The Queen's Rambles

It’s hard to believe how fast kids grow up. Today we went to a MOMS Club activity and Elsa was the oldest by a couple of years. YEARS! She wouldn’t even play with the kids and I barely knew any of the moms, so it wasn’t even fun. This is definitely my last year on the board. I made a few really good friends in the group and it 100% changed my life for the better, so I’m feeling a little sad that my time of being highly involved is over. It’s time to let the new moms take over and make the chapter what they’d like it to be.

Elsa has had a flip switch and is doing a lot better lately. There’s not nearly so much screaming and crying, for which I’m grateful. I’m definitely not the best mom when whining and screaming is involved. I have some sort of sound sensory thing going on and excessive noise sends me over the edge. I’m so glad she is back to talking and playing and being happy.

I don’t know what to do about her gymnastics class. She does so well in it! She’s the only one who can do many of the moves because she has an incredibly strong core. The three other little girls in the class all have some slight physical delays and their moms put them in gymnastics specifically to work on it. I would not have really noticed in an ordinary situation, but they all have trouble doing some of the things like flipping over a bar and such. Then there are two twin boys who are horrendous. When they show up the two teachers split up and one takes the two boys and the other takes the four girls.

My issue? Elsa barely gets any attention. They are too busy helping the children who really need help to keep Elsa on task. I know I should be happy that she’s doing so well, but we all pay the same amount of money. I would like to see them giving her some help so she can improve even more. I’m paid up through December. Do I want to register her for the spring semester? Or try to find something else? She enjoys is and it’s good for her. I like the teachers (they are older ladies who own the gym so they won’t be going anywhere). I just get irked when she is not getting equal attention.

Swimming lessons are going well, at least!

Erik was swimming yesterday! Fully underwater, clear across the short end of the pool! I could not believe what I was seeing. It was amazing. Yes, I know kids swim all the time, especially 8 year old kids, but this is Erik and I didn’t think he would ever stick his face in the water.

Afterwards he was completely psyched and said it was the most fun he’s ever had and he wants to do it again. I’m so proud of him and can’t wait for next summer.

Elsa had a mini-meltdown at lessons. Erik moved up a level and she stayed at her level, so they were no longer in the same class. She was crying and crying “I just need brother, I just need my brother.” I had a talk with her and she ended up enjoying the class, but it was touch and go.

Erik, of course, was thrilled not to have his little sister in the class and has been looking forward to this moment for two weeks (when he learned he would be moving up).

And now I’m going to go try to fix a toilet. It was running water constantly last year, so I bought this “guaranteed to fix noisy toilets and save water” kit. It is installed correctly, but it doesn’t allow enough water in to fully flush the toilet (I have it set at the maximum). I bought a new kit thing today that is not a water saver. Wish me luck. It’s not saving any water when it takes five flushes to get the waste down. Gross gross gross.

But! I made some impulse purchases at Home Depot. I got each kid a Venus flytrap and I bought myself a pitcher plant! It looks weird with the big pitchers hanging down, but I am hoping it will eat all the flies!

If you recall, for awhile I had a neighbor from Pakistan. She was young (24) and in an arranged marriage. She couldn’t speak English very well and was heavily pregnant with her third child. Her oldest child turned 4 this month, so she has her hands full with a preschooler and two toddlers.

It was such a relief for me when she moved away. I felt sorry for her. She was a victim of some really awful patriarchal ideas. But? I just didn’t like her. I had no interest in any of the things she wanted to talk about. She was mean to her children and had no desire to be a parent. It showed. She clearly didn’t like any of her kids. They were a burden. I can’t blame her for having children that she didn’t want–even though she lives in America now, she is still under the thumb of her religion (though they do not practice) and culture. She does not understand that she has a choice.

Anyway, they moved to a townhouse less than a half mile away.

Last night I took the kids for a walk around the lake, then we stopped at the playground. Guess who we ran into?

Her kids were all crying, while she screamed at them. She tried to make conversation, but I didn’t have much to say to her. I did learn that she is driving now, so that is a good start toward a better life.

Then she says “I need your clothes for my children.” I was kind of baffled. A couple of years ago I had offered her a box of hand-me-downs, but she had quite rudely turned her nose up at them. A few weeks later she told me I had to give them to some lady she knew who needed clothes, but I told her I had already given them away and she got huffy.

I told her I didn’t have any clothes to give anyone. “But I have three children! You must give me the clothes!”

I just kind of stared at her.

“I do not have time to do laundry! Look at my three children. I need your clothes! You must give them to me.”

I have a big box of clothes to give away since I just went through Elsa’s closet, but I’ll be damned if I am going to give them to someone who demands them and who thinks having three children is an excuse to not keep up with the laundry. I have two children and somehow manage to do my laundry. It is the only chore I am able to complete with consistency.

“I don’t have any clothing to give you,” I told her.

She huffed around. “Well, that is fine for now, but you must give me your phone number so I can call you and tell you what we need and you can save clothing for us.”

I suddenly got really busy helping Elsa across the monkey bars, then we left while she was dealing with her kids. I was trying to think of what kind of fake phone number I could give her if push came to shove. I do not need this woman calling me.

Even though I have not quite reached 40 yet (just a few more months), I already feel like I’m in the downhill slide. I hate this! I want to be young forever! We’ll just have to stop everyone from having babies so we don’t get overpopulated.

Anyway, ever since my blood pressure was high this summer I’ve been slightly worried. I am so stressed out all the time that it can’t be good for me. I’ve been monitoring it on and off at the grocery store and it is usually high. So I bit the bullet and went in and talked to a doctor. I’ve been put on meds and I guess maybe I won’t stroke out or have a heart attack now. I hope. She thinks I can come off it pretty quickly if I get my weight under control. Hahahahahahahaha. When have I ever had my weight under control? She suggested lap band surgery and at this point I am considering it. I never thought I would want to do it, but the situation feels extremely hopeless right now. I’ve gained a significant amount of weight this year and am looking absolutely repulsive. I’m really hoping that the blood tests will reveal a thyroid or other problem that would explain the weight gain and I can take a pill to help get it under control.

Also, I need glasses. It feels weird not to be able to read the computer screen without increasing the font size. Mike has to ask me to read things to him because his eyes are worse than mine, but now we both have to have Erik read things to us. He’s well above his grade level for reading, but not quite at the level we need for instruction manuals.

The first night I took the blood pressure pill I thought I was going to faint. There was a huge WHOOOSH! that went straight to my head and I could barely walk, I was so dizzy. The second night there was a slight whoosh, but no real dizziness. The last couple of nights there hasn’t been anything like that. I just hope the whoosh means it was getting things under control.

The doctor was really irritating me because she kept giving me advice that wasn’t applicable to me. She must have told me at least five times to quit smoking. Smoking is a disgusting habit that I have never sampled. Also, stop drinking soda and stop letting my kids drink soda. Ummmm. Yeah. My kids don’t even know what soda is and I haven’t regularly drank soda since I was 18. The only time I drink soda is when I have a ginger ale for morning sickness.

I have re-started weight watchers and am going to be serious about it this time. I really want to print out one of the repulsive pictures of myself and stick it on the fridge with a big sign saying “Is it worth THIS???” but I don’t want my kids to ask about it.

In other news, I feel a lot calmer. I don’t know if it is from the meds or the lack of sugar, but I am much more even keeled. I guess in my heart I know it is from the lack of sugar. I’m addicted to sugar. I don’t even like sugar as much as I always think I do, but after doing a ton of reading I can say I am very clearly addicted to it. Though Weight Watchers does not require you to go sugar free, I’m going to try to be as sugar free as possible for my own sanity. I literally can not eat just one cookie. One bite and I want more more more more more even if I am not enjoying it. My body is telling me that if I just eat enough of it I will somehow be satisfied.

I guess I better go up and take a shower. My friend’s daughter is having her birthday party today and I said I would go help her set-up.

We were really worried that Erik’s party was going to be a rain out, but the rain stopped for the first time in six days and the kids were able to squelch around in the mud, looking for creatures, moss and mushrooms. Honestly, it was better than having them all cooped up on a boat for an hour. The naturalist was even able to get the fire started, so we could have s’mores Overall, a very fun party! I’m quite glad Erik is getting more discriminating in his taste in friends. Maybe next year he can just invite a couple of boys over and have a sleepover.

Erik had big ideas about his s’mores cake and I was just the person figuring it out (with very close supervision from him). He doesn’t like chocolate cake, so I was really confused about how we would make this cake. I ended up google imaging “s’mores cake” and presented him with the possibilities. The above cake is not what he choose, exactly, but in the end it worked out great.

I didn’t want to do a layer cake because I already had a cake board and box in the 9×13 size and it seems like little kids don’t really even like cake–just frosting. I’m a fan of a layer cake with filling, but no one else ever appreciates it. I just made my go-to one bowl yellow cake recipe and added a packet of crushed graham crackers (just one sleeve of crackers from a standard Honey Maid package). We mixed in mini-Hershey’s kisses since Hershey’s chocolate tastes a lot different from Nestle chocolate. I probably would not do that again. When I turned the cake out the chocolate stuck to the pan and pretty much destroyed the cake.

I tried to make a ganache out of mini-Kisses and that was a complete fail. Erik originally wanted chocolate ganache over the cake, with pools of marshmallow cream dropped over the top. I poured the ganache in and it sunk into the cake (too much whipping cream I guess). I could have just used my not-so ganache as the chocolate component.

In the end he agreed to let me use my seven minute icing recipe for the marshmallow coating. It is so fluffy that it covered my complete disaster of a cake and no one even knew about my problems. I didn’t have a cooking torch to toast the marshmallow, but I did have a big ass lighter. It was not the best solution, but it worked. Then I just shoved in some mini-hershey bars and graham crackers and called it good.

Everyone said it tasted exactly like a s’more. It was very, very rich.

As you may have noticed from FaceBook, I was freaking out over this party on Friday afternoon. Pinterest is evil, but I ended up coming up with a solid plan. I had Mike make a decorative tent, I made some silly little signs (font: Pinewood) on cardstock and we put together a trail mix bar for the goody bag. Everyone loved the trail mix bar (except the kids didn’t actually want most of the items–they just wanted the M&Ms and pretzels) and I can see doing it as a goody bag thing again if I could figure out a way to make it fit the theme.

My friend came through in a big way and lent me all of those glass jars. She is also the one who brought the foam marshmallow/s’mores decorations. They added a really nice touch! She was incredibly helpful. She is much better at decorative details than I am.

If I had it to do over again, I would not put any nuts out with my trail mix. I know nuts are a major component of trail mix and it was fine for our party since we didn’t have any kids with nut allergies, however I had a ton of left overs. I was going to mix up some trail mix baggies to take to a party and realized I can’t do it. . . the ingredients might be cross-contaminated with peanuts. I don’t think a single kid even put any peanuts in their bag.

In the future I would have pretzels, cereal (we used generic golden grahams, but cheerios would also work, or maybe even a couple of cereals), banana chips, raisins, mini-marshmallows, and M&Ms. I would probably also put things in flat baking pans instead of upright jars. It looked cute, but the kids couldn’t scoop anything out themselves.

So that was pretty much it! Now it’s time to start planning for our Christmas advent activity calendar.

My sweet baby boy is all grown up! He’s 8 today! Old enough to legally be left home alone for short periods of time.

I don’t know where the time has gone, but I can’t really remember what I did before he arrived in our lives. I know I was always longing for something and always felt like I was missing something. I don’t think I’ve felt that way since I’ve had kids. No time to long for more when you’re deep in the trenches.

It has been out-of-control raining for the past week. In a way it is good the pontoon boat party went bust because there’s no way we’re taking kids out on a boat in this weather. The revised plan is at a campground that has a really nice indoor facility. We won’t be able to do the campfire, but supposedly the naturalist has a great program she put together for the kids.

I was freaking the eff out on Friday because I didn’t know what we were going to do to make it cute and special. I still don’t really know what the naturalist is going to do, but I’ve been told to stop worrying.

I made the mistake of looking on Pintrest for ideas and just about came unhinged. I hate Pintrest. They make the efforts of the common man look completely mundane. I was looking at all these camping themed parties, then trying to click around and find some of the printables and recipes and other ideas. Turns out a lot of those parties are completely staged! They are put together by photographers and designers with the specific intent of you going to their site and buying their digital designs. I had no idea, but I ran into that a lot.

I did get some inspiration and I think the party will be ok. Mike made a little mini-tent as a center piece. Instead of goody bags, we’re having a trail mix bar and the kids can fill a bag with stuff that is trail-mixy. My friend is anti-plastic so she has about a million glass jars and she’s loaning me quite a few to use with the trail mix bar. She also has a lot of wooden and stainless steel scoops.

I made my own labels and screwed up on the proportions (they are waaaaaay too big), but oh well. Will a bunch of 7 year olds care?

This is going to be Erik’s smallest party ever. He was just not interested in inviting many people. If I would have known he only had a few people in mind, I would have encouraged him to have a Chuck E. Cheese party or something. We only invited 8 people and that includes Elsa and another little sibling.

Erik had very partcular ideas about his birthday cake. It couldn’t be store bought, of course. We google imaged s’more cakes and came up with a compilation of ideas. We ended up using my base yellow cake recipe and stirring graham cracker crumbs and mini-hershey’s kisses into it. The kisses stuck to the bottom of the pan and the cake turned into a crumbly mess. I made ganache using mini-kisses, but it got messed up and was not thick enough, so when I poured it over the cake it just sunk right in did not cover any sins. I finally talked Erik in to letting me make fluffy white marshmallow icing to cover it all up. Hopefully I don’t mess that up. It goes from luscious to ludicrous in about five seconds flat if you don’t pay attention to your thermometer.

Personally, I am all for going to the bakery and ordering a cake. Erik will not hear of it, so I get to try to be creative without having a single artistic bone in my body.

I guess I better get up and get with it on this cake. Heck, I still need a shower! And we’re supposed to go eat lunch out soon, too.

This week has been crazy, and the weekend is going to be even worse. Erik has his outdoor birthday party on Sunday, which is starting to freak me out. Sunday we were sunny and up in the mid-80s. Monday the sky opened up and the rain hasn’t stopped. There is an indoor facility, but the major component of the party is the campfire. How are we going to have s’mores and roast weenies without a campfire?

Tonight Erik told me he wants to bake his own birthday cake. He has a recipe for a s’more cake that he completely made up. He has some good ideas and I will try to let him help me, but I can’t just turn him lose in the kitchen to make his birthday cake. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

I would love to post something deep about this government shut down, but the whole thing enrages me and there is no way I can come across as articulate and well informed. I live in the DC area. A ton of my SAHM friends have husband’s who work for the government. They are trying to figure out how to pay their bills and not be slammed with all kinds of late fees. At least some of them will be getting retroactive pay, but most of them are contractors and won’t be getting jack. I am convinced that the tea party hates America and Americans. I really hope this is the motivation normal Republicans need to take back their party from extremists. I consider this government shut down an act of terrorism. It is destroying hard-working American families. The longer it goes on, the harder it is going to be for the government’s own employees to get their lives straightened out.

That’s not even talking about the people who depend on their WIC and other government programs. Let’s starve the children so other children can’t get affordable health care!

Ok. . . gotta stop thinking about that.

I’m the membership person in my PTA, so yesterday I had to plan and execute a pizza party for a class of fifth graders. The pizza delivery guy was super late and I over-ordered. It was kind of a mess. I hate being seen as incompetent.

I could not believe how polite the fifth graders were. They all said, please and thank you. They raised their hands. They didn’t go crazy at all. It was truly a pleasure to see them.

However. . .

Are we raising a nation of incompetent ninnies or what?

I figured they were 5th graders so I could just set a couple of pizzas on each table and they could serve themselves.

One of the second grade teachers on duty freaked out about this. She thought they would tear into it like animals, but she couldn’t have been more wrong.

When faced with an open pizza box, the children had NO FREAKIN’ CLUE what they are supposed to do. They all wanted me to serve them like they were five year olds at a birthday party. Ain’t nobody got time for that!

I did end up passing out the pizza because they were completely immobilized and didn’t know what to do. When some of them raised their hands for seconds I was pretty busy and told them to go to the pizza boxes and get the pizza they wanted. You’d have thought I sprouted another head. Some of them did it, but very tentatively.

Then the second grade teacher freaked out and told me I couldn’t give them more than two pieces. Some of the boys ate 4 pieces. Did I care? No. They are 12 year old boys. I had way too much pizza. Why does the second grade teacher think she is in charge of their eating? I asked their teacher afterwards if it was a problem to give them more than two pieces of pizza and he rolled his eyes and said to ignore the other lady. I think she is also the teacher who always tries to ban our fall carnival because it is too focused on food.

I’ve been reading articles about Millenials lately and am kind of disgusted by what I’m seeing–the complete lack of independence is mind-boggling. I don’t have much contact with that generation, though I have heard from numerous friends who work with them in a university setting that they are over-dependent on parents and even have parents call their professors. Articles say that they sometimes bring parents to job interviews! Some worksites are now having family picnics for parents, not spouses. I suppose I’m firmly a Gen-Xer because I can’t imagine asking my mommy and daddy for help with anything. As one of the articles said, a Gen-Xer is likely to say “You have a dad?” when a Millennial asks them “Why didn’t your dad go to every practice and game?”

I had a dad, but I don’t think he ever attended an event for me except my HS graduation and wedding. My mom went to all my soccer games, but I rode my bike to practice.

I surround myself with people who have the same values as me, so the people I hang out with on a day-to-day basis are teaching their kids to be independent. I do see parents who don’t force their kids to do things on their own, but I generally avoid them because I find it annoying. Except the one who freaks out every time she sees my kids do something in the kitchen. Yes, he’s cut himself with a knife before. No, it was not the end of the world. He learned to be safer next time.

I guess me and my little cabal of independent-creating friends are in the minority. I can’t get over 11 and 12 year olds not knowing what to do when faced with pizza!

I had another margarita tonight and I think I put too much tequila in it. I am feeling so woozy right now!

My friend had a baby today! I was showing Erik pictures of the baby and awwwwing over it. I can see why he gets in trouble at school. He doesn’t mean to be disrespectful, but he has no filter and is very matter-of-fact about everything: “So why don’t you just go tell dad to put his penis in your vagina and make a baby if you really want one.”

I only want a little girl so I can name her Astrid. Except I wouldn’t really name a girl that because they would call her Ass. But I realllllllly want to have a baby and name her after Astrid from Fringe, plus it would fit our Swedish naming motif.

The other day I was longing for Fringe and thinking how empty it is not to have the show to look forward to anymore. I realized that I could watch it again! I’ve been immersed in season 1 and it makes me giddy (when it is not completely grossing me out).

Ok, I gotta get to bed! Enough of this silliness.

We had a really fabulous weekend. It was unseasonably warm, so we went and sweated our butts off at a corn maze/fall farm festival on Saturday. There are a lot of places like that in the area, but we’ve found our favorite: Summers Farm in Frederick, MD. If you’re in the area, I highly recommend it. It has something for every age–big slides, corn maze, corn kernel pits, tetherball, animals and so much more. We left before they set off the fireworks because the three year old girls were melting down. In the future I’d love to go out for an evening, rent one of their campfire sites and do the Moonlight Maze with fireworks and the whole she-bang. I posted pics on FB but am not sure how to transfer them to over here. I can’t seem to get Flickr to connect. Bad Flickr.

Erik had a soccer game on Sunday, which I found quite odd. The coach and two of the best players weren’t there because they had church. I thought the team was going to get trounced, but they manged to pull through in the end and have a 2-2 draw. When we got home I puttered around the house and tried to get things straightened up a little. I am starting to feel a little hoarder-y with all my piles of junk and am trying to clear them out. I won’t even tell you what I put in the recycling bin. Let’s just say it was a wedding gift from my grandmother that had never even been out of the box. I’m probably going to hell, but we already knew that. Good thing I don’t believe in hell.

And then it was almost Monday. . .

Elsa always seems to have a cough at night, but it usually goes away if I rub Vicks on her feet. Last night it did not go away, no matter how much Vicks I rubbed on her. No one got a good night’s sleep, and then we had to get up early to take Erik to school. Normally I send him off to school via bus–easy peasy. I wave him off while wearing my jammies and Elsa usually sleeps through the whole thing. Today, though, I had to go to the school and hand out a cheesy plastic trophy to the class with the most PTA participation. My poor sleeping beauty did not want to get up and I ended up taking her in her jammies with uncombed hair, which bothers me. I hate being seen as the fat, lazy lady who can’t even dress her kid.

Later this morning, our unseasonably warm weather turned into a tornado watch and buckets of rain, leading me to sit in a cold gymnastics’s waiting room with drenched clothing for an hour. Not comfortable. Let’s just say it was definitely a Monday.

I was not thrilled with the rain, but I’ll be happy if fall is finally here. Elsa is outgrowing her summer clothes. Her little tush hangs out of most of her shorts and I feel like some kind of perv for letting it happen. It’s so funny how different boys and girls are in body shape. You’d think there wouldn’t be that much difference in preschoolers, but Elsa is definitely a lot more womanly/curvy than Erik ever was.

And now the kicker for the day, as if lack of sleep and a good rain drenching weren’t enough–

Erik got an “OOPS!” note home from school. It says he was being disrespectful and disobeyed the direct orders of two teachers. I can’t say I’m surprised.

So the story:

He’s been reading a series of books called Beast Quest, which are not available in the school library. I’ve been special ordering them from the county library. They aren’t that great, but they aren’t terrible either. They’re your basic fantasy quest with fantastic beasts that must be killed. Evil wizard/young boy/heroic wolf. That sort of thing.

Erik doesn’t want to check any books out of the school library because he knows he won’t read them. He says he will lose them and get in trouble when he can’t find them and that it is stupid to check out books he knows he won’t read. I’ve talked to him about this and asked him to check out books that he could read to Elsa since they enjoy reading together. He says the librarian won’t let him check out picture books because they are below his reading level. I do not know if that is true or not.

I told him to ask the librarian for help in finding some non-fiction books focused on math, science or animals. Apparently he forgot this strategy.

Instead, the librarian tried to show him all sorts of books that were similar to Beast Quest, but we’ve already sampled all the series that she presented to him. He is a stubborn kid and refused to check them out.

On the one hand, of course I am not pleased that he is being disrespectful. I know how he gets–he probably completely shut down and was being rude about the whole thing.

On the other hand, I am pleased that he is not afraid to stand up for himself. I don’t know that he was being rude. He could have just been stating the facts as he sees them and they decided it was disrespectful since he wasn’t bowing down to them. I can’t really decide on the appropriate punishment without seeing the surveillance video (not that surveillance video actually exists). The child can be incredibly frustrating since he is so logical and refuses to do anything that doesn’t make sense to him. It makes no sense to check out a book when you have no plan to read it. Really, it doesn’t. And it makes no sense to be forbidden from checking out a book that you would like to read to your little sister just because it is below your reading level. He has my full sympathy on both counts.

There is no way for the teacher or librarian to know that he lives in a book rich house, with frequent trips to the public library and a stack of unreads that will take a month to get through.

Tomorrow he is supposed to go to the library first thing and check out a book. I’ll send in a note letting them know he has enough fiction books to keep him happy for the next month and asking them to either let him check out a picture book or direct him to the non-fiction. We’ve talked through strategies and he’s supposed to ask the librarian to show him the non-fiction. If he can’t find something he likes, he is supposed to just pick something and keep it in his backpack. He is not thrilled with this compromise. I am not thrilled with this compromise. It feels like lying, but isn’t that what we have to do so often in life? Go with the flow to keep ourselves out of trouble? It’s a good skill to learn for real life, but I hate teaching my child that sometimes it’s better to just sit down, shut up and do what your told instead of fighting the good fight. I suppose we all need to learn to pick our battles. The line between asshole and doormat is not exactly fine, but at age almost-8 it can be hard to explain.

I’m not happy to get the OOPS note, but I am proud of him for being able to present such a logical argument. He came up with the “I’ll just lose it or damage it and then be in even bigger trouble” argument all on his own. I think it’s a pretty solid argument against checking out books you don’t want. Except I know the school believes that if you don’t check out a school library book you aren’t reading. Which is probably true for many children, but is not true for Erik.

My kids have been driving me crazy and my head has felt woozy. Finally figured out why! Just another month gone by with dear Aunt Flo visiting. Except I really have an Aunt Flo and she’s never visited me, so it always feels funny to call my period Aunt Flo. She’s really my great-aunt, but whatever. I grew up calling her Aunt Flo.

I had a margarita tonight. This is going to be fun. I can barely see the screen, but I think that has more to do with my eyesight going bad than the margarita.

I think my website that I’ve had for over a decade finally went kaput on me. Fantasy Freaks Forum is refusing to work for me. I haven’t changed anything, but every link just goes back to the home page. It’s been so long since I’ve done any webstuff that I don’t have a clue how to even start tracking down the problem. It sees such very little use that I’m wondering if I should just bag it. It would be the end of an era. I’d hate to let it go, but is it worth the hassle of keeping?

We have a new plan for Erik’s birthday party and he’s not really that happy about it. He was going to have a pontoon boat party with a guided tour by a naturalist but the engine blew up on the boat and apparently ti’s really hard to get a new pontoon boat engine. They’ve known about this for months but thought it would be fixed well before the party. I was able to convince Erik to go with another option through the nature center, so now he’ll be having a campfire party with s’mores, songs and campfire games. It will all be led by a naturalist so I don’t have to do much except pray it doesn’t rain.

Oh. . . and create new invitations that hopefully people who don’t really know much English will understand. He invited four kids from school and I don’t believe any of them have parents that are native English speakers. I think they probably understood the first invitation just fine but I am afraid the updated invitation will confuse them. I don’t have any phone numbers or e-mails for them so I can’t even call or e-mail to make sure they understand. It makes me nervous. He has a very short invitation list to begin with. He used to be Mr. Social, but is becoming much more discriminating in who he hangs out with. I even asked if he wanted to invite anyone from soccer, but he wasn’t interested. In fact, he told me he doesn’t want to do soccer again (he’s not that great of a player). I told him that’s fine, but the he has to do something active to replace the soccer. He said no, he’s only going to play video games for the rest of his life.

Ha.

Hahahahahahaha.

No.

He will do something active even if I have to fight him tooth and nail. I already allow too much screen time. I am afraid I’m going to have to become a hardass and take away all screen time completely during the weeks, which will be more painful for me than him.

He’s a really good speller, though! He has spelling tests for the first time this year. They have to do 15 words and have a test every two weeks. His test is tomorrow so I made him do a practice test because I didn’t think there was any way he could ever spell the words (dramatic, acrobat, habitat, flashlight. . . ) but he got every single one of them right. He’s in the top reading group even though he fusses about it and says he doesn’t know how to read.

I’ve continued on my plan to take the kids to a park or make them do something active every day after school. Yesterday we went to a park and I kept having little tiny bugs get in my sleeves (short cap sleeves). I knew I got a bite on each tricep and they were itchy. I had no idea I was having some kind of freaky allergic reaction! I have a huge ovvile (ha! that margarita is starting to kick in. I have no idea how to spell the word I am trying to spell and spell check won’t help me) welt on one arm. I measured and it was 8″ x 3″ and itches like crazy. The welt on the other arm is more circular and is 4 inches across. They both have a really bright red area. I don’t understand! They are definetly not mosquito bites. I am wondering if i should go to the doctor. I’m also wondering if they are being aggravated by my laundry detergent. I switched to Kirkland free and clear a few months ago from Method. It was soooooooooo much cheaper. I haven’t had any issues, but that’s the only thing I can think of since both welts seemed to be super bothered by the edge of my sleeve rubbing on them. I’m going to have an interesting look at BodyPump tomorrow when we do triceps. I always wear a tank top to class.

Ok, why am I still up? I can barely see anything! I have to go to bed. I hope Elsa isn’t in my bed. She likes to poke me in my arm pits and it drives me insane, esp with these weird arm welts.

I made a Weight Watchers friendly potato soup tonight. I was scared it would be terrible because my amazing potato soup recipe is so full of fat that it makes me sick (I haven’t made it in years) and this new recipe is pretty low in fat. Surprise, surprise! It was delicious! It was waaaaaay better than the fatty recipe–no one felt sick or guilty afterwards. Even Erik semi-enjoyed it.

He actually ate potatoes for the first time ever last night (not counting french fries). In the past he has claimed to hate all potatoes, so I was shocked when he scarfed them all down and said they were the most delicious things he ever ate (they were just roasted with a little olive oil and ranch dressing powder).

It was my mom’s birthday today so I talked to her for quite awhile on the phone. I haven’t talked to her for more than five minutes in a very long time. I just can’t handle her drama and dysfunction. I used to feel so sorry for her and so guilty that I wasn’t helping her have a better life, but I’ve given up on that. Now she just pisses me off. Why can’t she ever make a good choice? In 64 years of living I don’t know if she’s ever made a single good choice. Her excuse is always the same–“I didn’t know people wouldn’t do what they say they will do!” Really? Seriously? Of course people don’t do what they say they are going to do. People suck. Sadly, there are very, very few responsible people in the world.

She sold her house a few months ago with the idea that she was going to move into my grandma’s old house. Problem? That house had tenants–her “friends” (though I use that term loosely since it was really just my dad’s old drinking buddy). They’ve been living in my grandma’s house for four years. My mom had never did a single inspection in that time and they basically destroyed the house by living in filth.

So guess what? Since they were her “friends” she didn’t give them written notice, just verbal notice. If you have been reading long, you may remember that my mom obsessively watches all those awful judge shows. What on earth was she thinking?

Of course they did not move out. My mom lived like a homeless person for about three months. She holed up in my dad’s alcoholic best friend’s shop building which had a cot and a mini-fridge. Sounds like luxury! I hated to think of my mom living like that, but if she’d just used a single modicum of good sense it never would have happened.

She’s now in my grandma’s house and doing repair work. She also bought two puppies. She bought small dogs so they can travel on the plane with her when she comes to see us. Ummmmm. No. Just no. We don’t have room for dogs, even small dogs. And I know exactly how she goes about picking up dog shit when she takes her dogs on walks. She doesn’t. We’ll end up with all the neighbors hating us and a huge dog poop fine!

****Trigger Warning for neglect/abuse*******
As for my sister, I don’t even want to think about her poor children. A few weeks ago Erik was talking about his cousins and said “Mom, I’m so glad you’re my mom and not Aunt Lexie.” I started crying (we were in the car so he couldn’t see me and it wasn’t loud sobs or anything like that). No child deserves the life those poor kids have been given. I don’t understand how they haven’t been taken away yet. Oregon is very much a mother’s rights state from what I understand, so unless someone presents hard evidence of complete abuse they won’t do anything. Missing school? Who cares! Lice for months? Who cares! Sleeping on the floor because the feral cats in the house kept pooping under the bed so she got rid of the beds? She’s their mom, of course it’s ok! Mother knows best!

The oldest boy is living with his dad in a trailer park and the youngest boy generally stays with my mom. The daughter is usually with my sister and I imagine she is being sexually abused. I think both she and the oldest boy have probably been molested. I have no proof. I haven’t even seen them in 2 years. Just a gut feeling.

I’ve always said I wanted to get the kids and take care of them, but at this point my sister is still kicking, the dad is still in the picture and they kids are getting older. How could I possibly bring a sexually abused tween into my family? I have my own children to consider. I don’t think it will ever come to that point, but I sure do wish I could have got them all when they were babies and raised them in a normal, loving family. It is so hard to think about them and what they are going through. I am just glad I don’t know the specifics because every time I hear the specifics it makes me come unhinged and cry and plot and plan, but there is not a thing I can do other than call CPS and have CPS tell me that unless I present hard evidence there is nothing they can do other than keep an eye on things.

My niece has had lice for months. Isn’t that a sign of neglect? It’s hard to get rid of lice when you live in a hovel.

I don’t know how my sister can live with herself.

Supposedly my mom is done giving my sister money and now my sister is panicked because her lights and gas are being shut off. I’ll believe it when I see it. How many times have we heard this song and dance? I no longer have any sympathy for my mom’s financial situation. She has chosen to blow her money on someone who will never change. Someone completely incapable of change. I understand it is hard to watch your child and grandchild suffer, but better a little suffering up front than creating a monster.

If only family members could have a mentally ill adult committed against their wishes. My sister has so many mental issues that she needs to finish out her life in an asylum. She could paint and put together puzzles. I don’t know. She’s got one foot in the grave, but death by drugs and alcohol can be a low, slow process.

*****End Trigger Stuff*******

Ok, enough of the doom and gloom.

I made a mistake.

I stopped shopping at Zulily months ago b/c I was having more misses than hits. And the misses were really, really bad.

Somehow I forgot all of that and ordered a few purple things for Elsa.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

I got two of the items today and they are horrid. First up is a brown fleece coat that looked adorable on the site, but in reality makes Elsa look like she stole Ron Weasley’s dress robes.
It’s not musty and moldy, but I started laughing the second she put it on because all I could think of was Ron Weasly going to the ball. On closer examination, it is actually more of a Snape cut. I’ll have to take a picture tomorrow if she’ll let me and you can be the judge.

The other thing is a fall shirt/jean combo. Only the shirt is some horrific see through, scratchy material and the pants seem to be made out of some kind of fake silk.

No more Zulily for me. They make things look so cute on the site, but so many of the items I’ve received have been completely sub-part. I wouldn’t pay 5 cents for the shirt/pants combo thing. Ugh.

I was thinking today that I never really feel the need to write here anymore and tried to figure out why. I’ve got it! Aside from being busy, I have two really true and authentic friends that I love. We hang out a lot and decompress with each other. We all work well together and have created some pretty tight bonds. The funny thing is that between the three of us we have six children–which means three perfect pairs age wise! One of them is having a baby any day now, which makes me want another baby so we can have another set of twinkle friends. Not going to happen, but I will be really sad when Elsa is in Kindy and I don’t have an excuse to hang around being a SAHM anymore. I really love my life right now, even if the kids do step on my last nerve by the end of every day. If I hear “I’m hungry, I’m hungry, I’m hungry!” one more time, I may stuff a blackberry bar some place unspeakable. And the crying. Ugh. Elsa cries over every little thing and I can’t take it. I really need to go and read a book or something and re-set my expectations. I have no patience for little games to make her happy. JUST STOP CRYING, CHILD!

So yes. Friends! I haz them! I like them! What a difference it makes to my happiness. I have some true, authentic online friends and would love to spend real life time with them, but nothing beats a local friend for happiness levels.

Oh! And I had an amazing compliment yesterday. One of the teachers came up to me and asked if I was a professional public speaker because of my speech at the Back to School Nights. I have to say, that felt pretty damn awesome. I am so glad I am no longer the scared, shy wallflower I used to be.

It’s already mid-September! My PTA job has been a complete time suck for the past few weeks, but the current push (membership) is winding down so I might have some time to breathe for a couple of months. People can join the PTA at any time throughout the year, but if you don’t get them signed up by the end of September there is not much chance of getting them signed up at all so I should be able to rest soon.

This week was nerve wracking because I had to give two speeches. We have so many students that our back to school nights are split into three parts. The kindy speech was back in August. The G1-2 speech was Monday and then the G3-5 speech was last night. The 3-5 speech was the hardest because they are the parents who are not going to be convinced to be new PTA members. They either join the PTA or they don’t–my speech is not going to inspire them to do anything. The former board was also in that audience, which was nerve wracking. They are fully expecting us to fall on our faces and we are not falling on our faces. They seem to want us to fail and keep throwing up obstacles at every turn. It’s a weird dynamic and I hate it. My plan is to win the lottery, move into a super mansion that has room for a very small private school and hire some tutors for the kids and their smartest friends (with non-annoying parents).

Erik is doing fine now. He is happy and healthy and having a good time at school. He is doing his homework without too much teeth pulling and generally being a pleasant fellow. I think his teacher finally has a grasp on what to do with him. For Back to School night the class was supposed to color a big cut out of themselves to tape to their chair, and then bring in t-shirts to hang over the chairs, so it would look like the child was sitting in the chair. . . with a little imagination. The teacher was telling me that Erik did not think this was a good project and told her very clearly that it was not ever going to work, the parents would never be fooled by cardboard kids and besides the parents would know that the children could not get to school by themselves and why would they come to school at night? I’m glad she was amused and not upset. She said he kept asking “Are you sure this is supposed to be fun? I don’t see how this is fun. This is not going to fool anyone. The parents are really going to think this is fun?”

That’s my boy! Mr. Logical.

Elsa is having a much tougher time of it. She’s got some kind of cough going on that doesn’t sound too great. It’s not enough to stop her from going to school or out to play, but it keeps her up at night and sounds bad when she’s crying and upset.

And she’s always crying and upset.

My happy little girl has turned into a super-sad cranky pants this week. Her best little friend, Connor, has preschool opposite of our schedule so she’s not seeing him very often. We are making it a point to get them together for park playdates in the late afternoons, but it’s just not the same as spending all day together. We used to go over to their house several afternoons a week while his little brother napped.

She doesn’t like school and does the whole kicking, screaming, tantrum thing on the way to the car. I almost wish I would have found a way to make morning preschool work because she spends all morning worrying about her afternoon preschool. Bah. At least she doesn’t tantrum at the school. She hides behind me and clings, but does end up going in without tears.

It is so interesting to see how Erik and Elsa continue to be polar opposites in every way. Erik was such a cranky pants at home and loved preschool. He wanted the social interaction and hated being alone with just me (unless I was 100% engaged with him 100% of the time–and no toys allowed!). Elsa, on the other hand, is perfectly content to play with all her little toys all by herself. She plays well with certain kids and enjoys them, but overall she sees no reason to seek out their company (Connor excepted, of course). Today she told me that she doesn’t like to play with kids and doesn’t like to learn anything so she doesn’t need to go to school.

I have a hard time trying to “teach” her anything like letters and numbers. She completely refuses to listen or engage with me. A few months ago I bought a thing called a Quiz Pen book and thought it would be way too hard for her since I didn’t think she knew her letters or numbers. I was shocked when she got almost every answer in the book right. I don’t know where she is learning things from, but she is certainly learning! That’s the one thing they both have in common–they are both very bright. But where Erik was competitive and wanted to prove that he knew it all, she keeps it under her hat. I just hope she adjusts to this new schedule soon. I miss my happy, easygoing girl. The constant crying is really wearing on my nerves.

I guess that’s all I’ve got for now. I’m hopeful that I can go back to writing here more often, but I need topics!