The Queen's Rambles

You guys are probably wondering if I’m still alive.

I am.

Barely.

I have no idea how single parents do it. I love my kids with every fiber of my being, but if I had to do this alone full time I think I might have to drop them at the fire station. That safe haven law applies to five year olds, right?

Mike left around 5 am Tuesday and told me he would be back Friday night. I talked to him tonight–his plane lands at 11 pm. He still claims he’ll be home Friday night. I suppose 11:59 pm still counts on a technical level, but for my purposes he won’t be home until Saturday.

Tonight was beyond awful. I started my period on Tuesday. Excellent timing. I am the worst mother in the world when I’m on my period, so my poor kids have not been getting the best mommy. Erik is still having a tough time with the kindergarten transition so we’re just having a jolly old time screaming and yelling at each other. Tonight I completely lost it and was jumping up and down, yelling “I’m tired! Why can’t you understand I’m tired!” over and over again.

That Mother of the Year Award is on its way right now. It was traumatic. Yet the child still was naughty and refused to cooperate.

Plus Elsa was super, super tired tonight. She didn’t get much of a nap today b/c my perfectly planned day fell apart when she fell asleep in the car. Bah!

If I would have known she was going to be awake, I would have ran some errands during her regular naptime. Instead, we ended up going out after Erik got home, so I had super grouchy Elsa, super grouchy Mommy and super grouchy Erik to deal with. At least I did give him a snack first.

The whole afternoon was such a nightmare. It was an absolute deluge out there. We were all soaked to the core, but life still happens, you know? Can’t put off essential errands just because a river is pouring out of the sky. I’ve seen rain. I’ve lived on the Oregon coast. But I seriously don’t know if I’ve ever seen as much rain as I saw today.

Can I bitch any more?

Sure!

My back is hurting more than it’s hurt in months. It all comes down to the amount of time I spend packing around my giant baby. With no Mike in the picture, my back becomes so compressed that I want to scream in agony. Whoo-hoo!

At least the bed will be a little less crowded tonight. The last two nights Erik has been sleeping with us. He insists on having a giant body pillow next to him so he won’t roll off the bed, so between him, his pillow and Miss Sideways Sleeper, I end up with ten centimeters to call my own. Tonight he said my bad was really uncomfortable and he just wanted his own bed. Never thought I’d live to see the day that happened! It’s true! Non-sleepy babies do grow up into perfectly sleepy big boys! It gives me hope. Maybe I won’t have big, mean, toddler toes up my nose for the rest of my life.

How about some positives:

*Erik didn’t have a fit about kindergarten yesterday or today! (Much.)

*We blew off karate tonight and Erik didn’t even notice! There was just no way I could face it with a super cranky baby and a rainstorm that made Noah’s little flood incident look like scattered showers. I was scared Erik would freak, but he didn’t say a word.

*When I became president of MOMS Club in June I said my goal was to recruit new members. My goal is starting to happen. I’ve been working my ass off getting the word out (and so have a couple of other people) and things are finally starting to happen. We had two people sign up yesterday and I have six people who want to sign up. They were supposed to go to our open house tomorrow, but that’s been rescheduled (see above: Noah’s scattered rain showers). I know it doesn’t sound like much, but our club has been slowly dying for two years. We desperately need new members if we want the club to continue. I could live without it, but I think it is such a valuable resource for new moms that we owe it to the community to make an effort to keep it afloat. Our chapter was started back in the ’80s. That’s a long history; we don’t need to let it die by attrition. There are always new moms, if they can just find us.

*I’ve discovered that eating a breakfast I enjoy is probably saving me a lot of calories. I ate fresh fruit and yogurt all summer. It was ok, but not wonderful. I was always hungry and would find myself inhaling sugar all day long because I was never satisfied.

I’ve started having potatoes (I bake a potato, then shred it and brown it in a non-stick pan, so no fat) with poached eggs and it has made a HUGE difference. I am no longer hungry all day long. I don’t find myself craving sugar all day. I am not constantly raiding the freezer or other sugar stash. It may be more calories to start with, but it ends up being a lot less calories.

Plus, they are whole foods. I know exactly what I’m eating. Frankly, I have no idea what the hell yogurt even is. Everyone says it’s healthy, but I am not so sure. Probably if I was eating plain yogurt it would be ok, but that stuff is nasty. I eat flavored yogurt, so I know it’s highly sugared. I tried to ignore that fact since “yogurt is healthy” but it doesn’t compute. I just read an article the other day about how most breakfast foods aren’t healthy and I have to agree. But then again, do people really believe that most contemporary breakfast foods are healthy? Is there a soul in the universe who thinks Fruit Loops, donuts, Pop-Tarts, pancakes with syrup and things like that are good for you? I just wish I could get Erik to eat some potatoes and eggs. Elsa gobbles them up.

Ok, time for bed. I need some sleep if I am going to survive tomorrow. Maybe I’ll take a sleeping pill. I don’t want to re-live the screaming, yelling tantrum I threw tonight. My poor, poor Erik. He just loves his mommy and wants to have fun. Mommy is not in the mood for teasing and games after a full day of non-stop parenting. I want to slap myself.

Elsa continues to grow and grow and grow. What happened to my baby? That’s a little girl looking at me!

Erik must like kindergarten better than he is letting on. He roared down the stairs at 8:34 am on Saturday, screaming like a mad man because he was pissed that I’d let him miss the bus. I’ll take that as a good sign.

We’ve had a crazy weekend. We went to the zoo on Saturday. We had a horrible thunderstorm in our city, but the friends we were meeting said it was clear blue skies down in DC and the forecast said there wasn’t a chance of rain down there, so off we went.

Of course the moment we arrived we got rained on. And of course we couldn’t find parking, so had to park way way way way way up a street away from the zoo, then walk down a giant hill and then up the giant zoo hill.

All in the rain.

Even after it stopped raining it was still wet outside. The humidity levels here have reached an all new level of hell, though it’s particularly hot out.

We saw some animals, had some fun, did some zooey-zoo like things. You know the drill. They have people misters, so we watched Erik absolutely soak himself while we ate lunch. I was thinking “huh, he’s not going to want to be all wet” but my mommy brain didn’t kick in and tell him to get out of the water.

Of course five minutes later he was in front of me, freezing, crying, begging for dry clothes.

Do I carry dry clothes for an almost six year old? No.

I stripped off his shirt and dried him off with my sweaty BodyPump towel and then went to find him a shirt. The first stand we found only sold girl shirts. Purple, hearts, jewels. Erik was not going for that, so we ended up walking allllll the way down the hill* to a souvenir shop that had boy shirts. And allllll the way down that hill we had people turning to stare at the shirtless boy. He didn’t like people looking at him, so he wanted me to put my hands on his moob area to cover his nips. Wonderful sight to see, I’m sure.

That was pretty much our zoo excitement.

I spent yesterday trying to get a shit load of stuff done. Mike is going out of town tomorrow through Friday night so I am going to be even more frantic and exhausted than usual. I had to finish a bunch of MOMS Club stuff, then print out a bunch of pics for Erik’s school and I don’t even know what else. It felt like I was hunched over a computer all day.

Normally I order prints from Wal-Mart if I need them quickly, but the local Wal-Mart does terrible one-hour prints. I don’t know how it can vary so much from store to store, but this store seriously sucks. Too much red, strange lines, just awful. I had the bright idea of checking with Ritz Cameras and I’m so glad I did! As a new customer I got 25 free prints and the quality was much better. Plus their store is a lot closer than Wal-Mart and a lot more pleasant. Win win win and win.

I have a seven photo frame of candid Erik baby pictures and I have plans to make a matching one for Elsa. I used a few of my free prints to get that project started, but I think I need to plan a little better. I need 3 portrait and 4 landscape pictures, but I ordered all portrait. Doh!

All my long time readers will be interested in this tid-bit of news: Remember Annica from Sweden? The one and only Swede crazy enough to talk to the American?

If you’re a long time reader I know you remember her because who could forget? The stories are just too crazy.

She called and I was happy to hear from her, though her English and my Swedish have both deteriorated so badly that we could barely communicate. She has a two month old baby boy named Torsten! The first thing she said, before she even told me about him, was “Can you get pregnant when you’re nursing?”

When I told her you could, she refused to believe me. In typical Annica fashion she told me about all the great sex she’d had and then told me that in Sweden you can’t get pregnant when you are nursing. I don’t know if that applies to just Swedes or to anyone living in Sweden. Take note, my Ameri-Swede friends. Your biology my differ when you cross the border.

She wanted to talk to Mike, so I turned over the phone. He started turning red and I found out later that she told him all about a wonderful hotel in Lund where she had lots of great sex, then she explained how her new baby had been conceived. I don’t think it was any more complicated than insert Tab A into Slot B. She’d been on birth control pills for years because she has female issues. Her older girls are the result of fertility treatments. The doctors wanted her off the pill because she’d been on them too long. Apparently she got pregnant two weeks after going off the pill.

That’s about all I know. We couldn’t even exchange e-mail addresses until Mike helped us because neither of us could accurately translate vowels. I realize that sounds crazy, but our I is their E or maybe our E is their A or maybe our O is their dotted up letter. I just don’t know! And neither did she.

I did a major Costco run on Friday and about fainted at my total. But it wasn’t like I was buying a bunch of junk. I got new PJs for Elsa, a winter coat for Erik, a Christmas present, a couple of sets of Bob Books, a year’s supply of dental floss and tons of food that we will actually use.

I have been hearing about these Bob Books for years, but wasn’t that interested after seeing the price for the set. They were definitely a better deal at Costco, so I picked up two sets. I think I’m going back to get the rest of them. It would be nice to have a complete set for Elsa in a few years.

I started with Set 2 for Erik and he can totally read them independently, which gives him an enormous sense of pride. They are much more like the learn to read books I remember when I was a kid “The bus went up the hill. The bus went down the hill. Stop the bus! Stop the bus!” I hate the Step Into Reading series because they are so dependent on sight words. Erik has struggled with them, so it was a relief to find something that was more on par with my memories and that immediately made Erik feel successful.

I’ve been semi-frustrated with his reading style, but his kindergarten teacher sent home a list of stages of reading development and his style is described very accurately as “Stage 3” so I guess he’s totally normal. Unless it’s a word he’s very confident with he just looks at the first letter and tries to guess based on context. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t. I am going to stop worrying about it now that I see it is normal. I will still encourage him to look at the whole word, but I will not let my chest get tight and my voice get brittle.

Ok, guess I am going to go find something fun to do in my last few hours of freedom. If it wasn’t pouring out I might go to the mall. Doesn’t that sound like a thrill on a holiday?

*The DC zoo is built on a very big hill. We always take the hill into consideration when planning our zoo trip, but when you are thwarted by lack of parking and a naked boy in need of a shirt, you might end up walking up and down that bad boy until you collapse of hill exhaustion.

We survived the first week of school, barely. I don’t know how parents with less social kids handle the discombobulation of the first week. It was bad enough to go through a few nuclear meltdowns at unpredictable times. At least I didn’t have to put a crying boy on the bus, though dragging him out of bed this morning was no easy task. It’s a good thing I’ve started BodyPump again. When I say “dragging” I mean it literally.

Tonight he told me he liked kindergarten, but he doesn’t think he needs to go anymore. His main complaints are that he’s there too long and he’s hungry and the snack and lunch are too late. He usually eats two whole grain waffles for breakfast so I’m going to try my best to add some sausage or other high protein item to the table. I think that would help immensely, but he is not one to readily agree to changes in his breakfast routine.

At the beginning of the week he learned that the cafeteria serves grilled cheese sandwiches every day so he begged to buy a lunch. I was not prepared for that at all. I have always just assumed I would pack him a lunch so I would be able to provide him healthy food. I’ve worked at many schools and the food is mostly beyond awful. I don’t understand how the system works. They say they want our kids to be healthy, but they feed them utter crap and then weigh them and heckle them for their BMI?

Anyway, I looked over our school district’s menu and policy and it seems like they are trying to do the right thing. They offer a lot of whole grain choices and a lot of fresh fruits and veggies so I gave in and let him buy lunch. After seeing what he was actually eating out of his packed lunch, it didn’t seem to terrible. A grilled cheese isn’t any worse than three pretzels and a cookie.

That lasted two days, until he realized that the food was disgusting and people who brought in a lunch got to be first in line. He has also been eating everything I packed, so that’s a win.

A lady with kids at another school told a bunch of us first time kindergarten moms that we should send a pair of safety scissors in our kids’ lunch boxes so they could easily open packages. I thought that sounded like a brilliant idea, so I did it.

Well then.

Guess not all schools in the district allow that.

Our school counselor has been riding the bus each morning this week, so as soon as she arrived for bus duty she pulled me aside and told me that Erik had brought scissors to lunch and he must never do that again. I explained why they were in there. She kept focusing on Erik’s behavior, even though Erik had zip-zero-nada to do with it.

Nothing like trying to get your kid expelled for weapons during the first week of his school career!

It was not that serious, but it was still rattled my nerves. If they are allowed–required even!–to have safety scissors in class, what’s the big freakin’ deal? Especially if another school in the district allows it.

Anyway.

We had a pretty rotten night last night. I was sick. Elsa wouldn’t sleep. It was just your standard No Parenting Joy. I am so tired I could probably fall asleep right in this chair. I tried to take a nap with her later in the morning, but she was having none of it. As soon as I laid her in the bed she started kicking me in the stomach.

I did successfully put her down for a nap later in the afternoon! She fell asleep 30 minutes before the bus was due to arrive, so I tried my luck and hoped that her extreme tiredness would work in my favor.

It did and she slept in the bed for an hour! Luckily the baby monitor has range clear to the bus stop and she doesn’t get out of bed. She just lays there and scratches the sheets.

I managed to unload the dishwasher, put away most of my Costco purchases, vacuum and do some laundry! Isn’t my life exciting? She was none to pleased when she woke up.

My goal this month is to get her to fall asleep in the bed. I tried so hard yesterday, but as soon as she hits the bed she thinks it’s playtime. I finally took her downstairs at the point of no return (I have to have her down for real by 1:30 to keep our lives sane) and she fell asleep less than 5 seconds after she piled her Boppy and blankie on my lap.

Totally unrelated paragraph ahead.

I’ve almost decided I should start using gmail for all my needs instead of dealing with my other accounts. Problem? Several different Carries think they own the carriep@gmail.com e-mail address and have all their spam sent to me. They’ve ordered pizza with my e-mail, they’ve ordered hotel rooms, seafood buffet groupons, insurance quotes. Ugh. I totally forgot I even had a gmail account until a few months ago when someone tried to change the password and I was notified. There were a few personal e-mails in the mix as well, but they were rare enough that I don’t think the person really thinks carriep is their main e-mail address. First I thought it was just one person, but now I see at least three different last names. So far there’s Carrie Gale, Carrie Porter and Carrie Peterson. Dear Carrie, if you just googled yourself and found this entry, do another Carrie a favor and stop using my e-mail to sign up for things! Pretty please!

I think I have a fever. I know I have a sore throat. I know my back is absolutely killing me. I think I’m going to have to give up on Zumba. Something about dancing on a hardwood floor for an hour makes my back scream in pain.

Fun times, they never end!

I hope I heal up by Tuesday. Mike will be out of town for several days, leaving me to single parent. I was literally crying at the thought this afternoon.

See above: Fever. I don’t normally cry like that.

I do appreciate the break that kindergarten is giving me, but guess what? I still have a very busy toddler at home. She’s mostly easy going and happy so it’s nothing like dealing with a toddler Erik, but I still do have to engage and interact and clean up mess after mess after mess. And pack her 28 pound body all around. Carrying her just about does me in.

She is a fun little dear, though. I finally bought her a shape sorter (never thought of it since Erik never touched his) and she is in looooooove with it. We played with it for probably a solid 30 minutes before she got tired of it. It’s so neat to see the lights go on in their eyes when they figure out something for the first time.

And Erik has figured out something big! I’ll have to get some pictures tomorrow. He is riding a two wheeler with no training wheels!

He said he hated his new bike because it was too big, so he was a very reluctant learner. Mike is a much nicer parent than I and patiently ran behind him for several nights.

One night I took a turn. I am not patient or kind. Or able to run fast for long distances. I could see Erik was quite capable of riding the bike so I let go.

And ride he did.

Until he saw me.

He didn’t crash, but he did stop riding and refused to try without someone holding on and running behind him.

Mike slowly worked with him a little more, and last night he finally became a confident rider.

He’ll probably be ready for ramps and wheelies and all that by tomorrow.

I’m just glad that he’s still fairly fearful and very willing to wear a helmet. I never made him wear a helmet with his scooter because it just didn’t seem necessary, but the bike is a whole ‘nother ball game. He’s the only one who wears a helmet, so I was hoping he wouldn’t decide he didn’t need it. So far he wants it on (along with knee pads and elbow pads) but we’ll see how long that lasts.

Kindergarten is fine, I guess. Erik won’t tell me anything about it.

The school counselor has been riding the bus with the kids every day and will continue to do so through the rest of the week. I was really surprised when a woman got out of a car on Monday and started talking to the kids and giving them stickers. All of us kindy parents boggled and started to look around in a panic, but then she explained who she was. I guess they have a staff member on each of the buses.

I hope she doesn’t have me marked as a neglectful parent. Today it was sorta chilly (maybe mid 60s) at the bus stop and she told Erik he needed a jacket. He told her that he wasn’t cold, then he pointed out that I wasn’t wearing a jacket, Elsa wasn’t wearing a jacket and several of the other parents weren’t wearing jackets. When she looked at me in my tank top and shorts and Elsa in her sleeveless tunic with leggings her eyes about bugged out of her head. I just said “We’re hot blooded” and left it at that. I hate when cold people think that hot people need a jacket. If he was going to be out for hours, maybe he would need a jacket. He was going to be outside for less than 10 minutes. He doesn’t have recess until 1 pm and by that time it was in the mid 80s.

I think I’m going to bed now. Just typing this out has exhausted me beyond reason. Won’t Mike be surprised when I never show up in the basement.

Up until 9 pm, I would have said our first two days of kindergarten were wonderful. Erik loved everything about it, as far as I can tell. Not that he tells me a darned thing. His mouth is always going, but he rarely tells me anything of importance. When I start asking questions he just starts copying me or saying “banana eyeball banana eyeball.” You can imagine how much I love that. If I’m really lucky he’ll throw in a “taco.”

Don’t ask me. I don’t even know.

He was so eager for the second day of kindergarten that he went to bed a half hour early just to make sure he woke up in time for the bus. I was hoping that would be a new trend, but tonight it all went to hell in a handbasket.

We did the usual bedtime routine. I gave him his kiss, hug and love yous and walked out of the room.

The hysterics started.

Full on hysterics.

At first I thought he was trying to be funny, but then I went in there and realized he was in a state of total meltdown.

After I finally got him settled down, we worked together to try to figure out what was wrong. Basically it was me asking him yes/no questions until he settled on one. Apparently he missed me. Awwwww, how sweet. But also how sad. My poor big baby boy.

I know he loves school, but it is such a long day away from home. I know it will get better. I am not even surprised. I was more surprised that he didn’t have a meltdown earlier. One of my neighbors had to physically drag her daughter to the bus stop this morning. She decided she didn’t need to go to school ever again.

I am so glad Erik is going to kindergarten and I know he will be successful, but I’m also feeling a lot of repressed stress about the whole thing. Last night I had a horrible nightmare that he was lost and when I finally thought I found him I turned him around to face me and it was a man. A man! I don’t need a psychiatrist to figure that one out.

So far I haven’t taken really good advantage of him being gone so long. Yesterday I went to the gym, a MOMS Club event, and then Elsa took a nap. Today was the gym and a marathon Elsa nap. I need to figure out how to put her down. Mike can do it, but I have always been a terrible sleeping-baby-putter-downer. She slept on me for three and a half (3 1/2) hours today! I was glad she was getting some sleep, but there was so much I could have done if she had been in a bed. Laundry! House cleaning! Computering!

Instead I watched a bunch of “Flashpoint” and “Torchwood.” I’m really loving “Flashpoint” so if you like police shows you might want to check it out. It shows what goes on behind the scenes of a hostage situation. Keith Mars (or Enrico Colantoni if you must) plays one of the main characters, so I was bound to like it.

Let me tell you about today’s BodyPump class. For those who don’t know, it’s a group weight lifting class. I love it. I never would have thought I could enjoy weight lifting, but they time everything to music so it goes a lot faster. It is all about endurance and repetition so men very rarely enjoy the class. In my experience men prefer to do really heavy weights and can’t handle doing five straight minutes of bicep curls or squats. They always have to show off and load up the weight, then they die before the song is even half-way through.

Well today we had two ginormous African-American men in the class. Seriously ginormous. I was wondering if they were with a local pro sports team, but why would pro athletes need to work out at the cheap gym?

They were pretty funny because they liked to talk and were trying to liven things up, but then they started moaning.

Oh. My. God. The moaning.

They wouldn’t stop.

Sometimes they would whoop instead of moan. Sometimes they would sing military chants. The noise never stopped.

At the end they told us that we were all a bunch of women (ummmm, we were) and we didn’t know how to work out because we didn’t make any noise.

I thought I was going to have to leave half-way through the workout because my ear drums felt like they were going to explode.

I have done a lot of reading about Sensory Processing Disorder and I don’t have it, but I would certainly say I have sensory sensitivities. It’s not a disorder because I have coping skills, but those men were twanging on my last nerve.

Elsa decided to take a little nap at 7 pm last night, which meant she didn’t go to real bed until almost midnight. Dumb, dumb parents. Why did we let her do that? Except, what are you supposed to do when she walks over, puts a boppy and a blanket on your lap and assumes the sleep position? And screams hysterically if you don’t let her sleep?

Remember all the fun times of Erik screaming hysterically when we tried to force him to sleep? Such different children.

I woke up at 6 this morning and finally got out of bed at 6:30. I’m just too excited and nervous about the first day of kindergarten! Erik is so excited that he’s buzzing. Literally. Buzzing noises won’t stop coming out of his mouth.

He was all dressed and ready to go, but I had to make him do a costume change. What do you want your kid to wear the first day of school? Something nice, right? He picked out his karate t-shirt, which is about 4 sizes too big. I don’t know how I managed to finesse him into a shirt with buttons, but with a lot of cajoling it worked. It will be the first and only day the child wears my idea of a nice shirt to school. Gotta give a mama something on the first day, right?

We’ve been ready to go to the bus for at least 20 minutes and we have another 40 minutes before the bus arrives. I suppose it won’t always be this easy, but it’s nice to get off to a slow start.

Thankfully they didn’t cancel school. There are about 8 schools in the district without power, but they just cancelled those specific schools instead of shutting down the whole district. I think Erik and I both would have gone insane if he couldn’t go to school today. I love the boy with everything I’ve got, but he can be so very intense. I think we’ve both been on each others last nerves the last week or so.

According to Erik, the hurricane didn’t to any damage to our place because of his double yolker. His teacher is going to be so confused if he starts trying to explain this to her. We made “hurricane cookies” because he was really sad about not being invited to a hurricane party next door. He cracked open the first egg and two yolks fell out. I told him he was lucky because double yolkers are really rare. He is now convinced his double yolker luck is what single handedly kept the hurricane from killing us all.

I told him double yolkers are from old hens, but he didn’t really get that part. He keeps saying that he is lucky because of his old pigeon double yolker.

I suppose kindergarten teachers must be confused all the time. They must learn to just nod and smile.

What else? I am very anxious to get my sewing machine back. The repairman said the bobbin case was severely damaged and he had to order a new one so it will take a couple of weeks.

Erik was annoying me by digging around in my chair yesterday. I just wanted to sit down, but he was convinced I was hiding something from him in the chair. Why? WHY? I have no freakin’ clue.

Guess what he found! A camera that’s been missing for several months! It had several pictures on it, but now I remember why I wasn’t sad when this camera went rogue. Nary a good picture on the whole thing. I really love my new camera (Sony Cybershot). If only the kids would keep their stinkin’ little greasy fingers off the lens.

Guess I better go double check everything. I have butterflies in my stomach!

We are probably overprepared for Irene, but better that than the alternative, right? Mike spent a lot of time bringing everything in from outside and tying other things down. I tried to help, but I was in charge of Elsa. She doesn’t care that we’re about to get slammed. She just wants to run down the street.

Poor Erik is feeling a little left out. Our new neighbors are about 10 years younger than us. They smoke. They drink. They seem like really nice people, but they are not likely to become our new best friends.

They ran into some other neighbors a little further down the street. The other neighbors are about 10 years younger than us. They smoke. They drink.

They are all likely to become best friends.

They all have kids in Erik’s age range and Erik loves to play with them. Fine enough.

Well, now they are planning a hurricane party for this evening and Erik wasn’t invited. His little heart is broken and he just doesn’t understand that it’s not about him.

I am pretty sure the neighbors were having sex while we were prepping for the storm. Erik knocked on the door to ask the kids to come play. They accidentally locked themselves out and were freaking out because they were scared. There’s nothing to be scared of yet, but they asked me to help them. They said it would probably be at least a half hour before anyone could answer the door because their mom was taking a nap and their dad was taking a shower and that always takes “forever.”

I waited outside with them and sure enough–it took at least a half hour before they came to the door to let them in.

At first I Was thinking “wow, that’s a long shower” then it suddenly dawned on me. Doh!

Ok, I guess I better go do something productive with my time. What, I don’t know. Pace and fret?

What a day! I was so worn out that I refused to go to Erik’s karate graduation. Elsa is just a menace and won’t sit still, so one of us would be outside chasing her. They have these graduations every two months so it is not like I’m missing a big accomplishment. I’m sure they must really test them at the higher levels, but at this point the belts are completely meaningless. There are good things about karate, but I would have to think really hard to come up with a list at this particular moment. I am pretty sick of the graduation racket our school has going on. It costs $55/graduation and if you don’t do it your kid feels like a big loser because everyone else gets a new belt and they don’t.

My friend needed a sitter for her son this morning because her school had their kindergarten open house at a really weird time and they were told not to bring any siblings. I don’t know what people are supposed to do. We had our open house last night and were told not to bring any children at all, but several families didn’t comply. I can totally understand some families not complying, because what are you going to do? I was less than understanding with the families that brought two or more adults (yes, some brought both parents and at least one grandparent) and multiple children who yelled and screamed the whole time. I’m not talking babies either. I suppose parents who can’t follow rules don’t expect their kids to follow rules. It was almost impossible to hear anything, thanks to the screams of the unruly children. There were some perfectly well behaved children in attendance as well. I’m not talking about them.

Anyway. Focus, Carrie, focus. Rough day. I babysat, then I went out and checked everything off my hurricane preparedness list. We still have to bring in all the yard items and figure out what to do with the trampoline (maybe tie it to the deck pillars?), but we have everything else ready to go. I hope to god I never have to eat the canned chicken or canned soup, but you never know. I bought plenty of fresh food that doesn’t need to be refrigerated (potatoes, bananas, oranges, etc) but I figured if I was going to make an emergency kit I might as well do it right. We might not have notice if there is a terrorist attack or something like that, so canned chicken it is. I might not be too picky when I’m hungry and the kids are starving.

The store was busier than usual, but not nearly the madhouse I had feared. I stupidly picked up one of the scanners* so I could do it myself, but I didn’t think about Elsa being totally obsessed with the fun beeping toy. She was screaming and climbing out of her seat (yes, she was strapped in, but those straps don’t do much for a very determined toddler) and insisting on getting down so she could chase Erik and get the scanner. Your basic hurricane grocery shopping nightmare, coupled with a five year old who has the incredible talent of standing exactly where you need to be. Fun times!

When I got home I was pretty cranky and decided I didn’t need to deal with all the neighborhood children, so I put a sign on the door telling them not to knock. I suppose I got a little snarky when I added “no bikes, no water, no bathrooms, no food, no Erik.” I couldn’t quite leave it like that, so I did add “Maybe Later” with a smiley.

After Elsa’s nap, it was off to kindergarten so Erik could meet his teacher and get used to the school. He really enjoyed the whole thing. I really enjoyed the picture of the school mascot attacking a space shuttle. Shouldn’t a school named Sally Ride have a mustang mascot?

They had a cute little scavenger hunt for the kindergartners. They had to find several important places in the classroom, then they had to go out into the school and find places like the library, gym, music room and so forth. Erik loved it. We were on a hunt!

He has one neighborhood boy in his class, but that’s it as far as people we know. I didn’t have an immediate connection with any of the other parents, but who knows. We’ll see what happens this year, I guess. One guy was super annoying. He was telling the teacher how his kid knows all the states and continents and oceans blah blah braggy pants. Then he was quizzing the kid and the kid was just standing there staring into space. I hate braggy pants parents. You don’t need to brag to your kid’s teacher. The teacher will figure out your child’s capabilities as soon as the school year gets rolling. Big time bragging only makes the teacher think that you’re going to be “that parent.” How do people not know this?

How about a picture of Elsa’s haircut before I go to bed? She’s started saying cheese whenever she sees the camera so I can’t get a decent picture. Heather posted a link to a lady who had ideas for making kids laugh naturally in pictures and they all sounded great, but so far not a single one of them has worked with my kids. Maybe I’m just not fun enough.

*Our local Giant stores have the best system ever. You can pick up a scan gun when you go into the store. As you shop, you scan each item and place it in your bag. Then when you get all done you go to any line (there are a few special ones just for this process, but you can also go to a regular line) and scan the little “finished” bar code. It pulls up your order and you pay. They have random checks where it will say “please wait for a cashier” and someone will come and do a spot check on your bag to make sure you really scanned everything. I love this system, but it is not worth it now that Elsa is a grabby toddler who can’t be tamed.

Up: It was parent night for kindergarten parents! I felt so strange sitting in those little kindergarten chairs, hearing about all the things the kids would be doing. I am really glad I have a lot of experience in a school setting so I don’t have to worry about some of the things the other parents are worried about. I know the teachers and staff want to be there and have systems in place to keep my kid safe from harm.

Down: There’s a giant, friggin’ hurricane headed our way! Is it really going to hit us? I am not very prepared. I need to go to the store tomorrow and buy us some non-perishable food. I do not like being hungry. But when am I going to have time to go to the store? I’m babysitting until noon, then have to be at Erik’s school again at 3:30. Elsa should nap in between. I think she will just have to be napless. Hurricane preparedness is more important than a baby nap. My only worry is the the shelves will be totally cleared off by the time we get to the store.

Up: Elsa got a haircut today! And it wasn’t even traumatic! Erik agreed to get his hair cut with no drama, thank dog. I made a comment to the stylist that I really should get Elsa’s hair cut, but I was too afraid. When she finished Erik’s hair, she asked if I wanted her to trim Elsa’s bangs. We didn’t sit her down or anything. I just stood there and held her while the lady went “snip, snip, snip.” It looks sooooooo much better. I guess cutting bangs is not nearly as traumatic as a full on clipper buzz.

Down: I didn’t get a picture of the haircutting process. Booooo! I didn’t have my camera with me, and even if I did who would have taken the pictures? I’m falling down on my documentarian job.

Up: I’ve resisted temptation and haven’t had any snacks or sweets today.

Down: I feel like the biggest, fattest, grossest human being on the planet. And I just. . . can’t. . . quit. . . eating. The grosser I feel, the more I want chocolate. I wish this baby would stop being sick all the time so I could get into a good workout routine. I knew if I ever stopped gymming it on a daily basis I would turn into a giant blob. I was already a giant blob. I can’t afford to be any bigger.

Up: Elsa didn’t puke on me in middle of the night. Big up, right there!

Down: Erik growled at Elsa this afternoon. It totally freaked her out. She started sobbing. Then she started coughing. Then she barfed all over me. I changed clothes, obviously, but that puke smell is pretty pervasive. I must have made an excellent first impression at the school–my hair was frizzed out, I smelled like puke. I’m a big blob. Ugh. You know it’s humid when my straight as a stick hair gets frizzed out.

Every night I read Erik a book and tell him a made up story. He is a strange child in that he refuses to listen to the same story twice. He won’t read the same book twice, either. He cries if he realizes that we’ve read all our library books. Don’t most kids like to read the same thing 29348484839339 times? He did when he was a toddler. I could probably still quote you all these little board books about school buses. But now it’s all about the new.

Most of the time my stories are really lame. I’ve gone through all the standard fairy tales that I can remember, so I’m left with my own imagination. Sometimes I pull from movie plots and make them kid friendly. Erik is going to be in for some major confusion the first time he watches Princess Bride or Forest Gump. Which, by the way, I hate. But Erik heard me say “Run, Forest, run” and wanted to know what that was all about. He really liked a story about a guy just running and running and running.

Every once in a while I come up with a story that’s really quite good. Last night was one of those nights. It was about a snotty princess who ate cupcakes all day. One day her baker was sick and she was really angry because she couldn’t have cupcakes. She went out on a walk and met a little girl who told her to suck it up and then the little girl went to the castle and taught her how to make her own cupcakes.

That’s at least as good as half the books I read to the child.

Problem: picture books for kids are really made by the pictures. The words are important, true, but it is all about the pictures. How cute would it be to have the princess in the story be a little girl who is obviously just wearing dress up clothes and her castle is just a regular ol’ house and all that? I can picture it, but no way can I draw it.

We read a book a few weeks ago called something about an Ordinary Day. The words were all very boring. Mary got up in the morning. Mary ate breakfast. Mary rode to school. The pictures, though, they were wonderful. I can’t remember the particulars, but the girl rode a dinosaur to school and flew around on a big bird. Stuff like that.

I also told Erik a series of stories about a big brown dog who wants to do good deeds, but everyone thinks he’s a wolf. He tries to tell these three little pigs that their houses aren’t safe, and even proves it by blowing two of them down, but they just run from him. He tried to help a little girl deliver cookies to her ailing grandmother and she just ran away.

I have ideas. I just have no time for execution or skills to make them come to life. I know many publishers provide an illustrator, but so much of the picture book is about the right picture that I’m not sure how you would even start to write a children’s book without drawing skills.

Yesterday I was a rabble rousing community organizer.

You probably don’t remember, but a few months ago I sent an e-mail to our HOA manager about our play area. The trash can had been removed and the rocking squirrel was broken. They immediately came out and replaced the trash can and put a big cone over the jagged piece of metal left by the rocking squirrel. One of the boys, Mr. Safety Patrol, was impressed when he found out I had e-mailed them and they came out and fixed it. He asked me to e-mail and ask if they could put in some swings and a twirly slide. I never did because it didn’t seem likely.

A couple of days ago they came out and replaced the rocking squirrel with a cute little pony.

Mr. Safety Patrol remembered what I said about the e-mail and asked what they said about swings. Ummmm. Whoops.

I ended up telling the kids that if they really wanted a new park they needed to get as many kids as possible to write letters and I would mail them in for them. I thought that would be the end of it, but Mr. Safety Patrol went and got a load of paper and a bunch of pens. I helped give them some direction about what to say and I now have 12 letters to send in. The letters are very varied. Everything from a 4 year old’s drawing of a perfect park to a really nicely written letter by a tweenager, along with a chart of brainstormed ideas. Have I ever mentioned that I love my neighborhood?

Elsa is feeling much better. I haven’t been puked on in over 24 hours. I even got a little sleep last night. Things are looking up! Except for the copious amounts of snot running out of my nose. That’s not so up.

Beck suggested I get Carbonite for all my back-up needs. I looked into it and am going to do it. Seems like it is well worth $59/year! I know technically I can and should just back up my own files like a fancy computer person, but let’s get real. That’s not going to happen.

Thankfully I had a fit of daughterly guilt in July and uploaded a ton of pics to Wal-Mart and had them sent to my mom’s local Wal-mart. She always gets a thrill when she gets a call from their photo department. I’ve not used their photobook services, but I guess I’m about to find out if they are as nice as Shutterfly books. I have all our Vancouver pics on Flickr, so I guess I need to figure out if I can make a book or easily download pics from there. Sadly, the picture of Elsa licking her chicken paprikash plate is lost forever.

I finished two things that were stressing me out big-time yesterday. I finally remembered “templates!” for the flyer I had to make, and that helped. I used to be pretty good at making stuff, but it requires a lot of time and fiddliness and I don’t have time or patience any more. In fact, yesterday my patience were worn so thin that when a girl knocked on my door I opened it and said “I’m closed” before not-quite slamming it shut. There are two girls in the neighborhood that have no boundaries. They’d already been in my house asking for food, but I kicked them out. I’d had enough, so I was done. They wanted to use my bathroom! Seriously? They live three houses down. They do not need to use my bathroom. I think I need to get a big sign for my door that says “I’m closed. Do not knock. You can’t borrow Erik’s bike, have food, use the bathroom, or get a drink*. Go find your own mommy, daddy, auntie, or babysitter.”

Some days I have patience. Some days I do not. I definitely do not have patience for wild hooligans who live three houses down and seem well fed. If only they were well mannered. . .

On the agenda for today: new library books, haircut for Erik (this will be almost impossible because he decided he wants “big hair” like his hero: see below), Airborne for me, and maybe a nice new shirt for the first day of school for Erik. Except he refuses to wear any shirts with buttons and if I let him pick a new shirt, it will just be another Star Wars/Transformers/Phineas and Ferb/Avengers t-shirt. And what’s so special about that, my friends?

*I only give food and water to the crack house kids. They claim the water in their sink is brown. I’d rather give them a cup of water than have them go home and drink a soda.