The Queen's Rambles

You guys are all such good friends to be sending me morning sickness remedies. Heather, I got your e-mail just now. I have been away from the computer almost all day.

Good news! I didn’t puke today! The doctors want to wait until my appointment next week to prescribe me anything. Bah. But maybe, just maybe, this is over *knock on wood*. I even felt hungry today, something that hasn’t happened in weeks. I went grocery shopping because we had nothing at all in the house. Definitely not our norm!

Ellen asked about my dad, so I might as well tell you all about it. He is still in the hospital, but might be released tomorrow or Saturday. My mom asked the doctor if I needed to get a ticket and come out there, but he said no. He seemed a little confused by the question, so maybe that’s a good sign. My mom is still pretty worried though and just informed me that I’m going to be the executor of her will and gave me complete instructions on what to do. Hopefully I won’t need those instructions for many, many years.

Anyway, my dad will be “ok,” though I doubt “ok” is really the state that he’ll be as long as he avoids liquids and doesn’t drink a lot of alcohol. Ha! He’s already asking my mom to make sure the beer cooler is stocked. She says she won’t do it, but we’ll see what happens. I’d be surprised if he lives out another 12 months. I think Erik and I will go back in January for a week.

His blood pressure is still really low and he is still pretty swollen, so I don’t know what it all means. We really have no idea what’s going on.

In better news, my friend is having her baby right now! She’s only two days over due, but the last time I talked to her she thought she wouldn’t have the baby till Christmas. She was pretty frustrated. I’m just glad her water finally broke! It’s all my doing, of course. We were supposed to watch her son while she had her home birth, but I had a moms night out thing tonight. I jokingly told Mike he would probably have to go get Irish Lad while I was gone. I checked my e-mail three minutes later and there it was–her water broke and she was in active labor.

Her sister and her friend are visiting, so they didn’t think they would need to send Irish Lad to us. I think Mike was relieved because I went to my thing anyway. Naughty me! I really want to call over to my friend’s place (she’s planning a home birth) and see what’s going on, but they probably have enough going on.

Anyway, our moms night out was at one of those paint your own pottery places and t was not fun at all. I’m probably just paranoid, but it felt like the owner of the studio didn’t like me. There were only two tables of women, us and another group. She started telling the other two ladies in my group what to do, so I came over to listen and it felt like she was giving me dirty looks. At one point she asked if she could help me, and I told her I was just listening to instructions.

We got our stuff and our paint and started looking around for brushes. Finally I went to the other table and just took a couple of brushes. Suddenly the owner was there, asking me where I got the brushes.

“I took them from over there. Was that wrong?”

“I really would have PREFERRED it if you would have waited for me.”

What the hell? We waited and waited. You had two groups. We just wanted to paint! Definitely won’t be going there again.

We were there pretty late and our cars were parked in the back alley. The place is out in a little country town, but there were four police cars right at the curb, talking to some guys. Susie and I really needed to leave, but Jessie was no where near done. Susie was really concerned about our safety, so asked the owner if she would make sure Jessie made it to her car safely. The owner became totally belligerent and started telling us that we were in a totally safe town and nothing ever happened there. The police are more likely to be called out for a cow in middle of the road than a violent crime.

Hello! There were four police right outside the store questioning someone! I’m sure that was unusual, but I think most women would like to have someone make sure they got down a dark back parking lot safely.

Ohhhh! Big news! The baby is here! She came so fast the midwives didn’t make it to the birth.

Erik was so tired last night that he fell asleep about five minutes after Mike put him to bed. I was really surprised when I heard Mike yelling for help about twenty minutes later.

Erik had totally peed all over his bed and was running around in circles, spraying everything in his room. He was completely zoned out and unaware that anything was happening. This is a very rare occurrence and I can only chalk it up to the vaccinations. He was running a fever, so I think he was just not feeling well.

Mike got him to sleep in the guest bed, but the guest bed is on risers and not exactly safe for a totally zoned out child. Erik has only fallen out of bed once, but we decided not to risk it. Mike brought the child into our bed so Erik could sleep with me and Mike was going to sleep in the guest bed. Good plan. I didn’t want to sleep with Erik, but at least there would be room to spread out.

In the ten minutes he’d been in the guest bed he had totally soaked it as well.

This time I took control of the situation and put him on the potty. I don’t recall him drinking much of anything yesterday, but he peed like a racehorse. Thankfully he managed to make it through the night without peeing in our bed or we’d really have had a problem. As it was, I made him sleep on towels and took him to the potty two different times. Usually he is completely self-sufficient at night.

Anyway!

Don’t you love hearing about pee problems?

So this morning the kid was on fire. I was supposed to pick up some stuff for a MOMS Club open house, but I couldn’t get Erik to wake up. I called every person on my list of contacts and finally reached someone who could pick up the things I was in charge of.

Thus began our day of incarceration.

It was so gorgeous out and all I wanted to do was go outside, but Erik was feverish and lethargic until late in the afternoon. I didn’t even send him to preschool, which was killing me but you can’t send a feverish kid to preschool. Even if you could, I wouldn’t send my sick baby there no matter how annoying it was to sit inside and watch Robot Repairman Austin run around crying that robots never break down. I want to send that little flippin’ backyardigan a package full of cylons.

Later, we spent hours playing with play-doh. I am so not cut out to be a good artsy-fartsy play mama. It is so booooooring to sit there and press out snakes and hamburger patties. Which, by the why, the Play Doh Burger Builder must have been designed by someone with a grudge against his OCD mother. There is no way to clean around the extruder. Very annoying. Also, if you click on that link, I want to know who in the name of God’s green earth would pay almost fifty bucks for a stupid play doh toy! I paid $9.99 at Wal-Mart.

I really am glad he is willing to play with play doh for so long instead of begging to watch TV, but I have a really short attention span. Later, he spend a good deal of time “experimenting” with washable paint and bowls of water. I was getting mad at Mike for giving him so much water, but I should have known better. Why would Mike have to give him water when he can get it himself from the fridge door?

We did finally go outside for a much needed respite for an hour this afternoon. He finally perked up and had some bike races with another boy down the street. Happily, the other little boy is a lot nicer than Erik and every time Erik would demand to know “Did I win?” the other boy would tell him yes. It could have gotten ugly very fast, but the other little boy wasn’t very competitive. Maybe because he has a little brother just fifteen months younger than him?

And that concludes this exciting report from the trenches. I hope tomorrow is much better.

Friends. Dear, dear, sweet internet friends. I promised myself that I was not going to bore you to death with pregnancy updates. I did that once and that was my pregnancy post allowance, right? But my life is a puking shambles. It’s all I can do or think about.

I thought I had bad morning sickness with Erik, but I didn’t know what morning sickness was. Yes, I felt queasy all the time. Yes, I puked almost every morning and night when I brushed my teeth. Yes, I was miserable.

But no, I didn’t have the full ass kicking morning sickness that I have now.

I open the garbage can to throw something away and must rush to the bathroom to puke until I run out of bile. I sniff garlic and (see above scenario). The puking while brushing my teeth is just a given and barely registers on the radar any more. It is just two or three pukes, usually not all the way down to bile.

Pregnancy may be the best weight lost plan ever, just behind nursing!

Bright side of life, eh?

There is a bright side. Did I ever mention that all the genetic prenatal testing came back normal? So glad I don’t have to go through an amnio!

In addition to this naughty baby causing me to puke my guts out several times a day, I have a silly four year old who needs a lot of care.

Today was his four year check-up, an event I was dreading. He didn’t act scared of shots, and was in fact telling me he was looking forward to them, but he didn’t know what a shot was. Four shots. One hysterical kid. One mommy. Three nurses holding him down. It was fun. Ha.

At least they do the examine first. He was ok with that and thought the eye exam was particularly cool. They used a shape chart instead of a letter chart because they didn’t know he knows all his letters, I guess. He shocked them (and me) when he knew the plus sign. All that tv watching teaches him something, I guess.

I was really surprised when they had me collect a urine sample from him. I was so glad he was a boy, since it was just a matter of talking him into putting his penis in the cup. He was very unhappy with that idea and thought it was crazy, but eventually he did it.

I was also told that he needs to drink at least 8 ounces of milk a day and that yogurt and cheese don’t count. The doctor gave me suggestions about how to trick him into it, but after talking to him for a little bit she told me she didn’t think I would be able to trick him and I would probably just have to make him sit at the table until he drank it. He didn’t fall for any of her little kid tricks, which seemed to take her by surprise.

All was well until the doctor had me hold his upper body while she took his legs and tried to examine his stomach. He started screaming that he didn’t have a baby in his tummy and she couldn’t touch him. Then he kicked her several times.

Ah, my pride and joy.

Poor kid. I know it was traumatic for him to have her poking and prodding and looking in his underwear. He seems unaffected, though, and was back to his old self at the playground this afternoon.

Thank dog he has preschool tomorrow. It has been a loooooong day around here.

His regular teacher is out this week and I fear the sub can’t control him. The regular teacher is able to keep the kids under control from what little I’ve seen. When I picked him up from school on Monday I was a little bit early so was able to watch the sub bring them down from the playground.

She told them to go to the water pipe and wait for her. Several kids booked it down the hill, including Erik. They got to the water pipe and were messing around with it, when Erik suddenly yells, “Hey guys! Let’s go!” He took off running and the whole class followed him. They made it to the door of the school, when the secretary found them and stopped them. They were never in any danger. I was standing there watching, as were about five other parents. We were all trying really hard not to laugh our asses off. I suppose I should have had a word with my dear son, but I figured the teachers were still on the clock so it was their job to take care of it.

I don’t even believe in prayer, but someone better say a prayer for me. I think we are going to have problems when this kid hits his teen years. Yikes!

I think I’m going to pass out this afternoon. I probably should have taken a nap. Why didn’t I? I have no idea. I have to leave in 45 minutes to pick up Erik so it’s a little late now.

I was up all freakin’ night with a belching problem. I seriously have no idea how one human can produce so much gas. I have Gas-X and phazyme, both totally necessary since having my gallbladder taken out. Didn’t feel like either was helping much last night. I am trying to tell myself that it would have been worse if I wasn’t using my drugs. Ugh.

Didn’t you want to hear about that?

I finally had to get up in middle of the night and hang around downstairs so Mike could try and get some sleep.

When I went back to bed I couldn’t sleep because I kept thinking about kicking someone in the chest and knocking them down.

What the hell?

I decided that if someone attacked me I would just kick them really hard and kill them. Then I realized that I can’t kick that high, so it would need to be a midget or a child and I don’t want to kill a child so it would have to be a midget. Then I decided that it would feel really gross and squishy to kick midget boobs (or any boobs) so I’m down to male midgets. Now I’m all prepared to be attacked by a midget man. I’m sure all my potential attackers will take that into account and cancel their dastardly plans if they don’t fit my strict definition of attackers I can kill with a kick.

In the harsh light of day, I’m not so sure I could kill anyone with a kick.

Maybe I should take a sleeping pill tonight. I think I’m delerious.

What a weekend. It finally stopped raining today, but I spent most of the morning hunched over the sink, puking my guts out. I am 14 weeks and only puked once yesterday so was hoping the morning sickness part of pregnancy was over. Ha! Hahahahahaha! Not so! I even skipped Latin Cardio this morning because I couldn’t walk into the other room without puking. How was I supposed to cha-cha-cha?

It started raining Wednesday afternoon and finally let up this morning, so we’ve had a loooooong indoor weekend. I took Erik to Bounce U, one of those big bouncy entertainment places, for a couple of hours on Friday but not even that was enough to get the wiggles out of the boy. There wasn’t any school on Friday, so by the time Mike got home that evening I was done. Totally and completely done.

I am probably a bad mother and wife, but I spent most of the weekend with my earplugs in and Glee and Cougar Town playing on YouTube. I’m really enjoying Cougar Town. Who knew they could still make a sitcom that would make me laugh? Glee is also entertaining.

On Saturday Erik insisted on going to the “gym restaurant,” which is really the Indian restaurant. There was no way in hell I was going there so Mike and Erik got to go have a bonding experience. Afterwards, we took Erik to the Halloween store and tried to make him pick out a costume.

He was pretty freaked out by the zombie crawling across the floor, but then he got totally into the decorations and refused to look at the kids’ costumes because he was too busy looking at zombie babies and skeletal clowns. He kept gleefully announcing that he was scared.

But did we get a costume?

No.

At one point he wanted to be a clown, but then he saw a princess costume and was in love. After much dithering I decided that if my little boy wants to be a princess then he can damn well be a princess. After all, the most popular jocks are always determined to cross dress for Halloween and other costume days, right? Mike was not so sure, but it was a moot point. He soon gave up on the idea. He says he is not going trick or treating and that he doesn’t like candy because it is too sweet. Ha! Hahahahaha!

I made an executive decision. He’s going to be Swiper again and he’s damn well going to like it. I just need to repair the whiskers and ears on the hat since the little shit likes to peel things apart. I also need to get a new brown sweat suit, sew on the round felt belly and add snaps for the tail and it will be done. Good thing I have a friend with a snap press. I like those crazy cloth diaper ladies*.

This afternoon my poor friend and her family came by. Before we even got in the house she announced that she and I were going out for coffee while the boys stayed home. She is due with her second child on Tuesday and is convinced the girl child will never be born. She had her son at 36 weeks so she’s pretty discouraged that she’s not dilated at all. Her midwife told her she will never go into labor if she doesn’t relax, which I think was a kind of crappy thing for the midwife to tell an overly tense pregnant woman. I’ve never heard of any woman being pregnant forever just because she couldn’t relax.

She’s been planning a midwife attended home birth, but now believes she is going to have to have a hospital induction or c-section to get the baby out. I’m crossing my fingers that she goes into labor soon. She is feeling pretty crappy, as do most women who are 40 weeks pregnant. It’s also frustrating because her mom flew out to make sure she didn’t miss the birth, but she’s going home on Tuesday so will most likely miss it anyway. She missed the first birth because he was so early.

I’m glad we were able to get out for a couple of hours because I think we both needed it. We even got to have a confrontation in Target!

I had a Target Starbucks coupon for buy one get one free Grande Latte. I didn’t realize that meant you couldn’t get a flavored latte. Bah! My friend said she would take a plain latte adn I could get a flavored one. Makes sense, right? They’d actually be making more money since the flavored latte is more than a plain one.

But no.

So I asked my friend if we should stay or go to the nicer Starbucks across the street. Of course, we both wanted to go to the nicer Starbucks. The one in Target is pretty crappy. It was crowded, bright red and full of a bunch of little kids. I took my coupon back and the barista was so rude about it! As we were leaving she really snottily goes “well, excuuuuuuussssse me!”. I guess you had to be there. It wasn’t really a confrontation, but it was pretty ridiculous for her to be so rude. We only went to that Starbucks because we had the coupon.

At least I did one good mommy deed at Target. Erik has been asking about the Backyardigans robot episode so I made an effort to find the DVD. He is very happy with it.

OMG!!! I just hit refresh instead of spellcheck! Thank goodness for restore draft, eh? I about had a heart attack!
*For new readers, those crazy cloth diaper ladies are two of my very best friends. I’m teasing them, so no need to get offended.

We had a preschool field trip at a pumpkin patch/farm today. I was sure we would be totally late, but we were the third car to arrive. Erik and some of his buddies spent a good half hour flying off the haystack, nearly killing each other. You should see the bruises on his legs. Basically, the lower half of his legs are black with a few specks of pale Viking flesh.

It was really funny to watch how the boys and girls approached the hay stack. The boys generally flew off with big smiles on their faces. The girls generally slid down or just stood on the stack and did nothing. There was one girl who joined the boys, but overall I was getting a good giggle out of gender stereotypes being played out right before my eyes.

I guess it wasn’t really giggle worthy, but after getting a smack down a few months ago from the bitch quilting mod about my pink baby quilt (which the mother claims to love, btw) I enjoy seeing the stereotypes play out. Silly, I know.

I am beginning to question whether this is the right school, or at least the right teacher for Erik. When his teacher finally arrived she came around and gave the parents all a note but I didn’t hear her greet a single child. Erik was trying to talk to her, but she totally ignored him. I was shocked and pretty pissed.

A couple of the teachers interacted with the kids during the trip, but most of them stood huddled away from the parents and kids and didn’t participate in anything. It made me wonder why they bothered to organize a trip. I could go to the pumpkin patch on my own and have the same experience.

She did tell Erik bye when we left, but it was not very enthusiastic. I’m not sure if she was like that with all the kids or just Erik. I’ve gotten the idea that Erik is not her favorite student. That’s ok, I guess. I just don’t want him to have a teacher that hates him. I know he is a handful, but he is not mean and he generally does listen and comply once he knows he’s pushed things to the limit. But yeah, he will push it to the very edge. And he’s wiggly and he talks a lot and he thinks he knows everything. He’s a very typical preschooler, but maybe something about him just rubs her the wrong way. I wouldn’t expect him to be the teacher’s pet. I know him too well for that, but it does worry a mommy’s heart when she thinks the teacher doesn’t like her kid.

I’m not really sure she likes any of the kids, though. She always seems frazzled and tired. Hell, I would be tired too after teaching a class of 8 boys and 3 girls for a few hours. Thus, I am not a preschool teacher. I am sort of wondering if she has something else going on in her life right now that it making it hard for her to be the best teacher she can be. At the moment I am not impressed, though I shouldn’t really make that judgement. I haven’t seen her in action in the classroom, but if today’s behavior at the farm was any indication she is not a fan of children. I found it so bizarre that she didn’t greet the kids.

I don’t want to be stewing and fretting about this the rest of the year. Maybe I should call and see if they need volunteers and try to get into the classroom to observe what’s really going on.

In other news, I got the test results back from the nuchal scan. Everything is normal! They aren’t recommending an amnio or CVS, though I am welcome to have either procedure done if I want. I don’t want. I haven’t even been thinking about the test since I was so sure it would be fine, but it was nice to get the results and hear they are ok. This pregnancy is so different. With Erik I just knew something terrible was going to be happen, but with this one I am totally calm and just assume everything will be ok since I already had one normal baby. I know that isn’t very logical, but it is nice not to be worried 24/7. Now, if I could just get rid of the pukies. I had to run out of Zumba class today because I was overheated and the motion was making me ill. I didn’t throw up, but came awfully close!

And with that, I’m going to go brush my teeth, which will inevitably lead to another fun “session.”

I can’t believe I’ve been a mom for four years! Or maybe I can. I can barely remember the first year, mainly because I’ve blocked it out. I can just remember seeing him for the first time and being knocked senseless by the love I felt for him. I started crying because I knew he was going to grow up and wouldn’t always be that tiny little newborn.

Now, of course, I know that a four year old is so much better than a newborn but you can’t tell a hormone laden postpartum mother anything.

He’s been wanting to be four for so long that I was sure he’d be happy today. That would be too much to ask, wouldn’t it? I announced that it was his real birthday and he was finally four. “When do I turn five? I want to be five!”

Typical.

Tonight I was telling him the story of his birth, sort of. Hard to explain a c-section to a little kid. Anyway, I got to the part where we took him to my mom and told her his name was Erik K3nt P@lsson and he freaked out. “That’s not my name! I’m just Erik! I’m just Erik!”

Then he finished the story by telling me he crawled away because he is not K3nt P@lsson.

Silly boy.

I think he mainly had a good day. We spent a few hours at a busy park, so he was able to make several friends. Too bad it ended abruptly when he threw dirt at one of his new friends. How embarrassing! On the way home, he finally told me he wasn’t throwing dirt. He was just trying to have a snowball fight with his best friend. Ugh. Let’s hope he won’t do that again.

He also went to his exercise class and seemed to have more fun this week. They’ve been working a specific muscle each week but this week I can’t figure it out. They’ve done triceps, biceps, glutes and abs. This week they did something with the legs. Erik couldn’t remember the name of the muscle, so I suggest quads, but he freaked out and said no. I tried to figure it out, but it wasn’t quads, thighs, calves, or hamstrings. Anyone know what you would call the muscles on the front of your thighs? I am at a loss and he kept asking me all night and pointing to the front of his thighs.

In other news, I am happy to report that my maternity coat problem has been solved! My friend is big into babywearing and other crunchy stuff and saw an ad for a used Kindercoat on one of her forums. It is a baby wearing coat, which is not something I’d ever thought about buying, but the price and size was right. I was a little concerned because the seller said she wore a size 16 and the coat was a little snug on her, but all the other research I could find about this size coat suggested it would fit me just fine (I could only wish I was a size 16). I think the woman must have some delusions about her real size because it was pretty loose on me and there’s no way I could fit into a size 16. Oh well. SCORE!

Now I may have to take up baby wearing to make this coat worth it. It’s the only coat I’ve ever owned that requires a video demonstration to figure out. I don’t think I need a demonstration to wear it as a straight maternity coat, but it has all kinds of zips and pockets in the front, back and side for sticking a baby under and letting the baby’s head pop out. It is not exactly stylish or chic. I really wish the other maternity coat would have fit because it was chic. I want to be stylish, but instead of a dressy, red wool coat I’m stuck with a sporty monstrosity. My choice, I know, but it still irks me that I always seem to have to settle instead of getting something fabulous. If I could just bring myself to part with a lot more money I suppose I wouldn’t have to settle as much. Or if I could lose about 100 pounds. I am so sick of being a fat ass. I’m bigger than I’ve ever been and am miserable with it. My metabolism was never great to start with, but it really took a hit this past year.

Speaking of losing weight, you may remember when I mentioned my cousin and her husband were supposed to lose a bunch of weight in 30 days if they wanted to adopt a baby from Korea even after they’d been told by their agency that there was no weight requirement. I finally heard the end results. They are getting a baby! I’m so excited for them. They want a girl since they already have a son, so they won’t be getting the baby until this summer most likely. They’ve been waiting a long time for this and I couldn’t be more thrilled for them. When she was pregnant with her son they discovered that she had a horned uterus so there wasn’t room for the baby to grow. Her son was born very early and in the NICU for a while. I haven’t heard much about it from her, but I read enough infertility blogs to know that days in the NICU are a special kind of hell. But now they are getting a new addition to their family and we are all so happy for them! I was really worried because I don’t know how you lose 20 pounds in 30 days. I guess you just starve yourself if you want it badly enough. Can you imagine the stress of having such high stakes? Lose the weight or no baby for you? I guess it would be very motivating, but I’m a stress eater so it would be hard.

People, I am so sick. So, so, sick. I can’t even count the number of times I tossed my cookies today. I’m 13 weeks so I thought the morning sickness was supposed to be waning, but it is ramping up into high gear. Ugh. UGH. UGH!

At least Erik is starting to accept the idea of a baby. He’s been talking to my belly a lot, and expecting me to answer for the baby in a high pitched voice. Also, he’s decided the baby’s name is Coonie. Not Connie. Coonie. Like a racoon.

We still have many obstacles to get past, but at least he is liking the idea of being a big brother and having conversations with the baby. I’ve tried to explain that I’m going to be the mommy’s baby, but he refuses to accept that part of the deal. I am his mommy and only his mommy. As an eldest child I’m afraid I can relate a little too much to his feelings. In some ways I feel like we are totally betraying him by having another child, but in other ways I realize that it will be good for him on many levels to have someone else he can lean on in times of trouble.

Hopefully.

I talked to my sister today and she has given me permission not to come out right now. So very gracious of her. I really do understand where she is coming from, but from what I can tell this is not a crisis situation. It might be a crisis situation in a few months, but it isn’t right now. If I feel it is developing into a crisis situation I’ll hop on a plane. I am thinking about taking a short trip out in January if the situation holds stable until then.

She was also asking me “What am I supposed to do? Should we hold an intervention? What should we do?”

I tried to give her some common sense answers, but I could tell she was frustrated with me. She loves to try to control other people’s lives because it is much easier than controlling her own life. I told her that there is nothing for her to do. She can’t make him quit drinking. An intervention is just going to piss him off and make him want to drink more. About the only thing she can do is stop buying him beer. She is his main supplier, so that is something she actually has control of. I know he would find another supplier but at least it would feel like she was doing something.

She seems to think that it is her job to fix him and somehow keep him alive or get him to heaven. I feel bad for her. I spent years upon years praying for his salvation. I spent even more years praying for an end to his drinking. I have come to peace with the idea that I can’t hope or pray or talk or bully or browbeat the alcohol out of him or the God into him. It simply doesn’t work like that. I tried explaining that to her, but she is not in a place where she can listen to that.

I did manage to get her to think a tiny bit. I asked her how she felt when people told her what to do and she said “it just makes me want to go out and do the stuff they don’t want me to do.” Yes, dear sister. And that’s exactly how dad is so an intervention is not going to work with him. I think it is pretty basic human nature, actually, but some people are just more stubborn than others.

Despite all the troubles I’ve had with my sister over the years, I can honestly say she is a very caring person and feels things deeply. I am more of a logical, rational person which is probably to my detriment in some cases, but it’s just how I am. It is partially a defense mechanism, partially a learned response and partially my basic nature. It does make it hard to relate to the emotional people in my life.

Soooooo. . .

How ’bout them scooters?

Or rather THE scooter that Erik got for his birthday.

If I have gray hairs the next time you see me, you’ll know why. That damned scooter is going to be the death of me. Or him. Or both of us.

He can go FAST, much faster than on his trike. I have no way to catch him on it and he doesn’t want to listen to me so he is bound to be hit by a car sooner rather than later.

I am hoping to get his scooter behavior under control by being Nazi mom and taking it away if he doesn’t obey immediately. I gave him three warnings tonight and that was it. Seemed fair enough to me. It is unacceptable for him to keep riding when I yell stop. He threw a huge tantrum, but maybe tomorrow night he’ll listen. If not, I can play the part of bad cop until he figures it out.

What am I going to do in 15 years when he gets a motorcycle? I may as well curl up in a ball and die at that point.

This is the face of one happy, goofy, almost four boy. And he’s silly, to boot. Not that any of you ever would have guessed that about him.

Our day almost turned into a disaster on two fronts. In the end it was ok, but by no means perfect.

We woke up to rain. Rain rain and more rain. Lots of rain. I was obsessively checking the weather and it kept saying the rain would be done by noon, but even so I was worried that the park would be soaked and it would be miserable.

Tra la!

Around noon the sun came up and the weather ended up being perfect. The park wasn’t wet at all, and it was not too hot or too cold. It was too windy, so I didn’t even take the fifteen balloons out of their giant garbage bag. They attacked my guests like a giant amoeba and it was just sort of embarrassing. I wanted to send each kid home with a balloon because I know that thrills the kids, but I was scared that if I opened up the package, the balloons would be long gone before I could tie them to something.

Disaster one: weather. Solved.

Disaster two: overcrowded park. Not solved.

I figured that this late in the year I didn’t really need to book a pavilion for a party. Since it was so rainy, I figured we’d get to the park and have the whole place to ourselves.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I got there a half hour before the party and was greeted by the sight of a giant bounce house. Some company was having a picnic and had done the right things by reserving the two main pavilions. Luckily I knew about a third pavilion down in the woods, but it was not handy or fun or conducive to the kids playing on the playground while the adults lazed around.

At that point I had no choice but to take that pavilion and work with it. About five minutes after I started taping up decorations, another lady came down and wanted to know if I was using the pavilion.

Uh.

That would be why there are balloons and stars and tablecloths and all manner of other party shit around.

She had also planned a party but hadn’t booked a pavilion. Her party was supposed to start an hour after my party. I was planning on doing the main party stuff right away, then letting the kids play so I told her she could have a table and that we would be wrapping up around the time her guests started arriving.

She was very grateful and I was very frazzled. I know I could have told her no, but that would have been pretty shitty. We were out of there by 3 anyway and it all worked out. We didn’t want to leave our stuff down in the hidden pavilion anyway, so it was good to just clean up and head up to the main playground.

A little bit later her friend arrived and tried to kick me out. I was not pleased.

She tried to tell me that she had the pavilion reserved and I had to leave, but there was no reserved sign. She even called the rec department and they told her they didn’t have her booked. I don’t know what happened, but I was just very lucky that we had a spot for the party.

Mike and Erik finally arrived and managed to find me. I put Mike in charge of locating our guests and pointing them to the hidden pavilion. He found most of them. Our neighbors showed up over an hour late, then were not happy that they missed all the fun. Erik adores their six year old son but I think he’s a brat. He had a total meltdown because he missed the pinata and all the candy.

He wanted a “return gift” but I had no idea what he meant. I finally figured out he meant a goodie bag, but I didn’t give out goodie bags. The kids filled their loot bags from the pinata and our other games and that was that. Mike went and found Erik’s bag and gave them some candy, but apparently chocolate isn’t “real candy” so he was still pissed.

When we got home I tried to make it up to him by taking down a fake goodie bag with fruit snacks and stickers. I also took down some cake, balloons and other party favors. I did feel bad that they couldn’t find us or contact us, but I know Mike was up on the playground looking for them for at least a half hour so it wasn’t totally my fault. They were surprised we started the party on time because I guess in their culture they do things at a much slower pace. I had seven three year olds waiting for party games and cake! I couldn’t hold off any longer.

I was fairly pissed about the company picnic, mainly because they had a huge bounce house right next to the playground but only kids with company wristbands were allowed inside. I think it is extremely rude to host a private event on a public space if you are not going to share something like a huge bounce house. There’s another park in the area that would have been much more appropriate for their party. It has lots of pavilions kind of out in a field, so they could have set up there and not had a GIANT TEMPTING HOUSE OF FUN that we weren’t allowed to use. I feel like writing a letter to the rec department about it. They were doing other rude things too, just basically acting like the whole park was their private area when that is simply not the case. You rent the pavilions, not the whole park. My friend went into the bathroom and said they had electronic crap all over the bathroom, including all over the changing table so if someone needed to change a diaper there wouldn’t have been any place to do it. Rude!

Oh well.

In the end it was all fine and most of the kids had a good time. We played “Houston Says” which is very similar to Simon Says, if you can imagine. We also did a take on the British Pass the Parcel, only called it Pass the Planet. I wrapped 11 layers of little party favors and candy. They would pass the planet and whoever was holding it when the music stopped would get to unwrap a layer and keep whatever fell out.

Then, of course, there was the alien pinata that we got to beat all to hell. I let the kids all go through the line twice with four whacks each, but they had barely made a dent. They were getting anxious and cranky, so I took a turn. I sort of forget how strong I am sometimes. I’m sure any adult could have whacked it open in one blow, but most adults might have been a little more careful about it. I decapitated that nasty ol’ alien in one swift blow to the head.

The cake was also a semi-success. The local Safeway decorators are pretty Wrecktastic, but I don’t think any of the local grocery store bakeries are any better. I had them do the background to their Star Trek cake, but leave the USS Enterprise off. I added little plastic astronauts and space debris. Luckily I had just enough for each kid to take one home. We were also lucky that the girls didn’t care that they got crappy little weird space things instead of cool astronauts or shuttles.

Despite some setbacks, I think it was a mostly successful party. Erik loved it and that’s what counts, right?

He got a Razor scooter for his birthday, so he thinks he’s pretty hot stuff. I need to make him wear his knee pads, I think. His poor legs are all bruised up. I can’t wait to hear what the peds say about that at his four year well check next week.

On a totally different note, I have more information about my dad. He is not on his deathbed. My sister and mom have been very upset, but it was mainly because no one was telling them anything and his room is just down the hall from where my grandma died. I can imagine it would be very hard to go back in there after you watched your mom/grandma die just two months ago.

The doctors say his heart is damaged, but he doesn’t have to die. It’s basically up to him. They can send him home and he might live a bit longer if he loses weight and quits drinking. If he goes home and starts drinking again, he’ll land right back in the hospital and death will come sooner rather than later.

His response?

“They can’t tell me what to do.”

And that, my friends, is why I can’t bring myself to worry. Of course I’m worried, but I can’t stew over it. It’s in his hands and he has to decide what he wants to do. I guess he had a different doctor today and she really gave it to him straight. He didn’t like her. Imagine that.

I also have a major disconnect since I am not there and can’t see what it happening. It is easy to live in la-la denial land. I was seriously thinking about going back. I found some pretty decently priced tickets for next week, but I’m just not sure. I don’t think anything is going to happen right now unless he gets pneumonia. If he gets pneumonia then I’ll re-evaluate the situation.

This afternoon Erik and I went on a quest for a new water filter for the fridge. I knew exactly where they were at Home Depot, so off we jaunted. We got to the aisle and all I could find were dryer ducts and lint filters. No fridge water filters.

Eventually I found them, but they didn’t have the kind I needed.

I asked the worker girl and she managed to dig some out from underneath the display. No way would I have ever found them. I thought about buying two just to have one on hand, but they are so expensive I decided against it.

I got up to the self-check line and ran into a problem. The item wasn’t in their database.

Erik and I spent over 45 minutes dealing with six different customer service people and managers and they finally figured out a way to sell it to me, though no one had any clue on the price. At one point I went back and got another one just because I didn’t want to go through this song and dance again for a long time. I should have cleaned them out. The guy who decided on the final price gave them to me for $9.99 each. I expected to pay at least $40. I’m not complaining! I can stand around with sore feet and an impatient preschooler all day if it means I’m going to save that kind of money.

Erik was pretty good even though he did get restless and run around in circles for quite a while. We were in the back and there was no one to disturb, so I let him. I normally wouldn’t, but you have to make concessions sometimes.

I was really planning on this being an in and out sort of mission, so I didn’t clean the child properly and that was sort of embarrassing. Earlier in the afternoon he decided to paint. I got him all set up with paper and washable paints, which he smeared around for about three minutes before deciding the inside of his ears made a better canvas. I gave him a quick once over with a warm cloth, but he still looked like a rebel grave digger.

Speaking of grave diggers. What a nice segue into my next topic. Or morbid. Or just plain inappropriate.

My dad is probably on his death bed right now. The doctors just come in, look at him and shake their heads. They tell him he should have been taking care of himself, there is not much they can do. The swelling hasn’t gone down at all. His body is just tired of taking abuse, I guess.

It is easy for me to feel disconnected since I’m not there. I’m sure if I was there I would be more emotional. Wouldn’t I? But he’s done this to himself. He’s spent the last 40 years systematically killing himself with alcohol and other abuses. He has had a much more supportive family than one could imagine. He’s had supportive employers. He’s had state mandated therapies. He never cared. For whatever reason, he didn’t have the strength to kick the habit. I know he suffers from depression and that’s a big part of it. His childhood was a nightmare. But his adult life was pretty damned good.

My sister is terribly upset. She wants to know what to do because he refuses to accept Jesus into his heart and gets angry when she mentions it. I understand her pain. I spent years upon years praying for his soul. At this point I don’t even believe in any of that, but if I did it would be very upsetting to believe he was on his way to eternal torture.

I hope he manages to make a miraculous recovery like he has so many times before. Bladder cancer? Can’t find it on the x-rays anymore. Diabetes? Huh. Seems to have disappeared. Raging alcoholism? Oh yeah. Still there.

Aren’t these some nice, cheery thoughts for your Friday morning?