The Queen's Rambles

I’m going to skip summer camp again today. The prompt is all about food, and as much as I love to eat my food preferences are pretty boring. I could never be a proper food blogger because I eat the same things over and over again. I do have a recipe blog over HERE, but it’s more like a personal reminder blog than a real blog of any sort.

Instead, I’ll tell you about our latest adventure.

Our MOMS Club service project involves going to a church and making lunches for homeless people. We had 90 minutes and three moms budgeted to make the lunches, so I figured we would probably be making at 100 or more. Wrong! We only make 40. They usually give out around 35.

My family and another mom arrived right on schedule. We found our way into the church and located the kitchen right away. We were surprised to see a group of old ladies already making the lunches. They were quite surprised to see us, as well.

Later we found out that the lady in charge of the kitchen knew we were coming and had everything set out for us. These old ladies sometimes work the kitchen and came in on their own volition and just started putting stuff together because they were bored, I guess. Who knows.

Either way, it was fine. Our third person never showed up and I spent most of the time chasing Elsa. It would have been fine if it was just two of us, even with Elsa in the kitchen. We could have just shut the door and let her run around.

Have you ever stood by while an 80 year old woman tried to make a bunch of peanut butter sandwiches? My job was to bag the sandwiches after she made them. People. I try to be nice. I am nice. But standing there waiting for her to make a sandwich was torture. I wanted to just jump in and do it, but she was very proud of her sandwiches. She spread peanut butter on both slices of bread, then put a dollop of jelly right in the center so it would “be a surprise.” It was excruciating to watch.

We fiddled around with loading cookies and other stuff. Erik was a great little helper and got along well with a younger old lady. I did have to give her the hairy eyeball when she told Erik to only put two Oreos in each bag because “we don’t want our guests to get fat.”

I was good and didn’t say anything to an old lady who wouldn’t have a frickin’ clue why that was bad, but it was hard. I work SO HARD to get Erik not to call people fat or worry about being fat or worry about other people being fat. Then people like that (let’s face it, the majority of Americans) say something so thoughtless and leave him with a negative impression about fat people (like his very own mother).

With five of us working, the meals were done in about a half hour and we were able to leave. The old ladies wanted to sit around and gossip with us, but the other mom and I had deer in the headlights looks and managed to escape. I didn’t want to be rude, but I jerked Erik out of there so fast his head was spinning. They started talking about the Casey Anthony trial and all that jazz. It’s bad enough that I’ve had to turn off my car radio so he doesn’t hear about child skulls and a mommy who would murder her own baby. You’d think real, live people would look at the child in the room and realize that it isn’t an appropriate topic.

So there you go. I’m mostly glad they were there because it made our job really fast and easy, but they annoyed me greatly. Also, the church smelled exactly like I remember my old church smelling: musty and dank.

Our club has three more service project dates this summer. I hope other members will sign up to do it so I won’t have to go back. I don’t mind doing it, but with 28 club members we should have enough people that no one person needs to do it all. We shall see.

I am skipping Summer Camp today. I can’t think of a single thing to say about the prompt (what new thing have you tried lately: buying a Pokemon), probably because my brain is old and befuddled. I saw a commercial the other day about some vitamin or drug you can take to increase adult memory retention. I need some of that stuff. The sad thing is I can’t remember what it’s called. I’m not even making that up to be funny.

We had our meeting today and I was able to pull a craft out of my brain in between dropping Erik off at camp and arriving at the meeting. Bethany offered to help brainstorm a craft, but I didn’t see the comment until after the meeting was over. In the end I did something super simple that I remembered from a craft camp I went to when I was a kid. One year our town decided to be fancy and have little craft classes in the park (maybe they always did this and we could only afford it one year). I vividly remember drawing fish on a piece of white paper, then going over the whole paper with cotton balls dipped in water color paints. I don’t know why that stuck with me and why I thought it was totally awesome, but that’s the craft we did today. The two elementary aged girls were equally enamored with it and made a ton of pictures (some aquariums, some alien landscapes, one princess being destroyed by a dragon). The two elementary aged boys refused to try it.

Any ideas for cheap and easy crafts are always appreciated. I am anti-craft. It’s messy, my kid won’t sit still for it and I have terrible fine motor skills. I also don’t want to spend a lot of my own money. Since our club is a non-profit we are only allowed to spend 15% of our income on things that directly benefit our club members. We usually reserve that 15% for a party at the end of the year. This year our party barely qualified–we went out to dessert at Applebees.

I finally have the gigantic box of moms club paperwork that comes with being president and it’s really interesting to read through the history. Our club was busted in 2007 for spending waaaaaay over the limit on fun stuff just for our club.

Basically we give most of our money away to charity. We get a free meeting place, so we don’t have many regular expenses. We can host an open house to try to get members to join, so I’m planning on doing that and using some of our money that way. It is frustrating to have the money to do things, but not be allowed to spend the money. It all goes back to taxes, I guess.

You want to hear what stupid thing I did today?

I finished a quilt for my new 2nd cousin (or whatever you call the daughter of your cousin) a few months ago, but never clipped the threads. Today I decided that thing was going in the mail, so I clipped the threads and gave it a look over. I noticed one of the corners wasn’t bound well so I thought I could fix it. I undid the binding on the corner. And now I have no freakin’ clue how I am going to re-bind it because it’s a hot mess. I hopehopehopehopehope I can come up with a plan when I am fresh and un-cranky tomorrow. I do not want to have to tear off the whole binding and start over. It’s a really cute quilt and I need to get it and the accompanying presents out of my house. They are in the way and bound to get ruined with the Menace and her brother roaming around.

Speaking of her brother.

He’s been wishing and wishing and wishing he could do a craft to make himself a pokemon. I am not a horrible mother who refuses to let my child do a craft. I am a forgetful mother who never remembers his bedtime wishes. If he would mention it during the day we would make it happen.

Today, shock of all shocks, I remembered. Possibly because I had been brainstorming crafts all night.

He decided he wanted to make a stuffed Pokemon, so I had him draw something out and then we went up to pick out the fabric.

He said all my fabric was for girls! Can you imagine??? Why wouldn’t Pokemon have batik flowers all over?

In the end I kind of threw my hands up in the air and went and bought him a Pokemon thing at Target after encouraging him to craft a few paper Pokemon things. Win-win, I’d say. He got to craft and he got his Pokemon. I didn’t have to use my precious fabric on a Pokemon, nor did I have to curse all night long, trying to make his design come to life. Maybe someday we will make a stuffed creature together, but 3 pm in the afternoon is not the time to go to the fabric store to find an acceptable fabric. Life revolves around traffic patterns around here and the fabric store is just far enough out that I want to avoid rush hour.

Day 5 – What would you prefer to do on your birthday?

Read more: 31 Days of Blog Juice at Creating Motherhood Summer Camp

How sad is it that I don’t even know? We are not big celebrators around here. Does that mean our life is so fabulous on a regular basis that we don’t have to do anything special on special days? Ha.

For several years, I vowed not to eat any processed sugar from Jan. 1 until my birthday (March 26), so I would spend 3 months planning the type of birthday cake I would make. Eventually I realized that no cake I could bake could compare to some of the cakes I can buy, so lately I’ve just been buying a triple chocolate mousse cake from Safeway. I’m a good baker, but cakes are not my forte. The last two years I didn’t do my no sugar thing, so thinking about birthday cake didn’t take up such a huge part of my thought process.

One year we went to a big quilt show in Lancaster County and that was really awesome. Mike took Erik and I got to go hang out with all the old ladies (and a few young ones). I spent way too much money on fabric that is mostly still sitting up in my craft room, but I had a wonderful time. Plus, Amish fried chicken! Who can beat that?

I guess what I would really prefer to do is open a box with a big, shiny ring. I love shiny things. But they need to be big shiny things because I have big man hands. Jerry Seinfeld would not approve.

In completely unrelated business: ugh. Why am I MOMS Club president? Just because I am bossy and like to make things happen? I need to learn to go with the flow and let other people do things. I have been president for a month and I’m already tired of it. I knew better, but I felt like I was the best candidate. Humble, much?

We have our business meeting tomorrow, but everyone is out of town. There might be two of us. I would cancel it, but we need to use our free room or the bank will give our slot to someone else. I found a fun sounding craft in an old Family Fun magazine, but decided I better test it out first. Good thing I did because it was a major fail. I need to come up with a plan in the next 12 hours.

I just hope I get some sleep tonight. Elsa was snorting and kicking and being a general pain all night. Why are we co-sleeping, again? I hear about these babies that sleep in cribs, but I am not sure how to accomplish the goal. I’ve heard that you put them down in the crib either awake or asleep and they lay there and sleep. I put my kid in a crib, either awake or asleep, and they stand up with a look of terror and scream for a solid hour. I can’t handle baby screaming. She’ll be out of our bed eventually. I know this. Deep breaths.

Also, I was having stupid freakin’ nightmares about stupid, dumb skitters and Dr. Carter and the rest of the plot from “Falling Skies.” Anyone else watching this show? If not, don’t start. It is terrible. Really, really terrible. It had promise at first, but four episodes in and I’m rooting for the aliens. Our band of survivors are too stupid to live.

I know I would probably be killed in the first wave of attacks if there was a true alien invasion. I’m not very fast and I don’t have any survival skills. However, if I managed to survive and join a band of rebels I would hope I would be smart enough to not store an alien prisoner of war right in middle of our camp. And I sure as hell wouldn’t be sticking my arm in the cage.

And out of 300 people, the only person who knows how to bake a loaf of bread is a racist ex-con? Seriously? They are staying in a high school. The library doesn’t have any cookbooks?

The show is ridiculous. I think it is getting booted from the DVR, much like “The Killing” was booted. From what I understand, “The Killing” didn’t even reveal who the killer was. Whaaaaa? Glad I stopped watching.

Not that I have time for TV anymore. I used to watch during Elsa’s nap, but those days are long gone as she either doesn’t nap much or she naps in the bed instead of on my lap.

She is such a silly girl. I had no idea she knew how to unscrew a lid, so when I saw her playing with a jar of peanut butter I thought it was perfectly safe.

WRONG!

I found her covered from head to toe in peanut butter. We were supposed to go to the gym for BodyPump, but I couldn’t take a peanut bomb to the gym. She’d likely have killed every allergic kid in the place. I thought maybe I could just go do a cardio workout after I gave her a shower, but then she fell asleep so that kind of shot our whole morning (though the nap was much needed). I guess being a Menace is hard work.

Day 4 – What has most surprised you about being an adult? What have you learned about yourself through blogging?

Read more: 31 Days of Blog Juice at Creating Motherhood Summer Camp

When I was a kid I had the standard fantasy of being rich, living in a fancy house, having a nice husband and all that. I never really understood how any of that worked. I never knew anyone who had the type of job that allowed them to be rich, which meant no fancy house. I never knew a nice husband, so I really didn’t understand that.

Even though I had fantasies, I knew the reality was simple. I would find a job, work hard, and live all alone. I hoped I would have enough money to keep afloat. I might have a dog. I would absolutely NOT have a cat because I wasn’t going to be a crazy cat lady*. I would never marry. There would be no reason to marry. Men were alcoholics who expected the women to do everything around the house. They might be able to provide money, but money was not nearly as important as my freedom. No way was I going to be taking care of a drunk and his children.

Besides, who would ever love me? The marriage point was moot, even if I did have Harlequin romance fantasies.

So I suppose you could say Mike has been the most surprising thing of my adult life. Mike, and other men like him. Most of my good friends, both in person and in blog-land, have excellent husbands who help around the house, take an active part in child rearing, love their families and are not raging alcoholics. Who knew?

And one of these excellent men loves me. Who knew?

What have I learned about myself through blogging?

I’ve learned so much, but I don’t know how much of it is through blogging and how much of it is just growing up. I’m coming up on my ten year blog-a-versary in September. Ten years. Diaz. Tio. Ten.

When I started this blog I had just moved to Sweden sight unseen to live with Mike. I didn’t even know what a blog was. In fact, it wasn’t a blog. It was an online diary. Shortly after someone termed the phrase weblog. I’ve lived in two countries and three states since then. I’ve gotten married, had a miscarriage, had two children, lost my grandma and father, and had several jobs since then. I was bound to discover something about myself.

Of course writing every stray thought and receiving feedback from a diverse group of people would have to lead to some sort of enlightenment, too.

I learned that I’m funny. Other people appreciate my jokes and my point of view. Other people think I am worth knowing and being around. I don’t have to hide everything. I’ve always been a big hider of things. People are just people. We are all insecure.

Without blogging, I never would have been able to change my life.

In 2008 my New Year’s Resolution was simple: Be Vivacious.

I’ve been shy all my life, but I decided I was going to bring my online persona into the real world and make friends. I was desperate for friends. I had several acquaintances who were a bad fit. Nothing against them, but they just weren’t kindred spirits. I needed real friends.

I about died inside, but I started striking up conversations with strangers. I started sending out e-mails. I initiated events. I made plans. I talked.

It was so scary at first, but it soon became second nature. Years of blogging and years of watching students interact had taught me that the only difference between a popular person and a non-popular person is that a popular person acts popular (not counting really weird people. We all know those types and I hope I’m not one of them. They somehow miss social cues, but still keep talking.).

Now I’m the president of my MOMS Club (not that it was a tough competition. I was the only sucker.) I have several really good friends, I am scheduled so tightly with meeting people I want to see that I barely have time to fit it all in. I never imagined life could be like this, but I’m enjoying it.

I’ve scaled way back on the vivaciousness because I’m tired. Really tired. Once Elsa isn’t keeping me awake so much I hope I will get with the program. It’s hard to be cheerful and friendly and full of fun when you just want to sleep.

*I didn’t know about my cat allergy until I was in my 20s because my grandma had a cat phobia.

It’s Day 3 of Summer Camp and we’ve been asked to tell you our guilty pleasures.

My first thought is immediately “chocolate sodas, s’mores, Suzy Qs. . . ” and so on. But really? Why should those be guilty pleasures? Why should the word guilt immediately bring up the foods I most enjoy?

Yes, I’m fat.

No, I don’t like being fat.

But I like to eat and I am active (or at least getting back to being active now that Elsa allows me to drop her off at the gym) and who cares if I’m fat? Mike loves me. I don’t need to impress anyone else.

Ah, the lovely food issues.

So what do I do that really causes guilt?

Shop for little girl clothes, especially dresses.

Dresses are entirely impractical. Elsa has a hard time going up and down the stairs when I put her in a dress. We live in a three story townhouse, so that tends to be a problem. But they are cute! So cute!

When Erik needs clothes, I go to a couple of stores, stock up on a bunch of clothes that won’t make me poke my eyes out and will meet his needs and we’re done until the season changes or his pants start looking like high waters.

Elsa basically never needs clothes because I am always shopping for her. I have weaned myself away from the deal-a-day sites, but I still manage to find myself at the mall or Kohl’s a little more often than necessary.

I want to say that hand-me-downs are just fine for her and they are just fine for her. She had a million cute little things her first year, most of them hand-me-downs. I really do like picking out her clothes myself, though.

And shhhhhhhhhh. . . don’t tell anyone. Yesterday at Kohl’s there was an irresistible dress only available in size 4T. She currently wears size 24 month (2T is too slender for her). Ummm. Yeah. that dress is now hanging in her closet. It will be perfect for dress-up occasions in a year or two.

Hey! I had a 30% off coupon. They were basically giving it to me, right?

I am participating in Calliopie’s Summer Camp so I guess I better actually participate. I totally forgot about it yesterday. Doh!

Today’s prompt is about high school Specifically, what were you like in high school, did you do extracurriculars and did you consider yourself a writer.

I was an odd duck. I was very shy, but also very confident. I knew I wasn’t popular and would never be popular, but I also knew I was smart. I took solace in my grades and probably annoyed the teachers by weeping if I ever got a wrong answer or less than 100% on a test. I knew I was smart, but I assumed everyone else was probably smarter than me and it always surprised me if I set the curve in a class. When my biology teacher announced that he expected the freshmen in the class to get the highest grades in class I had no clue how that could possibly be accomplished. There were seniors in the class! How could we be smarter than them????

But yes. The freshmen did much better. We were advanced students. The seniors? Not so much.

I didn’t do many extra-curriculars because all my friends were band nerds and I did not want to be a band nerd. I knew I was already a nerd and adding the extra bandiness to the equation would have killed my 14 year old self. I probably missed out on a lot of fun. Silly teenagers.

My sophmore year I joined the Students for Students club, a club meant to help prevent suicide. We learned to look for the signs of suicide and what to do if we thought someone was going to commit suicide. I didn’t ever have to use any of that knowledge. Kind of hard to be on the lookout for suicidal people when you are really shy and only have a few friends.

My junior year we sort of changed the focus of the club because we weren’t finding any suicidal people to help and it was getting boring. Instead, we tried to do things for students. The cheerleaders always gave the big sports stars care packages, so we would do the same for other students like the cross country team, the kids in the school play and other less popular teams. We also did a lot of fundraisers. I have no idea what we did with the money, but we were always working the concession stand or running other fundraisers.

I would sign up for just about anything that our class was supposed to do, like float building or fundraising. I just kept my head down and did the work and tried to avoid getting drunk, high or pregnant.

I was very VERY religious and convinced that my fellow students were all drug addled sex maniacs. I must have been charming. But that’s what we learned at church, so it must have been true, right? I went to church every single Sunday, taught Sunday school, went to every youth meeting, went to every camp and retreat available and was just generally a churchy-girl. It was my source of stability.

Also, Kelly and Zach* went to a party and there were drugs, so clearly there would be drugs at all parties I might attend. I was never even invited to a party.

I got a job washing dishes at a little mom-and-pop Mexican restaurant my junior year and spent most of my time there. Later I picked up another job at a bookstore, so my senior year was spent working my butt off. Sometimes I would house sit for the bookstore boss, which I loved. I was basically on my own at those times and loved it. My home life was not desirable at all with a drunk father and an out of control sister. I never felt safe in my own home. Literally. My sister was a violent drug addict and we never knew what she would do.

I spent as much time as possible away from home and focused on going away to my church’s college in Oklahoma.

I was always very responsible and the teachers all loved me. I worked as an aide for my English teacher my senior year and did a ton of stuff that most students wouldn’t normally be allowed to do. I even subbed for our English class when her daughter had to have surgery. The hired sub was not pleased.

I considered myself a writer and even got to go to a writing festival in Portland two years in a row. I still can’t believe I had the nerve to submit stories because I was so shy and so convinced that everyone was better than me. I was a little defeated because my 8th grade English teacher hated me and refused to put me in Honors English my freshman year (didn’t know I could fight that), but my sophomore teacher took me aside and asked why on earth I wasn’t in Honor’s English so I got back on track.

I was way too terrified to try to join the newspaper or yearbook because you had to submit a writing sample. In retrospect that was pretty idiotic of me. I could have easily been editor of the paper or yearbook and done a fabulous job.

I did join yearbook my last semester of HS because my best friend said the teacher didn’t care if we were late back from lunch. I submitted a writing sample even though I was scared and was immediately accepted. Looking back at the yearbook, I think I did more than my fair share of writing.

I’m really glad my friend was so excited about being late for lunch because that semester of yearbook led to 3 years of yearbook in college, two as yearbook editor.

So that was me! I would never want to live through high school again. I needed to loosen up and have a little fun.

*Please tell me you are old enough to know Zack and Kelly.

If you see this:

See the black dot on her shoulder? We didn’t know if that was a tick or mole.

Then you see this:

Things aren’t good.

Sorry for the poor quality pic, but she refused to stand still and let me take a picture. Looking at the pictures and knowing what I know now, duh. Why did I hesitate to take her in? Thoough I didn’t hesitate long. I took her in the same day I suspected Lyme’s, but I felt dumb since it was not a traditional bulls eye rash. I found a google pic of a lady with the exact rash in the exact spot, and she also had Lyme’s. Maybe the way the shoulder is shaped makes it go oval instead of round? I don’t know.

Getting the medicine down her has not been easy, but it has not been impossible either. She screams, fights, and blows raspberries the whole time, but if we just squirt it in .5 ml at a time, she will swallow if we blow in her face. I’m so glad someone on FB gave me that tip a few months ago. She is not puking it back up, thank dog.

The rash is almost completely gone and she seems to be feeling a lot better. I must admit I sort of had a major internal freakout when I found out she has Lyme’s. I’ve always heard such terrible things about the disease, but I think most of the problems come when you are not diagnosed early and you just kind of linger in poor health for months before someone figures out what it is.

In other news, I got the DVD that the funeral home made for my dad and they didn’t include a single picture I had sent them. First, I sent them links to a flickr album and they couldn’t work that (I didn’t realize I just needed to go through and change the permissions) so I e-mailed a shit load of pics. The girl told me to just e-mail them all in one e-mail and didn’t have a f—- clue why that might crash her e-mail. I split them up and got some bounce messages, so split them up further until I wasn’t getting any bounce messages. I guess they never received any of the e-mails, including the e-mail which didn’t include a single attachment but rather informed them that I was sending the e-mails. The only e-mail I got back said “this is the right e-mail” so I figured they were getting things. I knew they were idiots (they put the wrong date on the death certificate, which has caused my mom no end of hassle) but I assumed they must have the pictures because they KNEW the pictures were coming and they had my e-mail address. My sister repeatedly told them I was sending pictures. I know she’s a big flake (she just had her IUD removed. I can’t even. . . ), but this was really important to her and I am know she was trying to make sure everything was right.

I sent a very hotly worded e-mail to the funeral home and didn’t get back an apology. Apparently it is my mom’s fault because she approved the slide show (she had no way to know what pictures I had sent). Then it was my fault for not sending them correctly. Then it was my fault for not making sure they got my e-mail. They are adding the pictures to the end of the slide show and will fed-x me a new copy, but the funeral director is an asshole. And it’s not his fault, because he was out of town. Don’t you think the least they could do is say “sorry for the misunderstanding?” I mean, my God. We are the grieving family. We’re allowed to be crazy.

It is too late to really “fix” since the funeral is over and I don’t anticipate watching this thing very many times. It is too sad. I was already feeling guilty about missing the funeral, but then there were no pictures of me or my family in the slideshow. So what do people think? That we were estranged? That I wasn’t a part of his life? That I was a giant bitch? I don’t know. It pisses me off more than I would have imagined. You should see this string of e-mails between the funeral director and myself. Usually I am fairly passive (honestly! I am! I talk a mean game in my journal, but I’m meek and mild sometimes), but I am putting this guy through the wringer and refusing to accept his blame. I am forcing him to come up with solutions.

Anyway, I need to think of something else.

We’ve been cat sitting this week for my friend. I am allergic to cats, but I can be in a house with them for awhile. Some cats make my eyes swell up, some cats make me sneeze and some cats have no effect. I’ve never had a cat make my hands burn.

Holy heck. This cat wants to be petted because he misses his family and he makes my hands burn like fire. I’ve never had that reaction before. I hope I never have it again. We only had to go over there three times, so I’m glad it is over. I just felt bad that I couldn’t pet him as much as he wanted to be petted.

Three day weekend! We have nothing planned, but I want to go to Home Depot and get some dirt and plants. Our yard looks awful and our deck planters are full of weeds. I don’t want to plant tomatoes because the squirrels eat them all (oh how I love fresh tomatoes), but weeds are annoying me. Flowers will be a lot nicer to look at, if we can motivate ourselves.

Poor Elsa. She just can’t catch a break in the health department. Of course, things could be much worse. I know little babies who are going through terrible, terrible things right now.

We’ve had two good weeks with no sickness, but now she is back to being ill.

This time she probably has a cold piled on top of freakin’ Lyme Disease.

Can you believe my little baby has Lyme disease? I can’t. I know it is not terrible since we caught it early. I’ve just heard so many warnings about it for years and years that it is freaking me out. We caught it super early thanks to my paranoia. I guess it’s not paranoia if you turn out to be right, though. I almost didn’t take her to the doctor because I thought I was being crazy, but all my FB friends were adamant that I take her in. I also read quite a bit about it this afternoon and decided it was worth looking stupid if I was wrong because if I was right this was not something that would go away on it’s own.

We somehow have to get antibiotics down her throat three times a day for the next 14 days. I don’t imagine that will go well. I did ask for cherry flavored since she seems to tolerate that flavor, so hopefully they honored that. Who knows. I don’t think any of them speak English at the pharacy I went to. I am all for immigrants having good jobs, but when it comes to something like my baby’s health care I really do wish I could talk to someone and have mutual understanding.

We go back to the doctor on July 11 to see how it is going. From everything I’ve read, she will probably need antibiotics for six weeks, though the doctor didn’t mention that.

You know it’s never a good thing when the doctor says “Elsa, you were the most interesting person I’ve seen all day!”

Well, maybe it would be a good sign for YOU since your name is probably not Elsa.

I was looking forward to our playdate with Bethany and her girls today, but life threw us another curve ball.

Elsa started fussing and wiggling around midnight. Eventually she worked up to full scale crying and had a fever. Finally, around 4 am, she settled down for a couple of hours. Right around them my digestive system decided to do an auto-clean and I spent the next three hours in the bathroom. Every time I’d try to go back to bed, my colon would make it clear that the auto-clean feature wasn’t done working. Fantastic.

Thankfully my colon seems to be doing ok, now. It’s just my eyes and the rest of my body that need something (like 8 solid hours of sleep).

Elsa is not so fortunate. She is laying around, crying, wriggling, not looking at all happy. I need to find a local source for cherry flavored infant pain drops, or maybe just order some online. She’ll take them and they help, but it is clear something is wrong.

A few weeks ago I noticed she had a reddish scab thing on her collar-bone. She pinches herself all the time so I didn’t think anything of it. Later, Mike pointed out that it looked like a tick, but it never looked like a tick to me. It started to look like there was a big, black mole hanging off the middle of the scab. It was strange and I was going to take her to the doctor for it, but it disappeared before I had the chance.

That was over a week ago and the redness in the area is growing instead of decreasing. It is not a typical Lyme disease bull’s eye, but I looked at some pictures on google and there was one on a lady’s collar bone that looks almost exactly like what Elsa has.

I posted about it on FB and the response was overwhelming. I guess I needed that encouragement because I hate the doctor to think I’m an over-reacting idiot. As soon as I saw everyone telling me to get her checked out I called and made an appointment. I guess I’ll find out more tonight. Thankfully it is with the doctor I really like so maybe I won’t be so nervous. Why do I get so nervous around doctors?

Elsa has been in to the doctor for sick visits at least double the times Erik has been in for sick visits and he’s almost six years old. My poor baby girl.

In better news, Erik and I are getting along much better. I think transitioning to four hours at camp was tough for him. I also think my rage was fueled by strong emotions over Father’s Day. Even though my dad and I weren’t close, Father’s Day and all the millions of commercials leading up to the day were pretty hard to get through. I just kept thinking about my dad and how he should be sitting in his chair. I also keep picturing him in the hospital and wishing I would have done more and said more, though I don’t know what else I could have done or said. He would get really agitated when we tried to tell him we loved him because he knew he was dying and he didn’t want to die.

Updates on things no one cares about:

1) My dishwasher is fixed! I didn’t even know it was broken. It’s been filling up with mold for months, now. We would bleach it out, wash it, and so forth. I just thought I was a failure as a housewife, which makes no sense because what would I be able to do to make my dishwasher not be moldy? It is not exactly rocket science.

I googled and tried a bunch of home fixes, but nothing was ever working. Mike suggested we get a new dishwasher, but before we went that far I had him check our home warranty. Surprisingly, dishwashers were covered so we got a guy out here. I was shocked to discover I’m not a poor housekeeper. The heating element was out. That also explains why it took several hours to do a load of dishes. It is much faster now and there is no sign of mold. I wish I would have been smart enough to know that mold in the dishwasher is not normal a few months ago.

2) My baby no longer has constant diaper rash. I am no longer using cloth wipes so I suspect the wipes solution I was using had something that irritated her. Also, we are only cloth diapering part time these days. I am sick and tired of leaks when we go out, plus a lot of her summer clothes are woven instead of knit, so the pants don’t fit over her diaper butt. We’re using the disposables when we go out and for night time and cloth when we are home. It’s working out very well and I am a lot less frustrated.

Also, I am using some real detergent in the prewash and using cold water instead of hot to soak them in. It is making a huge difference. They are actually getting clean and don’t smell nearly as bad. Yay for solutions!

I had a totally crazy day today; one in which I felt like an actual grown-up, doing important grown-up things and going to important grown-up places. But we all know the “grown-up” part is an illusion or delusion or something. Does anyone ever really feel like they are more than a kid who has somehow found themselves in a grown-up’s body?

A few weeks ago our MOMS Club got an e-mail about a study at the National Institute of Health. This is not unusual. They are always doing studies and always need people to participate. I’d never done it before because the thought of arranging childcare and figuring out how to drive in Bethesda gives me hives. However, my friend did a study not long ago and said it was really fun and easy and yadda yadda I should do it boom.

For $100 I was willing to get over my anxiety, especially when I called and found out there were weekend and evening hours so the childcare wouldn’t have to be managed.

Today was the big day, so I solved the “driving in Bethesda” problem by taking the metro. The NIH has a metro stop right on campus, so I stepped off the train, went up the longest, nosiest escalator in recent memory (seriously, it sounded like the smoke monster from LOST), and stepped into the “Gateway” building. The security guard was the nicest security guard I’d ever encountered and gave me detailed directions about where I was going even though I already had a map and detailed directions from the study coordinator.

The NIH campus is huge and beautiful and made me feel like I had a purpose in life. I was even wearing slightly dressy clothes that I can’t wear around the kids. After a good 10 minute walk I found the building and headed to admissions.

This was not a medical study; it was a study about feeding children, childhood obesity and mother’s attitudes about food; but I still had to go through the admissions process and sign things that would apply to someone going through medical trials.

The woman at the admissions desk was a huge bitch. There was a doctor trying to get her to arrange for his patient to fly to Oklahoma this afternoon. Fine. I could see they were standing there having a conversation. My instructions said to “sign in and have a seat” but I couldn’t figure out which book I was supposed to sign. When another worker came and started looking at the books I went up and politely asked her if she knew which book I was supposed to sign. The other bitch yelled at me that she was busy and would take care of me shortly. So rude. I was not even talking to her.

So the guy she was helping finally went off and started talking on the phone, so I went back up to the desk because I figured she would be calling me. Before I even got up there she goes “Can’t you see I am trying to help these people? You need to sit down RIGHT NOW.”

See? Bitch.

Finally she called me up and was really rude some more, but thankfully she was able to hand me off to someone else (the other lady I asked to help me) and that lady was super nice.

Eventually I made my way to the study room and the fun began.

It had said it would be a virtual buffet in a virtual reality environment, but I wasn’t sure what that really meant. They weren’t joking about the virtual reality environment. I put on a helmet thing and had to have the glasses over my eyes just right so I could see a restaurant buffet. I had a clicker in my hand that was my “spoon” and I went through some training exercises about using it, then I went to another room and answered a bunch of questions about how I feel about my Erik’s weight, my weight, how people in general get fat and stuff like that. Then I watched a video about childhood obesity (which irked me because it said that you can’t see if a child is obese, it all depends on BMI numbers and I think that is bull shit. BMI is such a crock of crap.) then I went in and made up a plate of food for Erik’s lunch via virtual reality. They had a mix of healthy and crappy food and I picked a mix of stuff. We were supposed to do things that we would really put on his plate and that he would really eat, so I tried to be true to what we would really do at a restaurant.

Then it was back to the computer for more questions about the VR experience, how I felt about the buffet and some essay questions about Erik’s eating habits.

Then things got interesting.

I left the study room and went back down stairs. The building was beyond huge and I didn’t want to have to walk all the way around it, so I figured I would go out the side and cut a lot of time off my walk around the building.

Ha.

Hahahahahahaha.

So I go through this door that says exit and ended up in a courtyard. There were signs saying “Exit: Keep walking through courtyard, go through glass door, then exit building.”

So I did. Except for the exit building part. When I got through the other glass door, I saw the exit was an emergency exit only and alarms would sound if I tried to go through it. The door I just went through was locked. I was trapped in a hallway. In one direction there was a set of doors with signs that the room was locked and had behavioral inpatients that shouldn’t escape. There was a patio with a huge wrought iron fence all around it and a possible mental patient inside. I walked the other way and went through a set of doors. At this point I was completely lost and had no idea what to do except keep walking. I kept going to exit after exit, but every exit dead-ended at an alarmed door. I found statues, a theater, sun rooms, nooks, crannies, windows, and hallways galore. But no exit!

Finally, after about a half hour of wandering around, I found a person. She was a very kind person, thank god, and was also headed to the exit. We went in the complete opposite direction from where I was headed and eventually I was free! I was beginning to believe I would be spending the night camped out in a stairwell.

I took a long walk back to the Metro stop (thankfully I still had my campus map) and managed to get on the train about 30 seconds after hopping off the escalator from hell (it was still groaning and clanking like the smoke monster).

And then I came home.

Aren’t you glad they didn’t catch me and throw me into that wrought iron fenced patio?

When I got home I made cookies, because isn’t that what you do when you hear a lesson about how obesity is teh evil and you know you are obese?

Actually, making cookies is what you do when you know you are going to have an excellent adventure with Bethany and her girls. They are coming up for a playdate tomorrow! Also, Erik has Halloween day at camp tomorrow. I need to find him a costume, find swimsuits for everyone, and figure out what I’m going to make for lunch. Maybe just my usual chicken and spinach wraps for the grown-ups? That’s my new weekday lunch.

Guess that means I better get off this computer and go dig through some closets.