me cranky.

The hanging thing in the back of my throat is so swollen that I had a hard time breathing last night. We are at 4,500 feet, so the air here is really thin. If you live here you don’t really notice because your body makes up for the lack of oxygen in the air. When you haven’t lived here for almost 20 years your body no longer has the extra iron to hold on to the little bit of oxygen. Thus I spent all night last night almost going to sleep, then waking up gasping for air. Maybe I need to send Mike out to buy some house plants to stick around my bed. They produce oxygen, right?

In other news, my sister is still crazy. Was there any doubt? I about slapped her yesterday. Erik came out of the room with high water pants on because that’s all he has. I am not buying him a new pants wardrobe now when he won’t be wearing long pants until October. She looks at him and goes “Why’d your mom dress you so funny? Your pants are way too short!”

He can be really sensitive about things like that. Why would you say that to anyone? I don’t care if the person is 5, 15 or 55. You don’t make rude comments about a person’s appearance.

Let’s say we had words. I didn’t scream or anything, but she knew I was unhappy.

Her excuse is that she says shit like that to her kids all the time and they don’t care. And that’s the sad thing. She does say awful stuff to her kids all the time, making fun of their hair and clothes and stuff. Then she wonders why they are super shy and don’t want anyone to look at them. She has a total disconnect.

Wouldn’t you just love to be raised by a mother who constantly insulted your looks? And she never, ever says please or thank you. She just barks out orders. I told her if she wants to raise polite children she needs to start setting an example. When she was barking orders at me I would treat her like Erik and make her ask me again in a nice way.

Long time readers may remember that we have a half-sister we’ve never met. My dad abandoned her mother when she was pregnant (they were both 16) and has never made any attempt to contact her. My mom did send her our contact info a few years back and she never responded. I don’t blame her at all.

My sister knows one of her friends and wants to go over to her house and tell her about dad. Geeeeeeee. . . let’s think about the many ways that could go wrong. She started crying and saying this girl was our family and we have to go there and take care of her. WTF??? Take care of her? She’s a woman in her mid-40s. I don’t think she needs a drug addled bi-polar unwanted half-sibling showing up on her doorstep. My sister refuses to understand why this lady wouldn’t want to talk to us. “But we’re her family! We didn’t do anything to her!”

I don’t see it that way at all. If she wanted to meet us I wouldn’t be opposed to the idea, but we have no right to go and try to insert ourselves in middle of her life. She has a father who raised her and I assume she has siblings. She doesn’t need to get involved in all our dysfunction.

I’m so glad I can vent here. It makes it a lot easier not to beat her with a stick when we are in a room togther.

Now I have to go take dogfood out of Elsa’s mouth. She won’t eat real food, but that dog food is pretty tasty stuff I guess.

After a long, long, LONG day yesterday (delayed flights all over the place), we made it home and fell into bed. My mom took out most of the carpeting a few years ago and her big lab has long toenails. All night long that dog was walking all over the place, clicking and clacking, moaning, howling, sticking his nose in my face.

It was not a pleasant sleeping experience.

I am so tired today, but at least I am not wrangling children. Instead, I’m watching my father die.

Doesn’t that sound melodramatic? I think I’m in denial. I mean, I know it’s happening and I have been tearing up, but I can’t imagine it really, really happening.

He woke up when we brought the kids up and seemed happy to see them. He wanted to touch Elsa, so I helped him do that even though she was terrified. I’m glad they let her in because they don’t normally allow babies (or even children) in the ICU but since my dad isn’t contagious they let her in for a few mintues. They don’t want babies leaving the place with pneumonia.

My mom and I have been here all day. I would think it is boring, but there’s only been about 20 minutes of time without visitors. He has a lot of friends who are popping out of the woodwork.

At this point strong meds are keeping him alive and can probably keep him alive for awhile longer. Eventually my mom and her doctor will have to decide if they are going to remove the meds or what. My dad has already said he doesn’t want to be on a ventilator.

It’s a tough thing, as I know some of you know. I am glad I don’t have to make decisions about it. I don’t know what I’ll do when it is is my mother. I do love my dad in the way that a distant daughter loves a father who never did much for her. My mom is my mommy. Hopefully nothing bad will happen to her for many, many more years because I certainly won’t be this calm, cool and collected.

I am so glad Mike was able to come with me. He has the kids and gets to be Mr. Mom today. I am wondering how his grocery shopping excursion went. He can probably do a better job at momming the kids than me because he has a lot more patience.

I would like to talk my mom into going home for the night tonight, but I don’t think she’ll do it. She has been keeping up basically a 24/7 vigil at his side. I can’t believe how gentle and loving she’s being. I didn’t even think she liked him.

I am going to try really hard not to explode on my sister. I know she is sad and hurting. I am just pissed because my travel kit is mostly empty. Last time I was here I bought a box, filled it with several toiletries so I wouldn’t have to pack as much, and wrote “Carrie’s Travel Kit. DO NOT TOUCH!” on the lid.

If you came across that in your parent’s cupboard would you open it and take out all the contents? Would you use the bleep-bleepin’ TOOTHBRUSHES?

I didn’t pack much in the way of toiletries because I knew that was there, but she took everything out but baby shampoo and a thermometer. If we weren’t in the situation we are in I would be in her face, totally going off on her. I know she does a lot of stupid shit and chooses a horrible life style, but that just crossed some invisble line in my head. It was just so blatantly rude and selfish. Just thinking about it is getting me riled up. I’m going to try not to fight with her, but you know in a time of high emotions like this a fight will happen and that will come out.

Ok, I better go. My mom’s neighbor is up here and I’m going to try to bum a ride home with her. I need some rest.

My sister called at 1:30 in the morning to tell me that my dad was doing really poorly and not expected to make it. I feel bad for her. I really do. I just wish she would have listened to my mom and not called me at that hour. There is absolutely nothing I can do from here. I guess in the old days I could have stayed awake and prayed all night, but I think the net result would be the same no matter how strong my faith was. An unsaved alcoholic with a body shutting down is not likely to get a miracle.

That’s basically what’s happening. His whole system is shutting down. No kidney function, no liver function. Heart at 30%. Lungs full of crud. I talked to my mom this morning and they didn’t think he would make it through the day.

I called a few minutes ago and my my was having lunch. My dad’s friend was there, trying to convert him to Christianity. I can understand that. If you really believe in it, you really believe in it. Of course you don’t want your friends or family to roast in hell for all eternity.

My dad has some kind of breathing machine on that made it hard for him to talk, but I tried talking anyway. I have no idea what to say. He is scared, as anyone would be, but what can I say? I just don’t know. It was awkward. I tried talking about the kids, because I thought that would interest him the most.

Mike was at some big space meeting thing where he had to wear a suit and listen to the governor give a speech. I have been unable to plan since I really need to coordinate with him. He can take some time off, but not two weeks. I think we will all go as a family and just stay a shorter amount of time. I want to be there for my mom and my sister, but I just can’t do the travel with the two kids alone. My back is so bad it just isn’t possible.

My sister was really angry at me for not hopping the first plane out and didn’t want to hear my excuses. Her solution was to have a friend come out with me to help with the kids. Because we all have friends who can drop their lives and be our personal nannies for a couple of weeks? I don’t know about you, but as a *cringe*late*cringe*thirty-something I don’t have friends that can drop everything and fly out on a plane for a couple of weeks. My friends have small children or careers. They aren’t going to be using their vacation time to take care of me and my kids. I guess when all your friends are drug dealers or party animals on welfare, they have more flexibility in their schedule.

Facebook is going to be helpful, I think. I already had two leads on babysitters in Klamath so I won’t have to depend on my sister’s drug addled people to take care of Erik during the funeral. I have friends with vast connections so the Mormon church. Those Mormon kids are generally pretty good people that you can trust with a 5 year old. If that falls through, I have another more distant friend getting reccs from a teacher at a Christian school. I guess some people take their kids to funerals, but I’m not really comfortable doing that. I suppose Elsa will have to go because she has such stranger anxiety, but Erik will be much better off some place else.

And I guess I better go now because I smell something rank, which tells me life goes on. Diapers need a’changin’.

My dad is in the hospital and we are not sure what’s going on. My sister called yesterday, full on hysterical, telling me he was going to die and I needed to get out there RIGHT NOW.

I talked to my mom a little later and she said not to come just yet. He is in very poor health, but he’s always in very poor health. Will this be the time he finally gives up the ghost or will he pull through and be at home getting drunk by the time I arrive? It’s hard to know. She is going to corner the doctor and ask him if I should come out or not. I want him to see Elsa one last time (and Erik, of course) if this is really it, but I do not want to travel alone with the kids if it is not it. Just the thought of trying to contain Elsa on that trip makes me want to cry.

My sister is freaking out, of course. She always freaks out. She wants everyone to pray that he will come to know the Lord. I suppose that is an admirable goal, but I prayed so hard for so many years. Not only did I engage in hard core praying, I devoted birthday wishes and every other sort of magical thinking to the wish that he would be saved and not be a total drunkard. I get tired of her drama.

I do feel bad for her, though. She’s obviously mentally unstable. Mental illness runs in my dad’s family and she is clearly suffering.

She has also been dealing with a lot of death. Her sister-in-law died last week. She was a mirror twin and in a wheel chair in very poor health for years and years because her organs were in backwards and didn’t work correctly.

Last month her step-sons’ older half-brother lost his baby to SIDS. Her husband was basically the only father the boy had ever known. Somehow the boy had made a good life for himself with a nice wife, good job, good kids. In other words, he was a normal, contributing member of society. And then he lost his baby. I can only imagine the grief he and his family are going through. It was tough on everyone and somehow my sister inserted herself right in the middle of it all.

And now my dad.

I will know more tomorrow, I hope. I’m trying not to think about it. Of course it will hurt when he goes, but at the moment I am pretty shut down. I can only think of all the terrible things he’s done to his family. He never cared about us at all, or at least not in a way that made any sense. He paid the bills. That’s about the only positive thing that can be said about him.

The last few years he has become sentimental and has tried to show love, but it is sort of hard for me to accept. Too little, too late, you know?

*We are in need of a new dining room table. Ours is ugly, chipped and gross. Our chairs have built in padding that is completely shot. We could probably do something to fix them if we knew what we were doing, but they are still crappy particle board with chips all over. Mike said we could get a nice, new table if I didn’t spend any money in May.

So I went and bought a new camera.

Guess I didn’t want that new table as badly as I thought I did.

You can’t have kids and live without a camera, though. I had a small budget, but then I decided to go to Ritz and talk to actual human beings instead of ordering online. I was talked into a camera a little above my budget, a protection plan, a fancy card and suddenly my budget was about triple what I intended to pay.

The pay off?

Beautiful pictures. I’m so happy to finally have a camera that takes nice pictures. No more blurry photo books! It’s a Sony Cybershot in case anyone cares.

*I have a head cold. I thought I was having an allergic reaction to something in the air, but after 24 hours of constant snotting, I’m pretty sure it’s just a cold. I guess that’s better than allergies since it will go away, but I don’t know how I’m going to sleep tonight. I did take a Sudafed since I don’t care if my milk dries up so I’m hoping that will help.

*I don’t care if my milk dries up. Sob! I nursed Erik till he was almost 3. Elsa is only 13 months, but she’s a biter and she has other issues. She severely iron deficient and needs to learn to eat real food, so I’ve only been nursing her at night and before naps. She’s finally starting to eat more food, though I still can’t get a fruit to cross her lips no matter the form.

*I’m supposed to be giving her 4 ml of iron supplements a day (260 mg elemental iron). We haven’t worked up to that much, but she is getting some. I was so worried at first, but now that I know she’s getting about half the doctor recommended dose every day I’m relaxing. We never could get her to take it in juice. Instead, we slowly built her taste tolerance in just plain water. The water starts out clear, but an hour later it looks like apple juice. I guess my baby is drinking rust water. Gross.

When she spills it or spits it all over it smells really rusty. I’m just hoping that since it is in water it will clean up nicely. I had a bunch of baby clothes from a formula fed baby and they were covered in iron stains. Apparently you don’t notice the stains at first, but eventually they come out. I’m telling myself the fat in the formula makes the clothing and carpeting hang on to the iron. If not, we won’t be able to pass on a single outfit from her and we’ll have to have all new flooring. I’ll also need a new wardrobe.

*Erik is obsessed with Beyblades, a really dumb toy for boys. Basically they are tops that do battle. Instead of spinning them with your fingers, they go in a launcher and you rip a cord and they spin super fast. I bought him two when the neighbor kids first got into it, then my mom bought him one when she was here.

He lost one down a storm drain (since recovered by an old man with a crowbar and a friendly teenager. I love our neighborhood.) and was begging for a new one. I refused because they are $8 each, he has two others and he needs to learn to be more responsible.

He kept begging and whining and begging and whining and complaining to me about the cost of the stupid things. In a moment of truly inspired parenting I told him not to complain to me about the price, since I didn’t set it. Complain to the Beyblade people. I then looked up their customer service number and had him call them.

They were a little surprised, but he clearly stated his complaint and they thanked him for his comments but said that is just how much they cost. He said he was mad at them and hung up. He hasn’t complained to me since.

I may have created a monster. I’ll be on the look out for “customer’s suck” stories about a little kid that calls in and complains about everything. He loves to talk so much that it will be brilliant to have him call other people and leave me alone.

Do you know when Erik was a little baby I was making plan to homeschool him even though I am not a fan of homeschooling (for us and our family, I don’t care what you do)? I was so worried that he would be bullied and picked on and life at school would be so hard for him. I was projecting a lot of my own past on him, of course, and then adding regular mama worries on it. It’s so hilarious though. I look at this boy and wonder where he came from. Bullies might try to take him down, but I am very confident that he can stand up for himself. In fact, I am much more worried that he will be a bully. I am trying my best to make him a kind, compassionate, polite human being but it’s tough work. He is nothing like I imagined he would be. He’s so much more. I am going to be so sad when he’s away from home 7 hours a day this fall. I am going to be happy for him because I know he’ll love school and I’m going to be happy to have some free time with just Elsa, but 7 hours seems so long. I suppose we’ll get used to it rather quickly and it will all be fine.

Did you just hear a wail of pain across America?

I just read that they cancelled Outsourced, one of my very favorite new shows. Why? WHY?????

They also cancelled Traffic Light, which I enjoyed but I didn’t wail in pain. The Event and Chase are also gone, but I am not too sad. I was mostly watching those because there was nothing else to watch.

I wonder if they’ve cancelled Hawaii Five-O. I wanted to like that one. I tried to like that one. I couldn’t watch it. It was so boooooring. How can a cop show be so boring?

Despite all the cancellations, I’m just glad most networks are getting back to scripted shows. I like certain reality shows (Top Chef, Project Runway, Pregnant in Heels) but most of them don’t blow up my skirt.

And now I have to go tell Erik a Harry Potter story. I wish he had enough concentration to listen to me read the book, but he was bored by page 2. All those owls at the Dursley’s place weren’t that impressive I guess. I am sort of sad that he plays Lego Harry Potter because now he thinks that’s the real Harry Potter. He won’t get to experience the joy of being introduced to Harry through the books. I’ll never forget the day I was at a little bookshop/coffeeshop/New Agey shop in Astoria and I found this hardcover book with a kid flying on a broomstick. I almost didn’t buy it because it was $12 and who spends $12 on a kid’s book when they have access to a high school librarian who consistently sets aside piles of books you might find interesting? I read that bad boy in less than 2 hours, then ran up the stairs and thrust it into my roommate’s hands. She was a middle school librarian and she’d already read it. In fact, a few weeks later she dressed as HP for Halloween and no one knew who she was. Can you imagine a time when you had to create your own HP costume and no one even knew who you were? Well of course you can, but isn’t that a sad, sad world?

I am glad they haven’t turned HP into little kid reading leveled books, but I sure wish I had one right about now.