The Queen's Rambles

Yesterday was a disaster from the word go. Erik had to stay in since he had a fever the day before, but he was not sick at all. I have a cold. I was grouchy. He was hyper. Bad combination!

At least he still seems fine today so I can send him off to preschool this afternoon. I love preschool, though I am worried that Erik is not in a good place. He doesn’t have any complaints, but from the little I’ve seen the teacher is not fun, dynamic, or even very likable. She’s old and grouchy. I don’t want that to be his first teacher experience, but at the moment he doesn’t seem to notice. It makes my stomach hurt.

On Wednesday the teacher handed out special Halloween art projects. The kids had made little frames and then the teacher took a picture of each kid to stick in the frame. I know Erik can be a pill when he decides he doesn’t want his picture taken and I know it is not a professional photography studio, but the picture of Erik was so, so very sad. I kind of think it’s funny when I take pictures of him looking mad, but in this picture he looked like he was about to cry. I was no impressed. Maybe they were using old fashioned film and didn’t know how badly the picture turned out. Maybe. I don’t know. It just irks me that they sent home such an awful picture. I see it as further evidence that the teacher doesn’t like Erik, but then I think I am totally paranoid and it’s just a picture and it is hard to get good pictures of little kids. I’ll have to scan it in and show you.

Ah well. I should know better than anyone that it is impossible to get get pics of little kids. I just spent several hours putting together the yearbook for our preschool co-op. It turned out ok, I think, but it was hard to find good pics of some of the kids. There were plenty of Erik, but that’s because I am a camera freak. Or was. I hardly ever get it out these days.

On a completely unrelated note, I am so tired of hearing “Why dews that?” (Do with an s instead of does). Everything is “why dews that? Why dews that?” I thought we’d dodged the big “why” phase because he never really got into it when he was three. He would ask why, of course, but I could usually defuse it with a simple “why do you think?” He’d get so side tracked trying to figure it out that he’d forget to ask why.

Ah, how my clever days are over. That doesn’t work any more.

I can’t even think right now. Why am I trying to write an entry? I don’t know! I’m exhausted. I didn’t turn my fan on last night because it stirs up too much air and makes me even snottier. I have it facing away from us, but it still gets my poor nose going. Instead of hearing the soothing sound of the motor, I heard Mike snuffling, the house creaking, sirens blaring, birds singing. All those wonderful things that conspire to keep me up all night.

I better go take a shower and see if I can wake up a little more. I have several things on my agenda for the day, so better get started.

I think we may have an oinker. Please, dear ether, don’t let us have an oinker!

We had a MOMS Club meeting this morning and Erik was just a mess. I had to take him outside because he was doing an Incredible Hulk impersonation, only turning red instead of green. He was mad because we moved the tables and chairs to the side of the room. He was so mad no one could hear the president call the meeting to order.

Embarrassing!

Once I got him outside he had a total crying meltdown about the chairs. I started out being pretty angry, but quickly simmered down and got a bit worried.

We finally went back in and I thought things would be fine. Our guest speaker was a woman from FunFit, a family fitness place that does workouts for moms and kids. Normally this type of thing would have been right up the boy’s alley, but he spent the first ten minutes laying on the floor in a ball, claiming he was tired.

How stupid am I that I didn’t take him home right then?

He eventually warmed up and did the activity. I was naughty and did not do the activity, though the moms were supposed to participate to get our cardio for the day. Ha! I can’t jump on a good day, much less on a day I have an avocado baby in my belly.

I think I was sort of in denial about the whole thing since today was preschool and I really needed a few hours to myself. We didn’t have school on Monday, so I was feeling pretty antsy.

When I picked Erik up, he was pretty warm. The teacher said it was just because they’d been running, but when I got him home he had a fever of 100.7. Not bad, but I still felt a little guilty for sending him to school and infecting everyone with his crud.

I thought we might have a peaceful afternoon if he just needed to hunker down and rest.

But of course not!

He may have had a fever, but he was full of energy. Ugh! I couldn’t take him outside since he was sick, but he was driving me crazy in the house.

I was kind of mean to Mike, and turned over the care of the child to him as soon as he got home. I disappeared down into the basement to use the desktop since Shutterfly doesn’t agree with my new laptop, and didn’t emerge until bedtime. Bad mommy!

Here’s hoping the fever is just a fluke and we aren’t all going to be laid low with H1N1.

I’m pretty sure I had something else to say tonight. I’m not sure if it was clever, cute or even important. It seems like it was SOMETHING, though. I swear I’m losing my mind.

Oh well. At least I had a very satisfying few days in the reading department. When I first met Mike 10 years or so ago, he convinced me to read the Deverry series by Katherine Kerr. The first couple of books didn’t really grab me, but by book 4 I was totally hooked. Normally I wouldn’t give a series such a long chance. I barely give books 50 pages. If I don’t like it, I’m done. Life’s too short to read books I don’t enjoy. Based on Mike’s recommendation and the fact that I was in Sweden with very little English reading material, I plowed through the books and totally fell in love. The final book in the series, book 15, came out this week. It was fabulous. Kerr is really amazing. She took so many threads and held them in her very deft writerly hands for almost two decades. I was very satisfied with the ending and am feeling a happy glow with the way things all turned out. Now I just need to re-read the entire series in one go so I can really appreciate Kerr’s genius. It can be pretty confusing because one of the main premises of the book is that characters are reborn over and over until they get their lives in order. Over the course of the books we see around 10 lifetimes and how the souls of the characters interact with each other and change the course of history in their country. Good, good stuff, but hard to keep track of. Luckily I live with a Deverry scholar so I was able to ask him questions instead of being totally confused.

I’m so much happier these days. Today I checked several things off my to-do list and barely broke a sweat. Until I went to the gym. But a sweat at the gym is expected, yes?

Anyway, it was another gorgeous day, but Erik kept whining that he wanted to go to the mall. Bah. His grandma sent him several dollar bills and I told him he could use them to ride the mall rides, so he had his heart set on it. We managed to get his hair cut, find him a handsome holiday outfit at Children’s Place (amazing, as I am not usually a fan of their boy clothes), ride a bunch of rides, have ice cream and get me several pieces of maternity clothing.

I was totally amazed at the selection of plus sized maternity clothing. When I was pregnant with Erik that was NOTHING. Seriously. Not. One. Thing. I had two pairs of pants, two horrid denim dress things and a couple of shirts. I mostly wore over-sized regular clothing because I couldn’t find anything in brick and mortar stores or online. I couldn’t believe I couldn’t find stuff online, but at the time there really was nothing available.

This time the store had a whole (very small) plus sized section. Score! The gal working was really wonderful as well. Normally I hate talking to people about my clothing choices, but I guess it is such a niche market with so few customers that the customer service people have to really know their stuff and give a hard sell. I told her what I hated about the maternity jeans I was currently wearing and she found a different style that is about a thousand times more comfortable. I never would have tried them on, they were so funny looking. She also directed me to a few different shirts and sweaters that I never would have tried on without prompting. They just didn’t look my style, but she told me that they draped really well and looked good on. She wasn’t kidding. I need her to do all my shopping for me from now on.
Surely every stay at home mom needs a personal stylist, right? If only she could do my hair and make-up, too.

Since I never really dealt with maternity clothes in the past, I didn’t realize just how much fabric is involved in covering up the belly bump. My lord! I wasn’t sure if half the things were dresses or shirts. I need to wear the new shirts because my current shirts are too short and show off the fabulous “secret belly band,” but dang! They all come down to my knees and look stupid. I know they’ll be just right in a couple of months, but I’m not quite there yet.

It’s really nice to have tops that fit through the upper body, while still having room for the belly. With Erik, all my clothes were bagging out in the shoulders and looked really sloppy. I don’t care for the sloppy look.

I don’t know if the world is just more enlightened about plus sized pregnant ladies or if I’m just in a better place, but thus far I haven’t had one negative comment about my weight. With Erik, the doctors were constantly on my ass, telling me how fat I was and how it wasn’t ideal and how I would probably get diabetes and woe, woe, end of the world! This time I’ve seen three different doctors and not a single one of them has mentioned my weight. I mentioned it when the doctor couldn’t hear the baby’s heartbeat with the doppler at 12 weeks since I knew that was likely to happen, and the doctor just nodded and said not to worry.

It is such a relief to leave my appointments on a happy note, excited about the baby and hearing the heartbeat, instead of pissed of that I was once again treated like a stupid, fat, slob because of my weight. I had no idea how good things could be. I thought I just had to accept that treatment because doctors are assholes. It’s refreshing to be treated like a human being. I’m really hoping the rest of my appointments go so smoothly.

Of course, there have been several references to my age, but maybe those don’t hurt since I don’t feel old and I’ve known for years that 35 is the magic key to Advanced Maternal Age. I don’t feel like they are picking on me and I don’t feel like they are blaming me for being 35. It is just a reality that they have to draw the line in the sand somewhere and I am past that line.

Let’s go to a happy, happy, joy, joy dance for productive days and nice doctors! Except let’s do that dance in our sleep. I am exhausted. Instead of making Erik adjust to the time change, we’re having him go to bed an hour early. Which means he gets up an hour early. But I still go to bed at the same time. I need to get myself adjusted. He really does need to get up an hour early because it doesn’t work very well when he gets up at 9 am and I need to be at the gym by 9:30. You know it’s all about me. I never thought the day would come when my child would sleep so well, but the day is here and has been for about a year. I am not looking forward to the newborn days. Surely this new baby will learn to sleep before age 3.

Give me meat!

I’m feeling so much better! As of Saturday all I want is meat. I must need the iron since I’m not longer taking the prenatals. I’m like a wild animal, devouring everything in my path. Rawr!

I had the BEST prime rib french dip sandwich on Saturday. I tried to recreate it at home tonight, but failed. It was still decent since it was meat, but not nearly as good as my dream sandwich from Saturday.

Now that I’m feeling better, you all better watch out. All I’m going to talk about is food.

Or not. That would be pretty boring.

We had your standard Halloween night, with the addition of some drizzle. Oddly, it was almost hot outside so the drizzle didn’t rain on our parade too much. Due to H1N1 or the bad economy or both there were very few porch lights on. We did our neighborhood and a friend’s neighborhood. It was kind of sad, but the boys didn’t seem to notice. I guess I should post a picture, but I don’t really have any good ones. He was Swiper the fox again, so he basically looked exactly the same as last year, only when he sat down his pants came up to his knees. I was surprised they fit at all since they were 24 months, but they were ok when he was standing.

I think I’ve picked all the good stuff out of his candy basket, already. Dang!

Did any of you receive “candy sticks” in your baskets? I was sort of shocked. They are just candy cigarettes without the splotch of red dye at the end. I had no idea they still made that sort of thing. I’m so glad our society is trending further and further away from smoking. I remember “smoking” those candy cigs when I was a kid and feeling so cool.

Erik doesn’t even know what a cigarette is.

The other night we were out in the neighborhood and a guy was smoking on his front porch. Erik saw the lit up end of the thing and went over to ask the guy how he was holding a star. The poor guy was bombarded with questions, but was trying to be good and not say the word cigarette or explain what smoking was. Erik was pretty insistent and wanted to hold it so he could have a star too. It took a lot of cajoling and trickery on my part to get him out of there.

We didn’t have school today, but we did have glorious weather. Erik and I spent about three hours at the park, then came home and spent another hour with him on his scooter. Finally, a toy we made a good investment in. It’s the only birthday present we bought and I’m not sure what to get him for Christmas. He hasn’t mentioned anything, though I know he will want to open lots of presents. My thought is that it would be better to stick some money in his savings account than to spend it all on crap he won’t play with. But, I don’t want to deny him that Christmas frenzy of opening presents. If he actually played with his toys it would make it a lot easier to figure out.

ACK! I can’t believe it is time to start thinking of Christmas things already. I really need to get Erik’s haircut, buy him some sort of holiday outfit and get professional pictures taken. It has been a long time since we’ve had portraits done, so I think it will be worth it. I am planning on sending out wallet sized pictures to family members instead of doing photo cards for everyone this year. I have a whole stash of regular Christmas cards that I should use up. I can’t resist them when they are on clearance in the middle of April, but I haven’t used them in a few years so the stash is out of control.

I have also been worrying about Christmas gifts for the niece and nephews. I have the superman cape for the little guy since he didn’t get his last year. I think I am going to get the older kids each a magazine subscription. Any reccs for a 5 yo boy and 4 yo girl? As usual, I want something that they can’t destroy or lose, so a magazine will be perfect. When they are done reading it, it can be tossed. Bonus! They might actually learn something. I may get Erik a subscription as well because I think he would enjoy it.

I don’t know what Mike wants to do about his family. We arrive in Sweden on Dec 27, so the gift opening will already be done. I am not sure if they are planning on exchanging gifts with us or not. Btw, G’burg people! Mark your calendars! We will be in town Dec 28-29 and we’d love to get together at some point!

Ok, I’m hungry. I need MEAT! Gotta go find something to eat.

I think Mike is quite happy to get his wife back. I did a menu plan for the week and have been cooking. I’ve also had a few energy bursts and have done some cleaning. And, of course, now that I am feeling better the appetites of the second trimester are making themselves known. After a miserable 12 weeks, I think we are all relieved.

Is it just me, or is Sarah Jessica Parker one of the most unattractive women you’ve ever seen? I know skinny is supposed to be attractive, but skeletal? Ewwww. I’d rather be my fat self than look like her, even if she is supposed to be some kind of fashion icon.

We had a long, long day today. It started with a trip to the OB. It was just a quick check-up so I took Erik with me. He did ok, but it was still stressful. There was a police officer with his wife and it blew Erik’s wee little mind. He kept wanting to know why the police was there and didn’t believe any of my explanations. The guy was very nice and talked to Erik quite a bit, so that was fun for him. In the end Erik concluded that the police was there to “keep an eye on that lady.”

He was also very confused about why I had to pee in a cup and was not at all impressed when they drew some blood. Poor kid.

I talked to the doctor about the prenatals and she gave me a bunch of samples of prescription brands. She said some people just can’t tolerate them. I’m not surprised that I’m one of them. I have very little tolerance for drugs and alcohol in general. One time in my younger days I was working in the senior center kitchen with a bunch of freaks. The boss was passing out niacin tablets to everyone and told me it would give me more energy. Turns out there is something called a niacin flush which is supposed to get pot out of your system. Anyway, I took this tablet because I thought it was a vitamin (it is, just a very powerful one) and fainted dead away while chopping cabbage with a giant knife. Safe!

Erik was in rare form with the doctor. He did a little dance for her, then at the end of the appointment told her he had something important to tell her. His news? The baby in my tummy is making me sick a lot and he wanted the doctor to fix that. Awwww. He does have his moments.

In the lab they had a series of magnets with silhouettes of women with little babies in their tummies. The women were just one color–bright pink, green, purple, etc–but the babies were all different types of more realistic babies. There was a little pale, bald baby, a red haired baby, an African American baby, an Asian baby, and so forth. There were probably eight altogether. Erik wanted to know what the baby was going to look like and first guessed it would look like the pale, bald baby. I told him he was probably right, because that’s what he looked like. After giving it a lot of thought, he decided he wanted the baby to look like the African American baby. He got quite a laugh out of everyone in the lab over that. He was not happy when I told him that it wasn’t possible for us to have a baby that looked like that. At least he is starting to accept that we are having a baby. Last week he decided we should have a puppy instead.

Then it was off to preschool for the Halloween parade and party. The party was pretty lame. The kids walked around the little square in front of the school four times, then they stood in class groups so the parents could take pictures. Guess how many good pictures I got? The big goose egg! Eleven kids in class, and they are all supposed to look at the camera at the same time? Ha!

The kids had regular class, while the parents went home. We came back an hour later and watched the kids sit at a table with a big plate full of Halloween treats. When they were done eating they were supposed to go home. Lamest party EVER. Erik kept asking when they were going to play games, but no one else seemed to notice the intense lameness of the party.

I feel so much better today! I guess those prenatal vitamins are just not meant for a delicate flower like myself. I am a whole new person!

For the curious, I’ve only taken over the counter prenatals. With Erik I used GNC. With this baby I’ve used both Safeway and Target brands. I have an OB appointment tomorrow so I’ll discuss the situation and see what solutions we come up with. Maybe something with a whole lot less iron.

We had a crazy day over here. We had a Halloween party out at the park but hardly anyone came because it was sort of drizzling for five minutes. It ended up being fun and the weather was fine. Of course, I don’t mind it being a little chilly. People here don’t seem to like the cold.

Then it was home for the project of the year. Ugh.

We have a preschool Halloween party tomorrow and are supposed to take “spooky” stuff. I get Family Fun magazine since WonderTime folded (booo! I miss WonderTime) and they had a little section of Halloween fun stuff. I’m taking forked eyeballs. I dipped donut holes in vanilla candy coating, stuck a chocolate chip in the middle, then used red decorator frosting to make them look bloodshot. They turned out pretty cool, but it took forever. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to transport them. I didn’t think that far ahead, I guess.

I don’t know if I mentioned this, but Erik has been wetting his pants again. Argh! I thought I had him fixed because I told him if he kept peeing in his pants he’d have to start wearing diapers again. That worked for about a week, but today after our play date at the park I noticed his pants were wet. Grrrrr!

We had a long talk about the diapers and he had lots of reasons why I couldn’t buy him diapers. When we got home, I had to run to Target so I told Mike I was going to buy diapers for Erik.

I think just saying it to Mike might have cured the problem. He promises he won’t do it again, so we shall see I guess. I really don’t want to have to buy a whole pack of diapers just to make a point.

I’m not sure humiliating my kid is the best way to fix the problem, but then I’m not sure it would really humiliate him. I wouldn’t make him go to school with a diaper on. It would just piss him off, I think. I just hope he straightens up and we don’t even need to go there. The whole thing comes down to laziness. He’d rather play than stop for three seconds to pee. He doesn’t wet the bed, so surely he should be able to not wet his pants.

I’m very happy to report that I’m feeling a million times better today. I was pretty worried yesterday because I knew I couldn’t function with vertigo for long, but when you have it what choice do you have?

I also tried what Kisha suggested and skipped my prenatal vitamin. Guess what? No puking. Food still doesn’t appeal to me, but it was really nice to skip the vomit session.

Remember back in April when I wasn’t pregnant but thought I was? I was really confused because I was throwing up a lot. Guess what? I started taking prenatals as soon as the test turned up positive. Maybe that explains that little piece of the puzzle.

I took it easy today and didn’t do anything productive even though I promised myself that I was going to do at least three different fairly important things while Erik was at preschool. I didn’t even make it to the gym this morning because Erik got up so late. Bah! Plus, I was trying to take it easy so I didn’t really push things.

This afternoon I was all set to go get Erik an H1N1 vaccine at the local high school. I wish they would offer the vaccinations through the ped offices, but in our county they are offered exclusively through these clinics.

I knew it would be crazy busy so I arrived 45 minutes early thinking I would get a jump on things.

Holy hell, people! You’d think the swine flu was the equivalent of small pox, stuffed with AIDS with a nice, creamy polio center!

There were police everywhere, roads were closed down, the line was out the door, out of the high school property, down the sidewalk and winding all the way around the corner. I had just read in the paper that they only had 1000 vaccinations available. As I drove around trying to find a parking place I decided we were probably too late. I am not good at estimating numbers, so I could have been way off, but it was just insane.

As I was driving, I saw women with baby buggies RUNNING to try to find a place in line. Little kids were jerked around by their arms as their moms and dads tried to beat out the ladies with the buggies. I’ve never seen anything like it.

I am pretty sure Erik and I both had the swine flu this spring so I am not too worried. I drove away and will not be trying again next week. Yikes!

What a fun day we’ve had today. NOT!

I woke up this morning around 6 am and stumbled into the bathroom. I noticed that I couldn’t stand up because the world was spinning, but it was 6 am so I didn’t think too much about it.

When I finally woke up at 9, courtesy of a boy tickling my feet, I realized all was not right with the world. I was so dizzy I was scared to walk down the stairs.

I finally made it, though it took a while and I was clinging to the railing with all my strength.

Just a hint: if you have vertigo, eat something ASAP. Puking up barely digested food is way, way, way better than puking up a prenatal vitamin from the night before.

Was that TMI?

The day continued along those lines. I was sad to miss our Halloween party, but it was rainy and gross so the party was cancelled anyway.

Poor Erik was trying so hard to be good and not bother me, but he loves to cuddle and wiggle and generally have body contact that makes me vomit. I can’t complain about him too much, though. He really did a fabulous job of entertaining himself and leaving me alone. He was also good for fetching water and blankets and he understood that he needed to stay away from me even if he was a bit confused. Taking care of a four year old while sick is about ten million times better than taking care of a baby or toddler while sick.

The poor boy kept asking me if I was sick because he was so crazy. Awwwww. My sweet, sweet boy. I hope he isn’t scarred for life. He kept asking why I was sick and I explained that when mommies have babies in their tummies they get sick a lot. So now he is mad at the baby. Smooth move, Mama Carrie.

I talked to the nurse line at my OB and they thought the problem was probably dehydration, which is common in pregnancy due to the increase of blood volume. I’ve been doing a lot of water drinking today and am feeling a whole lot better tonight. Also, Mike came home early and has been entertaining Erik for several hours so I haven’t had to do a lot of moving. Being still seems to be the best thing for me.

I’m so glad Erik is back to being a mostly good boy. He and I went to a birthday party on Saturday and he had a complete freakin’ meltdown because he didn’t get to blow out the candle. This was a party of one of the neighbors, so I guess it was a typical Indian party with a TON of guests. There had to be at least 25 kids there and almost all of them were with both a mom and a dad. I say I guess it is a typical Indian event because on movies and TV shows it seems like they have big parties, plus the last neighbor party we went to was like that. They also gave “return gifts” to all the children. Nice stuff, too, not a bag of plastic crap. No wonder the neighbor boy was disappointed at Erik’s party when the only goodies were stuff out of the pinata.

Anyway, Erik was crying and screaming and generally being a horror. I was trying to calm him down or escape from the room, but it was so packed there was no way out. Earlier in the night he had blown right in a little girl’s face, a behavior that is completely unacceptable and I think *knock on wood* I have extinguished, so by this point I was ready to skip the cake and take him home. But like I said, no escape! Another mom told the hostess to bring the candle and lighter and they let him blow out the candle. I thought that was really nice of them. I was conflicted since it was rewarding such horrible behavior, but they just wanted him to quit crying.

He ate his cake, then had another complete meltdown because a girl was looking at him. At that point I decided we were done and forced my way out of the room, with a screaming child attached to my front. Another neighbor ran up and asked if she and her two children could have a ride home even though she didn’t have car seats for them because she didn’t have a way home.

Talk about being put between a rock and a hard place. Let kids ride in my car with no car seat or look like a total bitch? I had a booster in the car, so Erik and the youngest boy each had a seat and we only had one totally illegal child in the car. Until the other kid escaped the seat belt and was dancing all around in my back seat while the mother just kept repeating “oh my god!” and laughing.

I was a little grouchy by the time I finally got home.

Scratch that.

I was ready to rip the balls off Satan himself by the time I got home.

But things are improving! Erik is suddenly listening a lot better and I am doing 1-2-3 Magic and things are just a lot happier around here.

We are starting to have an issue with lying, but at this point I know it is perfectly normal and not worth turning into some mega-battle. We talk about truth and fibs, but I’m not freaking out that he’s a liar.

Here’s an exchange from yesterday that amused me:

Erik walks in with candy pieces stuck all over his mouth
Me: Did you just eat candy?
Erik: No.
Me: But you have candy all over your face.
Erik runs to mirror and looks: No mommy, that’s not candy. That’s. . . . uh. . . pizza.
Me: Pizza? Where did you get pizza?
Erik, without skipping a beat: Mexico!

Don’t worry, we did have a talk about fibbing, though it totally flew over his head. He is pretty transparent in his desire to lie and trick me. This morning he kept telling me to just stay upstairs and he would get his own breakfast. Ha! I knew he was going to try to find his candy stash from a Halloween party on Sunday. A few minutes later he came in, very frustrated, wanting to know where I hid the candy.

Guess it is time to try to get Erik to bed. Here’s hoping tomorrow is a less spinny day.

I’m calling animal control tomorrow morning. We weren’t attacked by a dog, but we were growled at and lunged at by a pit bull and I think I need to at least make the attempt to have something done. I don’t know if they take that kind of thing seriously here. I know if it was just a regular ol’ dog like a German Shepard or Black Lab they probably wouldn’t, but pit bull? Maybe it is worth the call.

Our neighbor has a pit bull. A big, non-neutered male that scares the bejeezus out of me. Usually the man is with it, but sometimes he leaves it outside tied to a tree. Sometimes he checks the mail with the dog off-leash. If I’m out and see the dog out without a leash I will stay in my car or hot foot it to the house until it goes away. Maybe I’m just a big wimp, but when it comes to dogs that can clamp on to your neck and not let go until they damn well choose, I’m not taking any chances.

Anyway, today some teenage girl that I’ve never seen before was out walking the beast. Erik and I had to walk right by her and the dog to get to our house. I tried to put on a brave face but I’m sure the dog smelled the fear. As I walked by it growled at me. It was fine with Erik, but then it growled at the two hooligan kids that were following us, hoping I’d fart out candy.

We made it home safely, but we weren’t really on a mission to go home. We were just on a mission to pee.

When we went back to the playground, the girl and the dog were there. She asked if the kids were going to play there and I told her they were, so she left but didn’t go far.

Suddenly she was back with the dog. Another mom had come out at this point and the dog started barking, growling and totally lunging at this lady. I was sure we were going to have to call 911 and hope the gang of drug dealing hooligans across the street from the park had a gun to shoot the damned dog in the head. I don’t know how the girl got control of the hell hound because she certainly didn’t look like she had the strength for it, but luckily she managed.

Erik and the other mom’s kid were on top of the double slide about ready to go down, so I yelled at them to stay at the top of the slide. Not that it would have done much good, but thankfully they complied even though they were confused. With the way things are made for safety these days the dog would have had no problem jumping up there if it decided it wanted a tender little morsel.

It took us awhile to decompress after the incident. It is scary enough to be around an aggressive dog, but it’s terrifying when it feels like a pit bull is about to attack. I have heard so many pit bull apologists whine about how the owners are at fault, not the dogs. It is all in the training of the dog. Blah blah blah. All I know is, I don’t like that dog in our neighborhood. I want it gone. If it decides to really attack there is nothing we are going to be able to do except look on in horror as it rips out the throat of an innocent victim.

And to think, before all this happened I was sitting on the bench hoping the drug dealing guys that seemed to be giving each other dirty looks didn’t have guns and weren’t going to start a shoot out. Never thought I’d be hoping they guns so they could save us from a dog! I don’t really know where they would store a gun, though. They wear their pants down around there knees. Do you think a holster fits in their boxers?

Did you know that a lot of local business will give a tour of their place to little kids? Our MOMS Club is always doing tours of local places like Coldstone, Trader Joes, Petco and so forth. Today was California Pizza Kitchen.

Since Erik has preschool on Friday afternoons I almost didn’t go, but then figured out they were serving lunch (free pizza for the kids!), so we headed over and I’m really glad we did. I was so proud of Erik. They told the kids to put their hands in their pockets and not touch anything and Erik managed to keep his hands in his pocket the whole time. Shocker! He is really maturing these days.

After looking all through the kitchen, the kids got to make their own little pizzas. It was probably the best tour we’ve been on with the group, other than the pet store.

I’m glad we got to do something fun together this morning, because this afternoon we were at each other’s throats. Or I was at his throat while he just wanted to have fun. He doesn’t understand why I don’t find it great fun to be abused and screeched at all day. Somehow all his games involve him fake hitting me, but he doesn’t know what fake hitting is and can’t pull his punches. He gets in trouble ALL THE FREAKING TIME for these games, yet he still persists.

It is just wearing. I’m grouchy, sick, and tired of repeating myself ten thousand times. He can be so sweet, but the minute I ask him to do something he decides not to do it. Every little thing turns into a fight. He just stands there and makes horrible noises instead of getting a move on. I may rip out his voice box.

It all came to a head this evening when I threw him in bed without a story and stormed out of the room. He was screaming and crying and then I was feeling like the worst mother ever, so I went back in there and hugged him and told him we would try to be nicer to each other tomorrow.

He has a standard answer for when I flip out on him. “Mommy, I just have to be crazy sometimes. You shouldn’t get mad. You have to be nice to me.”

Out of the mouth of babes, right?

I need to read 1-2-3 Magic again. That should motivate me to use the method, right? It does work and works well, but I just forget to use it in the heat of the moment.

At least I got to have an hour of peace this afternoon. I went over to my friend’s house while Erik was in school and got to hold the baby for an hour. Awwww! She was so teeny tiny and sweet. She slept the whole time I was there, as newborns are wont to do. I got to hear all about the crazy birth. My friend was in the birthing tub, waiting for the midwives to arrive when she felt like she had to push. The midwives were on the phone and told her not to push and to get out of the tub. She said she got up on her knees and couldn’t help but push. The baby just plopped out and my friend had to catch her by herself because her husband had no idea what was going on. From the sounds of it, it was a good thing she was planning a home birth because I don’t think she would have made it to the hospital if she had been planning a hospital birth. She never really thought she was in serious labor.

Hard to believe I’ll be holding my own little baby in a few months. Yikes! Maybe I better concentrate on being a better Mommy to the child who is already here, huh? I really need to stop the yelling.