The Queen's Rambles

I’m in a piss poor mood because I am having major, major website troubles and I am way in over my head. Some fucking hacker broke into my sites and put a piece of malicious code on all the static html pages. I can see it. I don’t know how to fix it. I used to understand how to work ftp and all that, but for the past several years I’ve just used the webFTP on my host’s site. They did away with that and now I don’t have a fucking freaking clue how to upload files. I finally got Firefox FTP to work, but then I started getting Codec errors. I think it’s a scam though because every time I click the link to resolve the errors I end up at a site selling software.

I’m ready to get a machete and take out some vigilante justice on any and all hackers. They think they are just sitting around in a room having fun or possibly making money. It’s just a game to them. They don’t realize some stressed out, over worked, dumbass mother is about to have a nervous breakdown because she’s totally helpless when a piece of shit hacker ruins her digital property. My website has been up for 12 years, maybe 13? I’ve always relied on the kindness of internet friends, but all my internet friends are now grownups with responsibilities. None of us have time to sit around fiddling with hinky dinky website stuff.

I need to go have a stiff drink. Are you allowed to drink alcohol after a wisdom tooth extraction? Even that didn’t go as planned! I was going to chill out with my iPod while the doctor worked on me for an hour. Instead, he numbed me up, yanked out the tooth and sent me on my way. I was literally home 20 minutes after I pulled out of my driveway. Can’t complain about that too much, actually. How sad is it when you are looking forward to your oral surgery as your relaxation time?

He told me that if a dentist ever tries to tell me to get the bottom wisdom teeth removed that they should call him and he’ll give them an earful. Apparently they are sitting on a nerve and removing them could destroy my whole face. Wouldn’t that be fun? I really liked this guy in the five minutes I got to know him. I’m all for not having a destroyed face.

All my hard work seemed to pay off! The cake looked fabulous, as only a cake that looks like a pile of vermin infested dirt can. It was pretty dry without a filling, but no one seemed to care. The wow factor was enough to win over a bunch of 5 year olds.

Almost everything went very smoothly. These types of parties are always hard to plan because of the RSVP situation. Will one or both parents stick around? Will the families who didn’t RSVP show up? Will extra siblings be on hand? I planned for 20 kids and 20 adults, but we ended up with 15 kids and 8 adults. I was relieved because it gave us a lot more space to move around, but it did mean we had way too much food left over.

I had everything planned to precision and have become much, much better at dealing with getting everything ready. I do checklists. I package the food up in small containers and then put it in the larger serving platters when we get there. I put items in the order I will use them. I label things.

Since I used to be a total introvert with no desire to ever host a party, those things were not learned in my younger years. I am also learning to communicate my plans to my helpers. This doesn’t come easily either. Even after 8 years of marriage, I still think Mike should read my mind and know what I am planning. I know it doesn’t work like that. I know are brains are so different that we might as well be from different planets. But I’m learning.

If any of you are near Montgomery County, MD I can highly recommend Meadowside Nature Center as a party venue. The program was really well done and the kids were highly engaged. The program lasted over an hour, which was an hour that I didn’t have to stress about entertaining the children. I’m all for not stressing.

Almost every single kid petted the snake, which surprised me. The kids all ran away from the turtle, which also surprised me. The turtle was chasing after them, so I guess that’s why they ran.

We learned how to tell male and female turtles apart based on the shape of their bellies. Almost all the moms let out an audible gasp when the naturist told the kids that the male turtle climbs on top of the female turtle’s back to mate, then demonstrated with a live male turtle and a plastic female turtle. My eyes just about popped out of my head, but the naturist carried on and it was soon forgotten by the children.

The only glitch was caused by the birthday boy. He took the candles out of the supply box and brought them to me so he could whine that the pack had 8 instead of 6. I was right in middle of packaging the fruit, so brushed him off and put it out of my mind. So do you think the candles made it to the party? Of course not. Luckily I had bought a sparkler 6, and he was ok with that. We were also very lucky that the room did not have overhead sprinklers. That sucker gave off a ton of smoke and I was convinced we were going to be soaked by the time it burned out. Thankfully the sparkler was enough for him. I did not want to deal with a crying fit from the birthday boy. Maybe he is finally maturing.

In addition to seeing all the animals, it was a beautiful day so we got to go on a little hike and hunt down turtles. There were also a few snakes. I hope everyone did a good tick check when they got home. I am pretty sure that’s where Elsa picked up her Lyme disease tick this summer.

When we got back from the hike, we got the kids started on the craft (all supplies provided by the nature center) and finished up the party. I elected to opt out of serving pizza since it was the middle of the day. I don’t know why every party has to have pizza regardless of the time. It makes no sense to my regimented little mind. Instead, we set out plates of fruit for the kids and they gobbled it up while they painted their snakes.

I had a whole bag of the choc o rocks left over from the cake, so I spread them out on the tables like confetti. I also had some plastic spiders, frogs and snakes that I spread around, so it looked pretty cool. My mom sat at one end of the table and ate all the rocks. No one could tell they were chocolate, so she scared more than one person. One mom dive bombed Elsa to pull a rock out of her mouth. It’s unbelievable how real those choc o rocks look. I went around and showed the kids that you could eat them so they wouldn’t go to waste. A few jaws dropped as I demonstrated, but they quickly decided that was the most awesome thing ever. They taste a lot like sixlets–just very fake, overly sweet chocolate.

As soon as the cake was served and eaten, several of the moms and my mom took the kids to a different area of the nature center (a cave! Real turtles in an indoor pond! A canoe! A little pioneer house!) while a few of the dads helped me clean up. It worked out really, really well. It’s so nice to have friends who help with things like that. I really do love my life here. We’ve been here six years and it has become a great community for us.

Only one really odd thing happened. I put little flashlights in the goody bags (can you believe flashlights were cheaper than ring pops?) because I knew the caves were really dark. One boy came back to get his flashlight from his bag and his dad told him he didn’t need a flashlight. I wasn’t thinking about undermining someone’s parenting. I told him “Oh, all the kids have a flashlight in their goody bags`” and the guy got annoyed with me. I guess maybe he was trying to get the kid over a fear of the dark?

I’m like a different person today. No stress! No planning! No barking orders! No boxes of Oriental Trading junk in my living room!

Now I have to prepare for next week: chaperoning the kindergarten pumpkin patch field trip, going to another pumpkin patch with MOMS Club and Elsa and getting a wisdom tooth extracted (I won’t be knocked out, thank goodness). And that’s just Monday and Tuesday.

Mike’s going to be out of town Tuesday-Friday, so I’m really glad my mom is here to help out. I need to kidnap her forever, but I know she would never agree to leave my sister’s children long term. They need her a lot more than we need her, though at the moment my sister and her husband are sober, drug free and in counseling. That doesn’t usually last long.

Welcome to my new friends! I would post a small introduction, but I’m too tired. I love October, but it also kicks my butt. Just so you know, we live in the DC area and my mom is visiting us for five weeks. This is generally a good thing. I have a kindergartner and an 18 month old. I am happily married to Mike, the Swedish Stud.

Erik, my newly minted six year old, has a birthday party tomorrow. He is a social butterfly and has ideas. He’s not content to just have a party. He has to dictate the decor, the cake, the games, the guest list. Everything! Of course, it’s his party and I’m happy to make it special for him. I just didn’t know little boys were supposed to care so much.

He wanted a dirt cake, and after creating and discarding several plans I ended up making a shit load of cake from scratch. Why? WHY? WHY?????

Cake from mixes generally gives me a tummy ache and I have a great recipe for one bowl yellow cake, so I thought it wouldn’t be a problem.

The first double batch was fine, but by the time I hit the stirring portion of my second double batch I was getting a little worn.

I made the frosting, crushed chocolate graham crackers, hunted down choc o rocks at the Amish Market.

I’ve never heard of them before, but I’ve seen them there several times. They taste horrible, but they look exactly like fancy little rocks. I couldn’t find them and was starting to panic, but at the last second I found two bags shoved way in the back next to the candy cigarettes. Why do the Amish sell our children candy cigarettes?

Anyway, the cake is done. It’s crawling with gummy worms, spider rings, plastic snakes and plastic frogs. I’ll take a picture tomorrow. I had to seriously let go of my perfectionist tendancies. A pile of dirt isn’t supposed to look pretty, right?

I took the whole thing to the basement, but it was too big to fit in the fridge door. Good thing I nixed the plan of filling it with custard. It weighed more than Elsa, I think. Could a cake really weigh almost 30 pounds?

In the midst of all this cake crazy, I had to get myself together and go volunteer at the school.

They were having a school carnival, so I did what any mommy would do and volunteered for an hour shift.

Little did I know that very few parents are actually involved with the PTA. I don’t blame them, either. It was my first PTA experience and I could be totally wrong, but those women seemed like gossipy bitches. Ugh. I want to keep my involvement to a minimum. I’ve got enough on my plate with the MOMS Club, an organization I really enjoy with people I like to hang out with. I don’t need to saddle myself with a bitch posse. I’ll volunteer for specific events like this, but that’s it.

I’m a former teacher, so I volunteered for the hardest station: Bingo!

Honestly, it would have been really easy but I had a middle school girl helping me out. I wanted to cause this girl bodily harm, but I’m an adult and I don’t assault children but if any ever girl deserved a swift kick in the pants it was this girl.

She wanted to be in charge and let me know right away that she thought she was the better woman for the job. Yeah. Because an 11 year old is so much more qualified for running 16 kids through a bingo game than an experienced teacher.

Her job was really simple: collect tickets and hand out prizes. She didn’t want to do this job. She wanted to call the numbers and when I wouldn’t let her, she would talk right over me after I called the numbers and repeat them in a whiny voice. I have a very loud voice that carries well and I know how to use it in a crowded situation. I was trying to make it fun and make everything very clear, but it was rough with her trying to butt in and control things.

The kicker was when a little boy called bingo and she chastised him for talking. She announced that you aren’t supposed to just shout out bingo–you are supposed to raise your hand instead. Myself, a grandma, and two moms set her straight on that. She disappeared after that little incident and some boy appeared in her place. I thought I was home free, but then she showed up again and stood right where I needed to be to call the numbers. I asked her nicely to step aside a couple of times, but I finally was a little short with her and told her she needed to go stand by the door.

My mom thought I was nuts for volunteering to do anything at the carnival, but I honestly thought it was fun. I’m bossy by nature and like to goof around with kids who are having fun. If I don’t have to nag them to do work, we’re golden together. If I would have had a better volunteer I wouldn’t have felt stressed out at all.

My mom took Erik around while I was working and she was wiped afterwards, poor thing. Being a grandma is hard work. Plus, she’s still depressed over the loss of my dad so she’s not functioning at full capacity so I think the whole thing was a little much for her.

Erik had a blast. I think it was basically the equivalent of Disneyland for him. His poor little mind will be blown if we ever take him to a real amusement park.

And that was that. I have a few things left to prepare for the party, but overall I think everything is ready to go and tomorrow shouldn’t be too stressful. The main problem is that I have a very specific agenda and plan for getting things done. Even when I share the agenda no one seems to think my agenda needs to be followed. It’s enough to make my head explode. Don’t they know that I’m all knowing and all seeing? If I can’t be the boss of the world, I can be the boss of the damned fruit tray, right?

It was like this was yesterday:

I must admit, today was much better than that day six years ago. There was a lot less crying, there was no bleeding. I didn’t have a bad reaction to drugs.

I’ve been looking all through my Flickr stream to find pics for this post. I can’t believe how fast the years have gone by. A total cliche, I know, but true. Of course, when I’m in the thick of it, it feels like things will never end. What’s that old saying? The days crawl by, while the years fly?

His birthday was everything a child’s birthday should be. He got cupcakes at school, a trip to Chuck E. Cheese and he got to stay up late. He was one very, very happy boy. He was so excited that he literally could not stop jumping up and down. I wish I was a better photographer and could have captured his pure joy. Looking through the flickr stream shows me that I really need to take a photography class. Every picture is blurry.

I’m just glad that today went well. I got to Safeway and the cupcakes weren’t ready because the decorator was out. The panic started growing in my chest because Erik knew these cupcakes were coming, but they finally got them done and they were fine. I think the baker frosted them. Wasn’t like I needed anything complex.

When I was at Safeway yesterday I noticed they had Halloween themed sugar cookies on sale for $2.99. I decided to make my life easier and buy two packs to donate to the cake walk at Erik’s school tomorrow night (they encourage store bought instead of homemade anyway). They rang up as $3.99, so I said something and the lady gave me one pack for free because of their price scan guarantee. I don’t know the exact details of the guarantee, but when I went back today I decided to buy another pack because they were still $2.99 and the school needs more donations.

Again, they rang up as $3.99. They must be making a killing on these cookies.

I told the cashier and she told me I was wrong. Finally, with a great put upon sigh she asked if I’d like her to do a price check.

Gee, ya think?

Instead of calling, like a normal cashier, she went all the way back to the bakery. There was a table with the cookies right by the registers, so I don’t know why she had to traipse all over the store.

After ten years she finally came back and told me they weren’t ringing up because the sale was expired but since they didn’t have the signs down they would give them to me for $2.99. She seemed to think she was doing me some huge favor. Is it my fault someone was too lazy to take down the signs? She acted like she’d never heard of the price guarantee. I should have gone back and got ten packs and insisted on getting them all free.

I took the cupcakes over to the school and thought I was going to have to punch the school secretary in the face. We have to ring a buzzer and smile for a camera before we are let in the school. I suppose we don’t have to smile, but they check us over before we go in.

The secretary acted like I was there to cause a ruckus or kill the children or maim the teachers. I just wanted to drop off green frosted cupcakes! Is that so wrong?! I had already made arrangements with the teacher, so I don’t know what this lady’s bleeping problem was. Grrrrr.

The day went much more smoothly after that. I have all the favors prepared for Erik’s party. I have food. I have drinks. I just need to make the cake tomorrow. I have a new plan to ease my panic. Instead of a giant-giant cake, I’m going to take Bethany’s suggestion and do a cake supplemented with cupcakes. I have all day tomorrow to take care of it so I shouldn’t be under too much stress. Party planning is not my forte. These things do not come easily to me. I always feel like the socially awkward teenager who doesn’t know how to be gracious or inviting. I don’t know what’s expected. I’ve been to enough of these parties that I should have it figured out by now, but the sad neglected/rejected teen comes out to play when I have to host anything major. I seriously hope Elsa is not such a social butterfly and doesn’t want to invite everyone she’s ever met to her parties. We had to institute a rule: you can only invite people if you know their names. We had a 20 kid limit, so that helped keep the guest list under control.

We all went to Chuck E. Cheese tonight for a lovely family dinner. Erik believes that you can only go to Chuck E. Cheese if someone is having a birthday and we haven’t disabused him of that notion. I hope we can keep that scam up for several more years.

Surprisingly it was pretty empty in there tonight. Possibly because we are under a tornado watch and having severe thunderstorms. I didn’t know about the tornado watch when we left. Doh!

When we got home, Elsa got into my mom’s drawer, opened her pill box and took a Paxil. I guess that’s one way to get a mellow baby.

I called poison control about 30 seconds after it happened and they said it is going to be fine. They gave me some warning signs to look for, but said it was a really low dose and well tolerated in children. My mom’s pill box has been moved and she feels terrible. No one ever thought Elsa could get into a childproof box like that, but she’s very smart, very strong and very stubborn.

*I finally have my sewing machine back! The repairman is only in the store on Mondays, so I called yesterday to find out what was going on. The woman who answered couldn’t believe it had been so long. She went back to look and said it was all done.

I drove down there at a really stupid time (just on the cusp of rush hour) and was hoping for a quick in and out. She came out with my machine, but couldn’t find the pay slip. She called the repairman over and he said “Oh! No, no. It’s not done. Why’d you think it was done? The part’s been backordered, but luckily it just came in today! I’ll get it fixed right now.”

Hmmmmm. . . did UPS run on Columbus Day, because I know the post office was closed.

The important thing is he did fix it and he did educate me. Did you know there are different bobbin sizes? I had no clue. I’ve been using the wrong size for the past 7 years. I suppose if I only have to repair the machine every 7 years it’s not that horrible of an ordeal.

While I was there I bought some embroidery supplies and am thinking about trying my hand at some book titles for my Harry Potter bookshelf. My original plan was to forget about the titles entirely since I didn’t think I had the skill or time to complete them before the finishing contest was over. Now that the contest is off the table I have all the time in the world. I may as well try it out and see if I can do it. It’s a big project and has taken many, many hours. I don’t want to regret not giving it a try every time I look at it.

*I’m not longer planning on doing a traditional dirt cake for Erik. I realized that he hates pudding. A friend sent me a link to an awesome dirt cake that is just regular cake, frosted with a deep chocolate icing and then covered in crushed chocolate graham cracker crumbs. I’ll be working on that Friday. I have way too much to do Friday! I wish I could do it tomorrow, but I don’t want to take a four day old cake to a party.

*Elsa is such a goofy girl. She likes to crawl up behind me on my big chair, then fling herself forward, doing a somersault in the air. It’s scary enough when you know she’s going to do it, but she’d done it a couple of times when I wasn’t prepared. Catching a 30 pound weight that is suddenly flying over your shoulder is nothing to joke about. And she’s so tall! I can barely handle her when she wants to flip around or stand on me. We went to a story hour today and she towers over the other kids her age. I need to get some pictures uploaded, don’t I? She’s absolutely adorable, make no mistake.

*We went to parent visitation at Erik’s school yesterday. There were a total of three parents in Erik’s class–me, Mike and one other dad. Apparently the other dad is there every day and just sits in the corner and reads a newspaper (which we saw him do). I know from past social things that the boy has serious problems, but I still find it odd that the stay-at-home-dad would come to class and just sit around. I could understand him coming in to volunteer or coming in to observe a few times, but Erik says he is there every day. We know he is not the most reliable witness. I want to ask the teacher about it, but it’s not really my business.

*Erik wants to take green cupcakes to school for his birthday. I went in to Safeway to order them, just like I did last year. They always have cupcakes out, but he doesn’t want Halloween cupcakes–he wants green. The lady had no freakin’ clue what I was talking about. Then she told me a whole bunch of stuff in very, very heavily accented English. I literally had no clue what she was saying. I very, very rarely point out that I can’t understand something if someone from a different country is talking to me. I try to make due. I lived in a foreign country and know how difficult it can be to move to a new land and not speak the language.

I had to tell her that I didn’t understand anything she said. I didn’t know if she was trying to take my order or telling me no or asking me what day I was picking things up. It was terrible.

In the end I think she told me I had to come back when a manager was on duty because you can’t order cupcakes. I will be there tomorrow. Can’t order cupcakes from a bakery? Excuse me, but WTF?

*I think Campfire is happening! Bethany is joining us! Will be interesting to see the collision between blog world and real world. Ha! We are just waiting to have the main lady answer some questions, then we will send in our forms and hopefully get started quickly. Erik is trying to recruit the whole neighborhood, but I am definitely not talking about it with people that I wouldn’t want to work with. No way am I inviting the crazies in.

*Way past my bedtime. I need to get some sleep. I’m perpetually tired, so why do I stay up so late? Bad Carrie

October is my favorite month of the year. I love the cooler weather, the pumpkin patches, the cutesy Halloween decorations, the birthday party planning, Halloween–everything! I’m so glad it stopped raining and we can go outside and enjoy gorgeous weather.

I think I have things under control for Erik’s party. It’s at a nature center and they are taking care of most of the program. I just have to take care of the food and favors. They have an indoor area with tunnels, so the kids are getting a little flashlight, a couple of plastic frog things and a ring pop. Erik is obsessed with ring pops. Doesn’t sound like much, I guess, but I can’t ever bring myself to hand out a bag of crap that will be thrown out and forgotten within minutes. It’s not financially or environmentally responsible.

Erik wants a dirt cake with lots of gummy worms, snakes, spiders and lizards. I’ve got gummy worms and plastic snakes and spiders. Haven’t been able to find lizards, so I guess he’ll just have to deal. I found some beach buckets at the party store this afternoon, so I’ll make two giant dirt cakes and serve them with the toy shovels that came with the buckets. It’s just weird to have such a deep, narrow opening for a cake and to scoop out the dessert. Who cares, though, right? It’s not a real cake.

I was thinking that the adults wouldn’t want to eat it, but after I looked up several recipes I realized it is basically just “Better than Robert Redford” cake with crushed oreos and no bottom crust. I don’t know a better name for it, but it’s delicious. For the BtRR cake, you bake a sweet crust with some pecans, then you layer cream cheese/powdered sugar mixture with chocolate pudding. You also mix cool whip in there, but I can’t remember if you mix it with the cream cheese layer or the pudding. Goooooood stuff.

Except I no longer eat artificial stuff, so the thought of instant pudding and cool whip makes me gag. Maybe I’ll make real pudding and real whipped cream. Do I really have time to make two buckets full of real pudding?

I also read a few suggestions to make cake cubes to add to the thing, kind of like a trifle. Sounds like a plan to me. It will add a lot of volume so I don’t just have giant buckets of pudding. I’m anticipating about 35 people, counting adults. Insane, I know, but it was really difficult to cut down the guest list now that he’s in school with all the neighborhood kids. Thankfully his birthday is early in the school year so he doesn’t have a big connection to any of his school friends, except the ones that live in the neighborhood.

Of course, October is also big because of Halloween, my very favorite holiday. He’s decided he wants to be Draco Malfoy for Halloween. Or a fireman. Or Harry Potter. I’m pushing for Draco, just because I think it’s funny that he often wants to be the bad guy.

Except sometimes its not so funny and I worry. But there are lots of people who like an anti-hero, right? I’ve never been one of them. I’ve never liked bad boys, either. Never understood the love there. I like stability. I like to be treated well. I like people who will do the right thing. Maybe because I’ve seen what the bad boy becomes when he grows up. Believe me, it ain’t pretty.

If only my sewing machine was ready, I could force Erik to commit to something so I could start sewing. I was at the Party Store today and ain’t no way this mama is going to spend the money on a HP costume when each accessory costs at least $10.

You know what I hate? Parenting communities that refer to mothers as “mama.” Makes me gag.

Anyway, if my sewing machine is not ready tomorrow I am seriously considering going out and buying a new one from a place with a very liberal return policy. I know it’s not right, but I have things to sew! And very little time to sew them!

Did I ever post about the Harry Potter quilt I’m making? I know I posted early on, but not sure if I posted the latest. The project has 30 blocks and I completed 28 of them before my friend wanted her sewing machine back. You can see my blocks HERE.

I was really excited because I thought I would finish in time to be in the running for the Harry Potter Paper Piecing’s contest for getting the top quilted, but alas. No joy for me. Ofenjen has created such a wonderful community amongst Harry Potter quilters that I shouldn’t say no joy. The whole project has been a joy, which is why I’m eager to finish. I must admit, I am glad I am getting to see a few finished quilt tops before I go to put mine together. Some of the completed tops have gone beyond a basic finish and look like real bookcases. I want to do something similar, so it’s nice to see what others are doing.

They’re having a school visitation day tomorrow, so that should be enlightening. It says we are able to observe in the classroom but that the instructional day will continue as always and we are not supposed to disrupt things. Shall be interesting to see how that plays out in a kindergarten classroom. I’m looking forward to getting a look at what’s happening since Erik won’t tell me anything. Mike doesn’t work tomorrow, so we’ll both get to go. Mom can take care of Elsa, hopefully. She’s been watching her for me here and there, but on Friday Elsa was PISSED. She wouldn’t go to her, look at her, or have anything to do with her. I guess she was tired of mommy leaving. Today she went up and held mom’s hand, so maybe she’ll let us go without too much howling tomorrow.

Ok, gotta end this and go to bed. I’m going to be very sorry I stayed up so late in about seven hours.

I’ve been running around like a chicken with my head cut off these past few days. My mom is here, so it feels rude to sit at the computer and stare at the screen instead of engaging my guest in a conversation. I get little enough computer time since I try to engage with my children on a regular basis, but now my little break times are social hour. Plus, I’ve been working my little buns off, trying to get my MOMS Club stuff taken care of. No time to write when I’m selecting just the right font to announce our Halloween Party. Chiller was the obvious choice, of course.

So that’s where I’ve been. I’m sure I’m at least three days behind in my journal reading.

What’s all the news that’s fit to print?

I have solved my Erik dilemma! He is a picky eater. I’ve been packing his lunch and he has not been eating it. He eats the yogurt, possibly the string cheese and maybe a couple of pretzels. Forget about the sandwich, the fruit or the veggies. They are completely untouched. Then he comes home and is a complete demon child because he’s hungry, but he won’t eat because he’s hungry.

Children are not logical.

I kept meaning to buy a wide mouthed thermos, but could never remember when I was at Target. I try to limit my Target time to save money. Instead, I spend all my money online.

Hmmmm. .. . why didn’t I just order one online? Instead, I bought a totally overpriced one at the grocery store.

Overpriced or not, it is worth every single penny. We’ve had it two days and they have been the best two days of the school year. I sent in whole wheat pasta with a butter sauce and diced up chicken. He ate every bite and said he wasn’t hungry at school anymore. WIN!

Now I feel guilty for not doing it sooner, but I’m trying to let the guilt go. Guilt is not productive if it is about something that can’t be changed.

I just hope the good eating continues so I can have my nice little boy back and we can have pleasant afternoons, especially since we’ve received the October homework packet and we have a shitload of cooperative work to do each evening. Yes, I said cooperative work. The homework is not at all what I expected. It is meant to be done together with parent and child. I don’t know how two working parents in a family with more than one kid ever manage to get through it.

Some of the homework is fun, like going on a nature walk and looking at the leaves or counting the pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns on the porches (we’re saving that one for a few weeks), or hiding ten paper pumpkins through the house for him to find (and describe their locations using positional words). Others will be like pulling teeth (writing his name 10 times, listing 10 items in his classroom). Some are just going to be a down right pain in the ass. He has several “cut various things out of a magazine and glue them in your notebook” type things. He was planning on using his homework notebook to write all the numbers up to a googol. He’s at 84 right now. He is NOT happy that he is supposed to use it for other things, even though I bought him a special notebook just for his number writing project.

THEN. . . I have to write several sentences about his learning style and our homework experiences together.

So who cares? I can write five sentences. It won’t be a burden at all. It just strikes me as so strange that a parent has homework of that type in a kindergarten class.

Honestly, though, I was dreading a bunch of crappy busy-work worksheets and was determined that I wasn’t going to stress about that kind of thing. We have a list of 25 homework items and we are supposed to do 16 of them. I thought they were all good, solid assignments with very clear objectives. Not that I am going to enjoy forcing him to do all of them, but I can see the value in them. I hope his homework continues to be meaningful as his school career progresses.

Subject Change 1:
I got a haircut this afternoon. Much, much needed. I’m always so lazy about keeping up with haircuts, and feel yucky and self-loathing for weeks when my hair starts to drag down. I decided to be proactive and scheduled my next cut in six weeks. Hopefully my hairstylist will be back. She’s going to Iran for a month. Her whole family is there so I’m sure she’ll be safe. I am a product of the West. I hear the word Iran and freak out. I would be terrified.

Subject Change 2:
I am very, very excited about the possibility of starting a Campfire USA club with some friends. I contacted them a few months ago and arranged for a speaker to come to our MOMS Club meeting on Wednesday. Erik is desperate to be a scout but I absolutely will not allow him to join Boy Scouts. Their homophobia and religious intolerance make me ill. I will not put my son in a club that teaches such things.

I didn’t know anything about Campfire except they are inclusive, but I’ve learned! It is a very different model from Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts. Instead of a troop leader and a drop-off situation, you gather together a group of friendly families (you can also take in strangers if you want and if there are any that the regional director knows about) and basically form a co-op. All the parents are trained in the program. You make the club fit your needs. There is a very detailed curriculum, but you can adjust it to fit your needs. The main driving force is simply “Give Service.”

The children earn emblems (aka badges) for completing different activities. One very key factor in all this is that it is very much child driven, so they get to pick the badges they want to work on. In the early ages everything is parent led, but by the time the kids are in third grade the kids are given a lot more responsibility for club planning and programming. By the time they reach high school the clubs are run by the kids, for the kids. They have an adult mentor to make sure things are going well and to facilitate things that an adult needs to take care of, but the organization really encourages independence and leadership.

I wasn’t expecting to be so excited about this idea, but I really am. I am also excited because it won’t be a weekly commitment. Each club decides how often they want to meet. It sounds like my friends and I are up for a once a month type of thing.

I didn’t know if we’d be able to get enough interest, but I think I already have enough people to get it started. They recommend having 6-12 children involved. I think I have 10 ready to commit, but four of those are from a military family that will be moving in May. That would still leave us with six and we could always welcome more later.

Just what I need, right? More on my plate. But it’s a co-op! I wouldn’t be in charge. We would all work together.

And long time readers are all shaking your heads and telling me, “remember the co-op preschool?” aren’t you? I do remember it, and I would never commit to another weekly thing like that. Monthly, though, I could handle. I know two of the interested families really well (one was in the co-op with us) and I truly believe we would work well together. One was the president of my MOMS Club last year so I know I can work with her. We have the same communication style and many similar beliefs (as far as parenting and running a club go). When we disagree we are able to do so as adults and talk things through.

Basically it boils down to this: I am insane. I think I am wonder woman. I like to keep busy. I don’t know my own limits.

But it will be fun! It will work! It comes with a complete curriculum!

Also, I really like that it is co-ed so you don’t have to run your boys and girls all over town in opposite directions. And even having kids of different ages doesn’t matter. The different programs have similar activities for each age range so you can just pick similar activities that require the same basic supplies and have the same basic underlying concepts. Example: little kids might just plant seeds in cups, while bigger kids would plant a container garden. Since there should be at least one parent there from each family it is easy to handle some differentiation–there are plenty of adults to deal with different groups of kids.

The only negative: there is an outdoor component. We all know how much I love the outdoors. Each club can make the outdoor component as big or small as they want, so I’m hoping our club won’t want me to go sleep out in a sleeping bag in the woods. Mike can take Erik and I can stay home with Elsa, right?

The region (or council, I think it’s called) does do some family camps and other camps. I’m hoping those are hosted at facilities with cabins and indoor plumbing.

Anyway, I am totally exhausted so don’t know what I’m doing up writing this entry about Campfire. I meant to write it about something else entirely, but now I don’t remember what. My brain is a sieve, but we’ve already determined that several times, haven’t we?

My mom is here! Her plane was supposed to arrive at a very decent hour yesterday (5:38 pm) so we planned on taking the whole family. Things kept getting delayed and delayed, but we still thought the whole family could handle it.

We didn’t know that her plane wouldn’t have a jetway, so even though the plane arrived no one was getting off the plane. She told her seat mate that she wanted to pull the emergency exit open and go down the slide and he freaked and told her she would be arrested. Turns out he was a pilot for the airline and had no sense of humor at all. She was not arrested. Nor did she go down the slide. As if she would really do that.

It was a very happy reunion between Erik and his Grandma. Even Elsa surprised us after we got home and seemed to remember her. She even let her kiss her and wrestle around with her. I was shocked.

I decided to sit next to Elsa on the ride home, thinking it would keep her from screaming. Sometimes if we have a stranger in the car she’ll scream bloody murder.

That didn’t work at all since she wanted to nurse and there was no way to nurse her. I used to nurse Erik in the car all the time, but we had a bench seat in the back of the Saturn. I may have big boobs, but they aren’t big enough to cross the divide between the van’s captains seats.

Thankfully she only screamed for 15 minutes. Erik would have been screaming the whole 45 minutes. She finally stopped screaming, scrunched up her face in anger and closed her eyes.

Such a funny, little angry baby. She wasn’t asleep, but she made it clear she was done with me. Guess you had to be there.

I am so glad my mom is here, but we will need to set some boundaries (as always). She judges people based on their appearance and is obsessed with weight–cracking on her own weight, putting people in categories for being too thin or too fat. Not acceptable in our household. Not at all.

She also brought a ton of pictures of my dad that she wanted us to look at. That was fine and I didn’t really think anything of them as I was looking at them. They are all pictures I’ve seen before, but my 5 year old was not raised with dead animals in his back yard. He’s never had to gut a duck or put his arms around a deer head. He’s never even seen a dead animal, other than as road kill or dinner. I’m not sure we should show him all these pictures.

Over half the pictures had a dead animals in them. Bloody bobcats, beheaded deer, skinned carcasses hanging from trees, piles of dead ducks.

I suppose we can show him one or two and see what his reaction is. So far my mom has only tried to show him the pictures while he was eating, but I stopped her because he had dirty hands and would ruin the pictures.

In good news, my mom is going to family counseling with my sister and my sister’s husband. Very, very good news! I hope they continue and that they take it to heart.

I was doing a search for buttercream frosting yesterday and came across an in-law board on BabyCenter. I got sucked in and couldn’t stop reading. Those people are crazy!

I thought I knew a lot of internet terms, but I had no idea what the hell they were talking about. Unicorns, JADEing, Flying Monkeys, cutting off, timing out, blacking holing, and a bunch of other stuff. I finally figured out that I’m a unicorn. A unicorn likes to give people the benefit of the doubt. I guess I wouldn’t give my family the benefit of the doubt if they did some of the stuff the posters are writing about (like teaching a kid to call the mommy “daddy’s whore”), but one lady was totally freaked out because her mother-in-law kissed her baby too close to the mouth and everyone was encouraging her to “put her in a T[ime]O[ut]”. They make fun of the concept of family and say that the only family that matters is you/your spouse/your children.

I suppose that is true in a certain level, but there is value in extended family. There is value in letting other people love your children even if they don’t do things exactly they way you want them to do it. There is value in variety and flexibility. Children need to learn how to get along with different people in different environments.

If you have demands that they are not used to (and some of these people have some pretty strange demands in my eyes–no one allowed to hold the baby except the parents? What? This was a healthy newborn.), you need to expect that they will probably be talking about you behind your back and think you are crazy. That’s part of the whole parenting thing. You make your decisions, you stick to them, you know not everyone will agree and you decide not to care. Otherwise you’ll go nuts.

Ok, so that sounds all tough and I know I wasn’t tough with my first child. I was fragile and hurt when people questioned what I did. I am glad I never, ever have to be a first time parent again. I’m more relaxed this time around, yet I am also more firm in my resolve about certain things. I know what’s important to me and my family and I truly don’t give a flying fig if other people agree or not. I am so much better at knowing when to fight and when to let things go. Not caring what other people think makes things much easier.

I guess I am just lucky that I don’t have to deal with too much crap since we live so far away from everyone. If I lived near either of our families I might need to put adults in a time out and use contact with my children as a leverage to make them behave in ways that I found acceptable.

Anyway, I need to stay away from that particular board because it’s a total black hole of drama. Once in, you’re never getting out.

Oh man, people. I am down with a cold. An ugly, rotten, streaming, full sinus, snotty cold. You know how that goes, right?

I woke up with a tickle in my throat yesterday, but it didn’t seem too bad. There was no school because of Rosh Hashanah, so we had plans to meet up with Bethany and her girls. Original plans were to meet at a nice, big park that’s about half way between us, but it was a wet, yucky day. I talked to Bethany and let her know I was not feeling 100%, but she was also having a scratchy throat so decided to risk it. I hope she doesn’t get what I’ve got!

We walked over the the Amish Market, which was perfect for the big kids. Erik and Annalie got to run to their heart’s content and look at leaves and just be outside and enjoy the fresh air. It was raining a bit on the walk back, but it felt quite refreshing to have some cool drops as we walked home. The big ol’ hill that our community sits on fools you. You don’t realize how steep it is, until you get home and realize that you’re totally sweating.

I have been going to the Amish market for so long that I am not sure if it is as cool as I think it is. I know when I first discovered it, I went all the time and thought it was awesome. But now it’s old hat. I love the food, especially the fried chicken. I am forever spoiled by their fried chicken. There is no point of ever eating non-Amish fried chicken again. But then I take people there for touristy reasons (it is the only unique, interesting place in all of Germantown) and am not sure if it is everything I am remembering it to be.

But cake! Candies! Chicken! Amish people on cell phones!

I am used to Elsa being the youngest in the crowd, but Elliora is even smaller so I got to see Elsa be a big girl. Unfortunately she is in that toddler stage of taking things away and just basically being a bully. Elliora was very good about the whole situation and didn’t freak out, so I think it was fine. By the end of the visit I think they were even making friends of each other. Elsa was definitely warming up to Bethany and Elliora, which is a huge compliment. She’s not really a people person.

And the big kids! Well, they just disappeared and played and seemed to get along like gangbusters. Who knows what they were really doing. They went to the basement and the park.

Bethany took some really wonderful pictures. I’ll have to get her to e-mail them to me. I was feeling pretty crappy, so didn’t pull the camera out for more than a couple of blurry shots. I wish I knew what I did with my lens cleaning kit. It’s hard to get sharp pictures when you have kid fingerprints all over your lens.

I woke up totally sick today. Elsa is sick. Erik had a horrible cough this morning so I kept him home from school. I assumed he would get worse and worse, but he’s gotten better and better. By noon I was ready to go drop him off at the school. He kept thinking the bus would come back for him and was pretty upset that he was missing school, so I view that as a good thing. For all his fussing and complaining, he must like it.

I had to drag the whole sick family to the oral surgeon for a consult. It’s hard to get an appointment, so I didn’t want to put it off since I need to do the surgery while my mom is here. They are in the same place as our ped, so I knew there was a chance we would see the anti-choice people out and about. Thank goodness these were people of the normal variety. They had signs that said “Pray to end abortion” and that was it. While I don’t agree with their message (want to end abortion? Work to end unplanned pregnancy), I was not angry or offended to see their signs. Maybe it was a different group, or maybe they are getting the idea that they are just pissing people off, even the people who agree with them. I was just glad they didn’t have the graphic, disgusting signs that they often wave around. Sometimes they even drive a big semi trailer around the area with huge, disgusting signs on the sides.

Anyway, I was planning on fighting the surgeon and telling him he didn’t need to take out my left wisdom teeth, but he beat me to the punch. He is only concerned about one tooth, which is the tooth that is causing me pain and problems. It popped half-way through when I was nursing Erik and has just been annoying ever since. I can’t brush it very well, so it is getting full of decay. I was very, very happy when he said he can take it out with just a Novocaine and that I’ll be as good as new the next day. He said it will hurt way less than my two root canals, so I’m feeling much, much better about this whole situation. When I thought I was going under, I had planned on having my mom drop me off and then calling her when it was done, but the rule is the driver has to stay for the whole surgery. I’m sure my mom would have loved trying to entertain Elsa in their teeny little office for who knows how long. Now I can just drive myself, so it will be much simpler.

I won a Mother of the Year award this afternoon. Elsa went down for a nap as soon as we got home. She woke up an hour later, screaming hysterically in obvious pain. I thought her cold was getting worse, so hunted high and low for some infant pain relief. Found it, forced it on her, sort of got her back to sleep. She refused to lay down, though. She wanted to stand on me, which is not that comfortable. She’s really tall, so if she stands on me her head is above my head, which is not ideal for snuggling.

Over and over again, she would wake up screaming and hysterical.

I was ready to go to the ER because she is just not a screamer, but then I looked in her diaper.

My poor, poor baby had a major poopy diaper. This pitiful little girl gets a terrible diaper rash if I don’t change a poop diaper within five minutes, so you can only imagine what it looked like after an hour and a half (possibly more). Let’s just say open sores, and leave it at that.

Usually she tells me when she’s poopy, or I notice her grunting or the horrible stench. With a cold, the horrible stench was blocked. I feel so bad for her. I couldn’t wipe her without causing hysterics-inducing pain. I tried to rinse her off in the shower, and that caused red faced, screeching, stomping pain as well. Eventually we just worked through the pain (in my mommy heart and her butt), got her cleaned up, buttered her up with aquaphor and she was able to settle back down into a nap.

New topic:

The other night Erik wanted to bake a cake for his grandma’s birthday. I’d been promising him for weeks that we could bake a cake, so I gave in and we baked a cake. He wanted one vanilla layer, one chocolate layer and then frosting that was black and white like an eyeball.

I found recipes for two cakes (the vanilla one is completely awesome HERE) and we ended up with two layers.

Then I pulled a stupid move and tried to take the yellow cake out of the pan before it was cooled enough, making a huge mess of the whole thing. People on FB told me I could fix it with frosting, but it was too late because we had already eaten the middle part that fell out. It was sooooo good. I am a terrible cake baker and I can’t decorate for crap, so it never occurred to me to try to save it.

I had the left over yellow cake sitting on the kitchen counter, nicely covered. I was thinking I might try to make some cake balls out of it. I think you need crumbled up cake and buttercream frosting for cake balls.

I was frantically cleaning the house for Bethany’s visit since people don’t need to know the squalor we live in. Just when I thought it was good enough, I walked into the kitchen. Elsa had taken Erik’s stool, pulled herself up to the counter and was double fisting bites of the yellow cake. There was cake EVERYWHERE. Have I mentioned we are fighting an ant war in this house? And losing fairly badly? Cake everywhere doesn’t help.

Grandma birthday cake fail! Whoo-hoo! It was too early to bake a cake for grandma anyway, since she won’t get here till tomorrow. I am trying to course correct today.

I baked two layers of the vanilla cake today and bought supplies to make some icing. I don’t know how we are going to make the cake look like an eyeball. I guess I’ll make a buttercream icing and a chocolate icing and somehow make it all work. I was thinking of crumbling up the left overs of the chocolate cake (Erik had to test it out, and so did I) and mix it with pudding and put it in the middle for a surprise filling. Isn’t that what dirt cakes are made of? I need to find out how to make a dirt cake. I think that’s what I’m doing for Erik’s birthday this year. I even bought gummy worms for it at the Amish market. Or maybe I will try to make a custard to fill the cake with. My very favorite cake from childhood is a pink champagne cake that a local supermarket makes. It is filled with a delightful custard and iced with a pink buttercream. I have tried re-creating it for years, but always fail.

I should be in bed right now, but I feel like I haven’t written in ages. Elsa has changed her poop schedule from a nice 11 am turd, to an awful 11 pm turd. Problem being, she won’t go to sleep until she poops. So instead of her going down at 9 and us having some quiet time, we have a little over-tired ball of energy zinging back and forth, climbing up on all the furniture, biting our arms and just generally living up to her Miss Menace nick name.

Thus, no writing.

We had quite an adventure tonight.

I was making Texas style chicken (slice tomatoes, lay in bottom of pan, sprinkle with chopped jalapenos and grated colby jack cheese. Cover with chicken tender. Sprinkle with ranch dressing powder. Bake until done. So good, so easy) and didn’t think to throw away the jalapeno seeds immediately. Erik loves to plant bell pepper seeds, which we often have laying on the counter while I’m cooking.

He grabbed a jalapeno seed and was walking all over the house with it. I didn’t think anything of it until the screams started.

If you’ve ever messed with a jalepeno and then touched your eye you know how bad it hurts. Imagine being 5 years old and not knowing how to handle that type of pain. He wanted to rub his eye, but I knew that would make it worse. I was grabbing his hands and he was screaming bloody murder. I tried to get him to the sink to rinse his eye out, but he wasn’t tall enough. I took my boob out of my shirt and started squirting milk into his eye because I knew the enzymes in dairy will help flush out the capsaicin. That didn’t really work, so I ordered Mike to take him up to the shower and try to flush his eye.

He was up there, screaming bloody murder and flushing his eye didn’t help. I did a quick google search and saw that it said to put milk in the eye. I guess I just needed confirmation from an outside source. With the horrific screams of pain it was hard to think straight.

I grabbed a glass of milk and went into the bathroom. He screamed even louder when he saw I had milk. He hates milk. He begged me not to pour the milk in his eye, but I did it anyone and there was instant pain relief. If you ever get jalapeno in your eye, flush with milk for pain relief. It was amazing.

Of course, it wasn’t simply a matter of pouring the milk in the eye and having him cured forever. We were in the shower for what felt like an hour but maybe it was only 30 minutes or so. I had to keep pouring milk in every few seconds until the pain finally subsided. The whole right side of his face was swollen up and red. It was so sad to see.

He has always hated milk, but the milk kept going into his mouth and he was drinking it.

After it was all over he decided he wanted to try a glass of milk. Then another. And another.

The boy drank three cups of milk!

He says he loves milk and it’s his favorite thing in the world.

Who knew? I guess I need to do extreme food therapy with other things he needs to eat.

Other than that, we’ve had a good day. Elsa and I went over to visit a good friend and had fun. She has a 3 month old that looks exactly like Elvis. Or at least, has Elvis hair. He laughed and laughed when I tickled his belly and told him he was Elvis.

Then the mom said it was time for his nap, took him to a room, came back five minutes later and the deal was done. How do moms do that? I’m so jealous!

Erik has been coming home a lot happier. I think he’s back to his old self. He’s gotten in a tiny bit of trouble yesterday and today (nothing the teacher told me about, just in trouble for being loud and not listening). Obviously I don’t want him to be a trouble maker, but I know him. He’s probably going to get in trouble sometimes. I think it is a good if a child can handle getting in trouble without a total meltdown. I was a perfectionist and still have horrible memories about the two times I was reprimanded in school. In fourth grade my teacher told me that my homework had food on it and I needed to be more careful and in 10th grade my English teacher asked me to quit talking.

I about died of complete mortification in each of those instances and didn’t go to school for three days after the fourth grade incident.

That’s not normal. A kid needs to know when they are in real trouble and when the teacher is just calling them out on something small that they need to improve.

My perfectionist behavior was pretty classic Child of Alcoholic behavior, so it’s not exactly a surprise. I am so glad I am more relaxed these days. I am still wound up tight, but since meeting Mike I am not ready to fling into the atmosphere over every teeny tiny thing. He’s wonderful at keeping me steady and keeping things in perspective.

So Erik. Trouble in school. Me happy about it because it probably means he is enjoying it a lot more and feeling like school is a comfortable place. I guess that’s all I’ve got to report on the boy.

Do we need a girl report? She’s the most hilarious kid I know. Right now she likes to tilt her head and really look at me in the eyes. You’d have to be here to see it, but it’s the sweetest thing.

She’s also talking a lot. I was startled when she said “I wan shoez” the other day. Sentences? Really? She’s 17 months. I was so happy when Erik did the sign for “bird” at 18 months because it was finally some communication.

She also refuses to wear a diaper, so I bought her some training pants and a new potty (we have Erik’s, but we have three floors so just one potty wasn’t cutting it).

So far we’ve had zero success and a lot of wet messes. I know I said I was going to have my mom potty train her, but if she refuses to wear a diaper I figured I might as well start the process. We are going to need new flooring after this is all said and done. I know she gets the point. She grabs herself and says “potty” but by then it is too late.

Ok, enough chit chat. I need to get to bed. Staying up late is no good when I have to get up and get Erik ready for the bus in the mornings. No more long lie-ins with the baby while he fixes himself a breakfast and gorges on video games.