The Queen's Rambles

I need a shower to feel human but I need to post before I burst. I guess post wins, and hopefully I’ll still have time to shower later.

Where to start?

We had quite an afternoon yesterday. We were going to meet some friends at the park, but it started raining about a half hour before our meeting time so I invited everyone over to my house. My house was not company ready, but they were good friends and the place wasn’t a total sty, so who cares?

I had the door propped open because the weather was beautiful, despite the rain, when I suddenly had two extra kids pop in the door.

I told them they had to go outside and play, but they explained that they’d been knocking on their door five thousand times and no one would answer. Have you heard me talk about the drug house before? The kids belong there. If it had been any other kid I would have called 911 immediately because it would have been clear that something was wrong.

This situation? It’s tricky. I wanted to call 911, but I didn’t want the kids to feel like they were in trouble for seeking help. If they were not taken away from their parents I didn’t want them to get in trouble for seeking help. I don’t want to be a person they take advantage of all the time, but I do want to be a safe place for them if they need it.

Does that even make sense?

I went down and banged on the door. No one was there.

I left a note with our phone number and brought them home and fed them. Thankfully my company was very understanding and they took over Elsa care and big kid care (the two strays brought the total number of kids up to 7).

I knew the kids would be hungry, but holy cow! I gave them each some meatballs and bread and jelly and it was GONE in ten seconds flat. They’d been standing out in the rain for an hour, trying to figure out what to do. They knocked on the cops door, but he wasn’t home. I really, really wish he had been home! Then I wouldn’t have had to be involved or have any reason to question my actions. I think I did the right thing, but I still wonder if it would have been better to call 911.

In the end, they were with us for an hour before the mom called us. Apparently the grandma had been home the whole time, but she was taking a nap. The mom was pretty mad at the grandma, as she should have been, so I hope she wasn’t mad at the kids. Of course you and I would never blame our children for any wrong doing in a situation like that, but we are normal people. I have a pretty good insight into this ugly world of drugs and poverty thanks to my sister. She blames her kids for her dirty house. Yes, of course our children dirty up our house, but she goes beyond the initial “my house is dirty because I have kids” into “my children won’t clean my house, so why should I?”

So there was that.

Then there was preschool.

Erik loves it, but I am not in love with his teacher. She is supposed to be fabulous, but I’m not so sure. She’s very intense and expects a lot out of them, which is good, but I think she may be just a wee bit too intense for Erik.

Yesterday she told me (in front of the other parents!) that Erik doesn’t know his right from left, doesn’t know how to write his name, doesn’t know how to sequence a story and doesn’t know how to hold a pencil. On the plus side, he speaks in complete sentences.

Is any of that true?

He can’t hold a pencil properly. I am well aware of that.

The rest?

No. Not true. Just completely not true. I know I’m his mommy and I am biased, but I do think I am fairly clear sighted when it comes to his strengths and weaknesses.

She’s known him for seven days and she suddenly knows him better than me? I don’t think so.

He has two major problems: he often chooses not to pay attention if he doesn’t find you interesting and he is very literal. She doesn’t say “show me your left hand” she says “show me lefty loosey” and he doesn’t get that. He doesn’t know why his friend Lucy would be at his school. He and I often go round and round because I’ll speak in metaphors or idioms and he doesn’t understand or want to understand.

Sequencing stories? Same thing. He doesn’t care for fiction (my soul is weeping) and doesn’t really pay attention. If he doesn’t care about something, he’s not going to cooperate.

The teacher is very good at playing games with the kids, but they are games he isn’t interested in. She’s the sergeant but he doesn’t care. He keeps telling me “I’m a boy, not a soldier.”

I hope she figures it out sooner rather than later. I don’t want to speak to her about it because it is clear that she thinks she knows more than the parents. It’s preschool. I don’t really care at the moment as long as Erik is happy. But if it continues I’ll have to start to care.

I think I have Erik’s birthday party figured out. I’m not a party planner. At all. I’m frugal and parties and frugality don’t mix–at least not the kind of parties kids/parents expect.

We have the karate place for free and I don’t have to do any entertainment, so I’m feeling like I don’t have to be so frugal. We can invite as many kids as we want without extra payment to the place.

I will be a good hostess. I will have pizza even though the party is in middle of the afternoon. I will have soda even though I always forget that people drink soda (I only drink water). I won’t cheap out on the goody bags even though I personally hate a bunch of cheap plastic flotsam. The kids are old enough that they enjoy the thrill of getting a bag o’crap.

My mantra. I won’t cheap out.

There’s just one little glitch in my plan, but I think I have it figured out. Erik would love love love love to invite all his neighborhood friends. I counted and there are 25 kids that I should invite if I were to do such a thing.

This isn’t so much about being cheap, as about having a party that’s fun for a Erik’s friends and that doesn’t drive me crazy. There are age gaps, personality conflicts, irresponsible parents. . . it just wouldn’t work out. I finally convinced Erik that he’s going to have two parties. Whoo-hoo! Two!

I’ll buy a few dozen cupcakes and maybe a pinata and take it all out to the little park on his birthday. That counts as a party, right?

I thought we were in the clear, but tonight one of the moms wanted my e-mail address so she could invite us to her kid’s Chuck E. Cheese party this weekend. Thing is? I can’t stand this kid. He’s a total brat and really mean to Erik. If he wasn’t in the picture I would probably try to figure out a way to invite the other kids (though that is way too many kids, but I would hope most of them wouldn’t show up). Last year Erik worshiped the ground the kid walks on and insisted on inviting him. All he cared about was the “return gift” aka goody bag and was really pissed that the goody bag was just a bag full of pinata candy.

We won’t be going to his birthday party. We have other things going on that day and I just don’t wanna. I’ve heard that Chuck E. Cheese is horrible and everyone gets sick when they go there. I’m sure Erik will learn of its existence eventually, but it doesn’t have to be this weekend.

So what do you think? Good plan? Age appropriate friends from various places at the official party and a big neighborhood cupcake party? Erik really, really wants to invite his best little neighborhood friend, but she’s from the drug house and there are at least four kids in the house that run wild. I’m afraid we just can’t do it. She is such a sweet little girl. I want to ask them if I can have her, but I guess that’s not exactly appropriate.

In other news, Erik is still excited about school but he’s less excited about his teacher. She says the students are all soldiers and she’s the sergeant. I guess they play this all day and Erik hates it. He told me “I’m going to tell her I don’t like that game and tell her and tell her and tell her and then I’m going to kick her.”

Oh yes, there was a conversation about how it is ok to use your words and tell the teacher things, but you never, ever kick your teacher or any body else. I tried to explain that it was just a game and it was supposed to be fun, but he was having none of that. He was going to tell her, gosh darn it!

He is also assigned “homework.” He’s supposed to be cutting things and coloring things at home, practicing proper form. I remember loving to color when I was a kid, but it’s such a joyless exercise for him. She wants them to practice since holding the crayon properly and staying inside the lines prepares them for real writing, but it is like pulling teeth. He does it, but we have to make deals and take turns and . . . just. . . blah. The worst? He chooses a single color and colors the whole picture with that single crayon. No wonder there’s no joy! He refuses to change things up, though, so what can you do?

I’m just glad he’s not crying when we arrive. Today was a madhouse. It’s the second week and I guess the shine of going to school has worn off for a lot of the kids. There was much crying, whining, and screaming in the hall this morning. I was very happy I wasn’t a teacher and could run out the door as fast as possible.

I posted a few pictures on Flickr if you are a stalker. Click through to see them. They’re also on FB. I know you are living to see pics of my kids.

I had to post this one. Do you know who he is?

Star Wars fans can surely tell that’s Bobba Fett you’re looking at.

We are creative in our costume execution in these parts. Don’t you know a jet pack when you see one?

And of course I have to put up a picture of my sweet girl. She’s looking more and more like her brother. I had her in a blue sleeper last night and it was a big disconcerting. I kept having flashbacks to Erik’s baby hood (only without the screaming).

We’ve been having a pretty rough weekend. I’ve been Miss Cranky Pants, mainly due to disturbed sleep. I guess the old chestnut “sleep begets sleep” is really true. We tried many, many things to get Erik to sleep but nothing worked. All the simple, easy advice works with Elsa.

Problem?

Preschool.

Don’t get me wrong. I love preschool. But poor Elsa is all messed up. She no longer sleeps in the car or in her car seat and all the in and out and up and down is messing up her sleep. No sleep during the day means no sleep during the night. I don’t get it, but there you have it. No sleep begets no sleep.

I even had to take her out of the bed a couple of different times this week. Yes, I know that’s what you do with babies, but I was spoiled. She hasn’t been awake during the night since she was six weeks old (she starts grunting and I feed her, but she never wakes up all the way).

Ah, the joys of baby sleep talk.

At least we are finally getting somewhere with Erik’s night time routine. Mike and I are both very empathetic parents and both remember the feeling of lying in bed alone, being very afraid. We’ve not wanted that for Erik, thus one of us always lays with him until he goes to sleep.

No more!

We’ve been slowly weaning him off us and I think our work is complete. Now we lay there 15 minutes or so and then leave. It’s some kind of miracle. He doesn’t even seem traumatized.

How about something completely different?

I had a weird experience at Safeway the other night and I’m still feeling guilty.

We were in a big hurry and just needed to pick up a couple of items before karate class.

As we walked in I noticed a little boy, maybe 8 or 9, climbing up on the soup table and getting some crackers. Weird, I suppose, but nothing worth commenting on.

We rushed through the aisles and ended up in the produce section. The boy was sprawled out on the floor, cracker wrappers spread around, reading a magazine. Ok. Definitely weird.

My son, the social butterfly, went over to say hello. This happens all the time and we get various reactions–a friendly hello, running away and hiding, the reactions run the gamut.

This kid didn’t even look up. Erik got even closer and shouted at him, but again the kid didn’t even look up. At this point I noticed he was making some repetitive hand motions and an alarm bell went off. I started looking for a parent, but there wasn’t one in sight.

Erik kept asking me what was wrong with the boy and asking if he was lost. When your four year old notices something’s off, you know it’s really off.

I kept him in my line of sight as we got in line. When we finally got up to the checker, I told him what was going on. The woman in line behind me chimed in that she agreed with my assessment. The checker pissed me off royally because he refused to do anything. He just looked at me like I was stupid. I asked him to call a manager or security to go check on the boy, but he didn’t.

As I said, I was in a big hurry and didn’t really have time to be rushing around. I suppose that is no excuse, but what can I say? I felt guilty for walking out of the store, but I notified the staff. I should have went to customer service and talked to them, but there was a long line. I know that logically there had to be at least one staffer member keeping an eye on the boy. Don’t all those stores have plain clothes security roaming around? The guy probably didn’t call anyone because it was probably already being handled. Still. I feel guilty. I’ve googled and am not coming up with any missing children in the area. It was just so weird. I couldn’t help but think about that case in New York a few months ago about the autistic boy who got lost on the subway system. It took days before someone took an interest in him and figured out how to help him. I don’t want to be the type of person who leaves a child in trouble, but how much help can you give when the child won’t respond to you? You don’t want to cause a scene and get in trouble for harassing and innocent kid who has a parent on another aisle.

Ok, we have a wakey baby I must attend to. Night night!

I had an awesome “get into shape” plan. Too bad my baby is thwarting me. My plan? Simple. Go for a walk around one of the local lakes every day after dropping Erik off at school. My baby’s plan? Refuse to sleep in her stroller, but desperately need sleep.

So we’re home and the baby is sleeping happily and I am wondering when going to the gym became something I don’t do. I used to be so faithful, but I haven’t been in four weeks. I need to just get off my butt and go. My back has been bothering me a lot and I’m scared to do BodyPump. The thought of going the elliptical when I could be out doing real walking in such nice weather turns me off.

So here I sit.

Maybe we’ll go on a walk after I pick Erik up from school, but that is not quite the same as going on a brisk walk. He can keep up with me, no problem, but he’s a four year old boy. He’s quite distracted by little things like geese, ducks, falling acorns, feathers, grass. . .

We ended up having a great day yesterday. I was going to take Bethany’s suggestion and cancel the pizza party, turning it into a park playdate instead. I checked our RSVP list, though, and things had changed. It ended up just being us and one of my new-ish friends. We’ve been spending a lot of time together this summer and it’s been fabulous. Erik and her son get along really well and she’s really low-key and fun. She has a very successful Etsy shop and I got to see some of her work tools the other day. So fun!

Anyway, after they left I called my other friend and they came over for a bit. We were in the middle of doing a cooking experiment when they showed up, so the boys had fun cooking. I saw a recipe for s’mores bars, but then lost the magazine it was in. I decided to make my own by making a graham cracker crust, a brownie, and spooning on some marshmallow cream ice cream topping (a lot thinner than jet-puffed marshmallow cream).

Boy, howdy, that was some seriously sweet stuff! I don’t know what happened, but it was so sweet that I couldn’t even eat it.

What else is going on? Elsa is sitting up by herself! She continues to be the sweetest baby I’ve ever seen. Even when she’s mad, she’s sweet. I’ve never seen a baby who doesn’t cry. Seriously, she might cry a total of five minutes a day and that’s a bad day. I shouldn’t even be typing this. I’m going to jinx myself, but it is so bizarre that I have to mention it. I have never once had the impulse to call this baby an asshole. It’s not Erik’s fault that he was an unhappy baby. I don’t know if it was my anxiety, his personality, or a combination of the two, but I just can’t get over how different these babies are from each other.

I’m hungry so I guess I better wrap this up. I need to pick Erik up in fifteen minutes. Where did my two hours go? Thank fred for preschool! There are 8 boys and 2 girls in Erik’s class. One of the boys has been crying hysterically every single day. I am so glad that’s not Erik. I feel terrible for the mother. It must be so hard for her to leave him, but I don’t get it. I remember when I was in kindergarten and there was a little girl who cried and cried and CRIED and I kept asking my mom “What’s she crying about?” Even as an adult I still don’t get it. I mean, yes, I have more sympathy than I did when I was a kid, but I just wonder what is going through their little minds that is getting them so upset. I guess I was always so focused on getting out of my house (yes, even as a kindergartner) that homesickness was never an option.

It’s the start of the school year and I’m bleepin’ exhausted! It’s really hard to give a little baby the right conditions for napping when you have to drive all over the country every couple of hours. She’s no longer a little newborn who can nap anywhere.

Erik had a most excellent first day of class. Two of his buddies are in his class and they were thrilled to see each other. His new teacher is excellent and enthusiastic–good for him, exhausting for me. She has us go into the room when we drop off and pick up because she has things to tell us and assignments to give us. That’s wonderful, of course, but not so easy with a big ol’ baby.

His school is on the corner of a road and a big corn field wraps around it. They’re harvesting the corn this week so he had a brilliant idea. He asked the teacher if he could have some corn so he could make his grandpa some whiskey.

I’m sure he made an impression. Not sure if it was a good one or not (good–corn makes whiskey–science! Not so good–four year old talking about whiskey).

Drat those country music songs.

His first karate class started about an hour after his school ended, so I guess that’s where the exhaustion comes in. It was a hilarious class and he did pretty well. I think I’m going to like this activity a lot better than swimming.

I’ll have to post pictures later.

I’m also exhausted because I stupidly planned a little pizza party playdate here tomorrow. I’m cleaning like a fool, but nothing ever gets any better. We didn’t do a lot of general house cleaning this weekend because we spent hours and hours cleaning out our dishwasher.

Did you know that if you turn your hot water heater below 140F you are creating the perfect conditions for black mold in your dishwasher? Did you know that parents are recommended to turn the water down to 120F so they don’t scald their babies?

We were bad parents with Erik and never bothered, but when we had our plumbing crisis a couple of months ago I thought about it and went ahead and turned it down. We’ve been suffering from cold, low pressure showers ever since. I had no idea that it was also causing all the mold growth in our dishwasher.

We’ve tried all sorts of things to clear it up, but I finally read that the only solution is turning your heater back up, pulling the whole thing apart and scrubbing it all with bleach water.

Oh the nooks!

Oh the crannies!

So yeah. My house is a disaster area even though we worked our asses off this weekend.

One of the ladies who says she’ll be here is really particular about germs and cleaning and all that. I kind of want to just stick my head in the oven and forget it.

Why is that a saying? Is it because of the natural gas in the oven?

OK, I better wrap this up. I smell my diaper soup. Why yes, I do live an exciting life. I’m boiling all my diaper inserts to get rid of the wet dog smell. I wish I could boil the pockets as well, but I think that would be a terrible idea. I may have to give in and bleach them. What’s the deal with pockets and bleach? It destroys them upon contact? Or I can get away with doing it once in a while?

I am really tired of Mike’s new job. I used to think he was late if he arrived after 5:30. Now I think he’s early if he’s home before 7–yet another reason I’m exhausted.

Elsa behaved like a real baby last night, not one of these pretend babies that make me think it would be ok to have a few more. Not that I want any more. Two is my limit.

Anyway, she was up every single hour. EVERY. SINGLE. HOUR. And I’m not even exaggerating. She’d eat a bit and fall back to sleep, but it made for a very long night for me.

How about a cute pic of Erik as well? These were both taken at his back to school picnic. He was insistent I take a pic of him with his fried chicken.

Regarding the facebook on LJ thing, I really don’t get it. I mean, I DO get that they want to be hip and cool, but I don’t get why they would allow people to post their comment to your journal on their facebook. That should be totally opt-out. The more I think about it, the more I think it won’t really effect me since my LJ life and my FB life don’t coincide–I don’t have friends in the same social circle who will rat me out–but it still makes me angry that I even have to be anxious and angry.

Obviously I will never cross-post my entries.

Mike got an explanation about his niece’s wedding. They didn’t have one. They just went to the courthouse and got married for legal reasons even though they didn’t really want to get married. That’s very typical of Mike’s family. He’s the only one who didn’t elope like that. I guess Sweden doesn’t have quite the same bridal tradition as America where all the little girls want to grow up and be a beautiful princess in their wedding gowns. People do get married in Sweden, of course, but Mike’s family seems to be out of that loop. His niece has been with her husband for eight years. They own a farm together and are expecting their first child in October. I am really conflicted over whether or not to send a gift for the baby. I love sending baby gifts! However, my baby was not even acknowledged so that kind of puts a damper on things.

The other day I made a comment about Hanna Anderson on my Facebook and someone said “that’s what grandma’s are for.” Ha! Hahahahahahahahaha! Don’t I wish? My mom doesn’t know there are shopping opportunities outside of Wal-Mart. She’s bought Elsa a ton of stuff, and I am appreciative of all of it but Faded Glory it is not exactly Hanna Anderson. Mike’s dad is an 80 year old man. Do you think he’s going to go ga-ga for cute baby clothes? Thus far he hasn’t acknowledged Elsa’s existence at all as far as I know.

Did I mention I was bitter?

But really? If my dad was alone and didn’t have my mom to sign his name to things he wouldn’t do any sort of shopping either, though he does often hand me money when I visit and say it is for the kids.

It’s not that I want things. We can get whatever we want. It’s the thought that counts and it bugs me that as far as I can tell there have been no thoughts about Elsa. No thoughts about how wonderful she is. No thoughts about how beautiful she is. No thoughts that she is even a part of this world.

That’s what sucks.

What also sucks? I feel like a robot these days. There is not one interesting thing about me. I wake up, take care of kids, clean more than I’ve ever cleaned in my life yet have the messiest house I’ve ever lived in, cook, nurse a baby, go to bed. There’s nothing left of me.

I know it will get better. This is just life with a newborn. She’s a very sweet newborn and I am so, so thankful that she’s happy and easy to care for, but she is a newborn. One of these days I will make my triumphant return.

I hope.

At least school finally starts on Tuesday! I love this boy more than I can express, but holy hell! It has been a rough three weeks with nothing to do. It’s still too hot to go outside, so we’ve just been staring at each other and the TV screen. Wipe Out and Star Wars are the new obsessions around here. Supposedly I’m going to be Princess Leia in her slave bikini for Halloween. Somehow I doubt I’ll be showing up at the MOMS Club Halloween party in a gold bikini. Erik finally earned enough money to buy Return of the Jedi today (my mom sent him some money to help him along) and he was drooling over Princess Leia. I never set out to raise a so-called “boy’s boy” but boy oh boy is this kid a boy.

I have no idea how long it’s been since I’ve posted. New baby + no laptop=very sporadic posting. That’s a compelling first sentence. Not.

Since last you’ve heard from me, I’ve decided I am fat, old and gross. I informed Mike and he told me if I was a car my Car Fax report would be fine.

Nothing says romance like telling your wife her car fax report is fine.

When I was younger I always thought that someday I would magically lose weight and be beautiful. I was just waiting and waiting and praying and waiting and praying and waiting some more.

Now I know better.

I’m past my prime and things are just going down hill from here. I better learn to love myself now because it’s not going to get any prettier. I’m never going to be skinny. My face isn’t wrinkly now, but it eventually will be. I don’t have gray hair yet, but I will some day.

Could this crisis be brought on by my son? Could hearing “You’re going to die someday” every five minutes be making me insane? Possibly.

He does say cute things, too. Like today he wouldn’t get off my lap because he says he loves me so much and he’s always going to love me and when he’s a teenager he’s still going to love me and never go to school or work because he’s going to sit on my lap and love me.

Also, he’s going to play video games instead of going to school, but that’s not as sweet as the loving mommy part.

My mom is going to be here for five weeks in October. I’m excited! I might get some time to do some quilting and she might help me clean my house. My house is an everlasting pit of despair. I can no longer keep up. Elsa is a wonderful, sweet baby but she’s at the point where she needs/wants a lot of attention. Attending to her needs is a lot more fun than mopping the floor.

Except when she pinches my nipple with her little claws.

My back is killing me these days. It’s not like the spasm I had when I was on vacation. Instead, it is shooting pains through my back, especially if I sit in a wooden chair. Having a 20 pound baby really helps with that. Not!

I can’t really do any baby wearing any more because of my back. Oh well. I never did any baby wearing with Erik, but that was because he was a screamer. I subscribed to a babywearing community and got ticked off by their attitude, so it is just as well that I quit. I am not an all or nothing sort of gal when it comes to a lot of parenting things. You are not a bad parent if you use a stroller. You are not a bad parent if you baby wear. You can do both! Imagine! You can use whatever strategy works best for whatever situation you are in! Amazing! Seriously, this “all or nothing” attitude towards a lot of parenting issues wears me out. Just the other day I was reading the blog of a woman I’ve read for years. She has two boys about Erik’s age and made a really rude comment about people who feed their babies purees instead of doing baby led weaning. Apparently if you feed your babies purees you are grabbing their faces and shoving a spoon down their throat and making them gag because you have control issues.

I don’t know about you, but I never grabbed Erik’s face when I was feeding him. I am sure there are good things about baby led weaning, but it is not the end all and be all of baby feeding. Purees are fine. Using a spoon doesn’t mean you are traumatizing your baby.

I did traumatize Elsa the other day, though. I gave her a tiny bit of banana. She was not impressed. Poor baby.

At least she didn’t cry. Not that I would expect her to cry. She is the amazing non-crying baby. When she gets mad she sticks her lower lip out and her eyebrows turn red. If I would have had her before having Erik I wouldn’t have had a clue what to do with the boy. Not that I had a clue anyway, but it would have been an even bigger shock to my system.

So anyone know the Swedish etiquette for giving wedding gifts when you aren’t invited to the wedding? Apparently Mike’s niece got married this weekend, at least that’s what her Facebook status says. She’s his niece so that’s one point for getting her a gift. He found out about it on Facebook so that’s a deduction. I suppose we will be classy and send something.

Guess I better wrap this up. I have a coupon for a free photobook from Shutterfly if I can just get it put together by tomorrow. Not holding out much hope for that.

*I had exactly 25 minutes to post before the pizza was ready (assuming Elsa doesn’t wake up). I was only going to post. Why did I let myself get sucked into FB?

*I bought Erik a weapon. Green light saber. Oh my. I said I would never do that, but when the other kids on the street all have them and tell him he’s not allowed to play with them unless he has a weapon. . . well. . .what’s a mom to do? Be PC or let kids be kids?

*Erik is obsessed with dying. Bedtimes have been horrible lately. He cries and cries, almost working himself into hysterics. “I’m going to miss you so much when you die! Don’t die!” I explain, and explain that I won’t die until he’s a great big man with kids of his own. I even broke down and told him that when I die I’ll go up to the clouds and watch over him (if I can let him believe in Santa, why can’t I let him believe that even if I don’t believe it? Ohhhhhh. Personal moral quandry. Sorry to those who do believe in heaven. I just don’t. Sort of wish I did since it’s a really nice idea.)

*I’ve been going through huge stacks of baby clothes. Some people really need a lesson on doing laundry. I can’t stand dingy looking clothes, but one person who gives me clothes has nothing but dingy stuff. I’d really prefer not to get anything from her, but how do I tell her that? Do I invite myself over to give her a laundry lesson?

*I hate having a period. I hate it even more when I can’t use my Diva Cup. I forgot to order a new size after my last period and now I’m paying the price. I have my new size on order, but that’s not helping me this time. I forgot how messy and gross and just. . . UGH. . .the whole thing is. I almost broke down and went to Whole Foods to buy one, but I called and they were $10 more than one online (including shipping). I don’t think you normally ever have to buy a new size, but months of forced celibacy will do that to a person I guess. When will these kids start sleeping at a decent hour?

*Elsa’s four month check-up was yesterday. She’s up to 19 lb 9 oz and 25.5 inches. So off the charts for weight, 70th percentile for height and 95th for head circumference. Nice, healthy baby. The doctor asked if I had any concerns, then just laughed at me when I said “ummmmm. She’s just so happy. She never cries. Is that ok?” For awhile I was worried she had something mentally wrong with her since she’s always so happy, but she is very curious, alert and engaged. I guess there’s just a such thing as a happy baby. I didn’t know that was a possibility when Erik was a baby. Our parenting philosophy with him was “whatever makes the baby stop screaming” but since this baby doesn’t cry we aren’t constantly trying to figure things out.

*It’s too bad our trip to Oregon was so painful. Otherwise it would have been very pleasant. My family actually behaved themselves pretty well and there wasn’t as much dog hair. My mom had to put down her basset mix and that cut the dog hair down by at least 3/4. Before, you could sweep every hour and get enough hair to knit a plus sized sweater every time. This time you only had to sweep every four or five hours.

*Erik was pretty funny this time. He noticed that the house is a lot dirtier than our house and kept commenting that he didn’t want to walk around barefoot because it was yucky. He really didn’t want to use my dad’s bathroom because it was nasty (I won’t go in there). He also kept asking the cousins why they didn’t wash their faces (not like he looked any better). It will be interesting as he gets older. I wonder how long we will be able to visit and have him enjoy his cousins. They are in a totally different world. I feel really bad for the kids.

*There’s the buzzer. Guess I posted more than I thought, but with a lot less detail.

Will we ever get back on schedule? I guess we were an hour better today so we’ll be back to normal by Thursday. Maybe?

For some reason it always looks overcast and glum here so I think it’s a nice, cool day. I decide to do something, then open the door and the heat and humidity hit me like a ton of bricks.

After spending a good hour getting both kids ready for a walk, the heat just about defeated me. I decided that it would be ok since we were going to walk around a lake and it should be shady, but I hadn’t been around this particular lake since Erik was a baby. There was no shade.

By the time we made it all the way around Erik and I were both lobster red and he was literally drenched. He looked like he’d jumped in the lake.

Perhaps I need to wait on this walking plan a few more weeks, or at least go to the lake that I know is shady.

While in Oregon Erik became very Oregon-ized. My dad. Grrrr. He taught Erik all kinds of wonderful things, the current fave being “Look up, look down, look at my thumb, gee you’re dumb.” So guess what I hear all day? “You’re dumb!”

We’ve had talks. Oh lordy have we had talks. It’s hard for him to understand the problem since he was taught this lovely little saying by an adult.

Did our parents just not care if we used ugly words like dumb, stupid, shut-up, ugly and fat? Are your kids allowed to use those words? Is it part of the culture? I live in a very educated, sort of up-scalish sort of place. I grew up in a poor as rocks sort of place. I don’t know if it is a difference in time or place, but things that were appropriate in my youth are certainly not appropriate today.

I must admit I let Erik go hog wild in Oregon. Everyone there is so rough, my dad and his buddies especially. They tease the kids really hard and my nephews and niece all run away and hide. Erik? Not so much. He gets right in their face and tries to tease back, or he starts hitting. I told him he is never allowed to hit anyone except my dad and his drunk friend. That sounds so awful, doesn’t it? My dad and his friend think it’s hilarious and Erik has a lot of pent up aggressions. My sister thought it was horrible that I let him hit dad, but you know what? If my dad is going to wind him all up and push the limits of acceptable behavior? He can reap the consequences. I don’t want a violent son, but I do want him to be able to stand up for himself. I know what it’s like to grow up in that house with drunks going too far with the teasing. My son is going to know that he has power and he doesn’t have to take that crap.

Raising strong, healthy, happy, aggressive-appropriate boys. It’s a puzzle. I wish I could have a long chat with Mike’s mother about how to raise a wonderful son. He is everything a man should be.

Totally off-topic: have any of you tried thredUP.com or swapmamas.com? They are swap sites for children’s clothing and other things. I’ve signed up for thredUP and think it could be really neat. I wasn’t nearly as impressed with swapmamas. I don’t think the giver should have to pay shipping.

Do you know of any other swap sites? I would like to do a review of them in my upcoming newsletter. Gotta figure out something to write about. Any other writing topics? I should post my list of 31 things to do. Most of them aren’t all that creative, but there were a few gems.

We made it home after a very uneventful flight. Thank goodness! With the luck we’d been having, I paid special attention to the emergency instructions and was prepared to crash land. We arrived in Dulles a full 44 minutes early. How often does that happen? Obviously it’s an extremely long flight if you arrive that early.

I don’t have much time to write tonight. We feel like it is the middle of the afternoon since we all rolled out of bed around noon. I feel bad that Mike has to work tomorrow. The rest of us will have a little time to get acclimated to the time zone before we have to start going places.

I did some research about unsticking photos from glass and my instincts about the water wre correct. I wouldn’t do this with modern photos–I have no idea how they print them. Old photos that are processed chemically can be soaked in water with no harm done. I spent a good long time soaking the pictures and slowly peeling them apart. I am quite pleased with the results! My mom is going to mail them to me when they are dry and I’m going to try to find a photo restoration place if it doesn’t cost too much.

This is me at fifteen months. Elsa looks just like me, only much chubbier. I’d never seen this picture so it was sort of exciting to discover it.

I also found a picture (haven’t scanned it yet) of me after my first post-college summer of living on my own. I was thin (for me!). I about died of shock. My friends and I used to go walking for an hour every evening (like 2 am, we were stupid) and we didn’t have any money for junk food.

My new plan: as soon as the weather cools down a bit, go walking for at least an hour every day. We have a few different little lakes that we can walk around a couple of times. When Erik is in school I’ll drop him off and go walking. I’m not sure if the weather will cool off before school starts or not.

If you want to be disgusted, scroll down.

My poor, poor Mikey. It doesn’t look nearly as bad as I thought it would, but it looks bad enough. He’s bruised up today. He’s not looking forward to showing off the damage at work tomorrow, but he can’t exactly hide at home until it all clears up. It will be awhile, I’m afraid.

Oh my. Look at the time! Ten pm and Erik is still awake. I better go get him and make him soak in the tub for at least 30 minutes to get off all the Oregon grime. He and Mike have both been “Oregon-ized.”

The first day we were there my sister was trying to get Erik to do something and said “I just want to get him organized!” We all looked at her like she’d lost her mind. Organized? Her? What the hell?

Turns out she meant, Oregon-ized. It became a running joke all week long and it surely did occur. Rule number one on the Oregon visits: Never take clothes you love. They WILL have ground in dirt from top to bottom.

PS: Thank you guys for all helping me spell!
PS2: My e-mail inbox reached capacity on 8/10 so if you sent anything to my MM account I didn’t receive it.