The Queen's Rambles

Is it just me, or is Sarah Jessica Parker one of the most unattractive women you’ve ever seen? I know skinny is supposed to be attractive, but skeletal? Ewwww. I’d rather be my fat self than look like her, even if she is supposed to be some kind of fashion icon.

We had a long, long day today. It started with a trip to the OB. It was just a quick check-up so I took Erik with me. He did ok, but it was still stressful. There was a police officer with his wife and it blew Erik’s wee little mind. He kept wanting to know why the police was there and didn’t believe any of my explanations. The guy was very nice and talked to Erik quite a bit, so that was fun for him. In the end Erik concluded that the police was there to “keep an eye on that lady.”

He was also very confused about why I had to pee in a cup and was not at all impressed when they drew some blood. Poor kid.

I talked to the doctor about the prenatals and she gave me a bunch of samples of prescription brands. She said some people just can’t tolerate them. I’m not surprised that I’m one of them. I have very little tolerance for drugs and alcohol in general. One time in my younger days I was working in the senior center kitchen with a bunch of freaks. The boss was passing out niacin tablets to everyone and told me it would give me more energy. Turns out there is something called a niacin flush which is supposed to get pot out of your system. Anyway, I took this tablet because I thought it was a vitamin (it is, just a very powerful one) and fainted dead away while chopping cabbage with a giant knife. Safe!

Erik was in rare form with the doctor. He did a little dance for her, then at the end of the appointment told her he had something important to tell her. His news? The baby in my tummy is making me sick a lot and he wanted the doctor to fix that. Awwww. He does have his moments.

In the lab they had a series of magnets with silhouettes of women with little babies in their tummies. The women were just one color–bright pink, green, purple, etc–but the babies were all different types of more realistic babies. There was a little pale, bald baby, a red haired baby, an African American baby, an Asian baby, and so forth. There were probably eight altogether. Erik wanted to know what the baby was going to look like and first guessed it would look like the pale, bald baby. I told him he was probably right, because that’s what he looked like. After giving it a lot of thought, he decided he wanted the baby to look like the African American baby. He got quite a laugh out of everyone in the lab over that. He was not happy when I told him that it wasn’t possible for us to have a baby that looked like that. At least he is starting to accept that we are having a baby. Last week he decided we should have a puppy instead.

Then it was off to preschool for the Halloween parade and party. The party was pretty lame. The kids walked around the little square in front of the school four times, then they stood in class groups so the parents could take pictures. Guess how many good pictures I got? The big goose egg! Eleven kids in class, and they are all supposed to look at the camera at the same time? Ha!

The kids had regular class, while the parents went home. We came back an hour later and watched the kids sit at a table with a big plate full of Halloween treats. When they were done eating they were supposed to go home. Lamest party EVER. Erik kept asking when they were going to play games, but no one else seemed to notice the intense lameness of the party.

I feel so much better today! I guess those prenatal vitamins are just not meant for a delicate flower like myself. I am a whole new person!

For the curious, I’ve only taken over the counter prenatals. With Erik I used GNC. With this baby I’ve used both Safeway and Target brands. I have an OB appointment tomorrow so I’ll discuss the situation and see what solutions we come up with. Maybe something with a whole lot less iron.

We had a crazy day over here. We had a Halloween party out at the park but hardly anyone came because it was sort of drizzling for five minutes. It ended up being fun and the weather was fine. Of course, I don’t mind it being a little chilly. People here don’t seem to like the cold.

Then it was home for the project of the year. Ugh.

We have a preschool Halloween party tomorrow and are supposed to take “spooky” stuff. I get Family Fun magazine since WonderTime folded (booo! I miss WonderTime) and they had a little section of Halloween fun stuff. I’m taking forked eyeballs. I dipped donut holes in vanilla candy coating, stuck a chocolate chip in the middle, then used red decorator frosting to make them look bloodshot. They turned out pretty cool, but it took forever. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to transport them. I didn’t think that far ahead, I guess.

I don’t know if I mentioned this, but Erik has been wetting his pants again. Argh! I thought I had him fixed because I told him if he kept peeing in his pants he’d have to start wearing diapers again. That worked for about a week, but today after our play date at the park I noticed his pants were wet. Grrrrr!

We had a long talk about the diapers and he had lots of reasons why I couldn’t buy him diapers. When we got home, I had to run to Target so I told Mike I was going to buy diapers for Erik.

I think just saying it to Mike might have cured the problem. He promises he won’t do it again, so we shall see I guess. I really don’t want to have to buy a whole pack of diapers just to make a point.

I’m not sure humiliating my kid is the best way to fix the problem, but then I’m not sure it would really humiliate him. I wouldn’t make him go to school with a diaper on. It would just piss him off, I think. I just hope he straightens up and we don’t even need to go there. The whole thing comes down to laziness. He’d rather play than stop for three seconds to pee. He doesn’t wet the bed, so surely he should be able to not wet his pants.

I’m very happy to report that I’m feeling a million times better today. I was pretty worried yesterday because I knew I couldn’t function with vertigo for long, but when you have it what choice do you have?

I also tried what Kisha suggested and skipped my prenatal vitamin. Guess what? No puking. Food still doesn’t appeal to me, but it was really nice to skip the vomit session.

Remember back in April when I wasn’t pregnant but thought I was? I was really confused because I was throwing up a lot. Guess what? I started taking prenatals as soon as the test turned up positive. Maybe that explains that little piece of the puzzle.

I took it easy today and didn’t do anything productive even though I promised myself that I was going to do at least three different fairly important things while Erik was at preschool. I didn’t even make it to the gym this morning because Erik got up so late. Bah! Plus, I was trying to take it easy so I didn’t really push things.

This afternoon I was all set to go get Erik an H1N1 vaccine at the local high school. I wish they would offer the vaccinations through the ped offices, but in our county they are offered exclusively through these clinics.

I knew it would be crazy busy so I arrived 45 minutes early thinking I would get a jump on things.

Holy hell, people! You’d think the swine flu was the equivalent of small pox, stuffed with AIDS with a nice, creamy polio center!

There were police everywhere, roads were closed down, the line was out the door, out of the high school property, down the sidewalk and winding all the way around the corner. I had just read in the paper that they only had 1000 vaccinations available. As I drove around trying to find a parking place I decided we were probably too late. I am not good at estimating numbers, so I could have been way off, but it was just insane.

As I was driving, I saw women with baby buggies RUNNING to try to find a place in line. Little kids were jerked around by their arms as their moms and dads tried to beat out the ladies with the buggies. I’ve never seen anything like it.

I am pretty sure Erik and I both had the swine flu this spring so I am not too worried. I drove away and will not be trying again next week. Yikes!

What a fun day we’ve had today. NOT!

I woke up this morning around 6 am and stumbled into the bathroom. I noticed that I couldn’t stand up because the world was spinning, but it was 6 am so I didn’t think too much about it.

When I finally woke up at 9, courtesy of a boy tickling my feet, I realized all was not right with the world. I was so dizzy I was scared to walk down the stairs.

I finally made it, though it took a while and I was clinging to the railing with all my strength.

Just a hint: if you have vertigo, eat something ASAP. Puking up barely digested food is way, way, way better than puking up a prenatal vitamin from the night before.

Was that TMI?

The day continued along those lines. I was sad to miss our Halloween party, but it was rainy and gross so the party was cancelled anyway.

Poor Erik was trying so hard to be good and not bother me, but he loves to cuddle and wiggle and generally have body contact that makes me vomit. I can’t complain about him too much, though. He really did a fabulous job of entertaining himself and leaving me alone. He was also good for fetching water and blankets and he understood that he needed to stay away from me even if he was a bit confused. Taking care of a four year old while sick is about ten million times better than taking care of a baby or toddler while sick.

The poor boy kept asking me if I was sick because he was so crazy. Awwwww. My sweet, sweet boy. I hope he isn’t scarred for life. He kept asking why I was sick and I explained that when mommies have babies in their tummies they get sick a lot. So now he is mad at the baby. Smooth move, Mama Carrie.

I talked to the nurse line at my OB and they thought the problem was probably dehydration, which is common in pregnancy due to the increase of blood volume. I’ve been doing a lot of water drinking today and am feeling a whole lot better tonight. Also, Mike came home early and has been entertaining Erik for several hours so I haven’t had to do a lot of moving. Being still seems to be the best thing for me.

I’m so glad Erik is back to being a mostly good boy. He and I went to a birthday party on Saturday and he had a complete freakin’ meltdown because he didn’t get to blow out the candle. This was a party of one of the neighbors, so I guess it was a typical Indian party with a TON of guests. There had to be at least 25 kids there and almost all of them were with both a mom and a dad. I say I guess it is a typical Indian event because on movies and TV shows it seems like they have big parties, plus the last neighbor party we went to was like that. They also gave “return gifts” to all the children. Nice stuff, too, not a bag of plastic crap. No wonder the neighbor boy was disappointed at Erik’s party when the only goodies were stuff out of the pinata.

Anyway, Erik was crying and screaming and generally being a horror. I was trying to calm him down or escape from the room, but it was so packed there was no way out. Earlier in the night he had blown right in a little girl’s face, a behavior that is completely unacceptable and I think *knock on wood* I have extinguished, so by this point I was ready to skip the cake and take him home. But like I said, no escape! Another mom told the hostess to bring the candle and lighter and they let him blow out the candle. I thought that was really nice of them. I was conflicted since it was rewarding such horrible behavior, but they just wanted him to quit crying.

He ate his cake, then had another complete meltdown because a girl was looking at him. At that point I decided we were done and forced my way out of the room, with a screaming child attached to my front. Another neighbor ran up and asked if she and her two children could have a ride home even though she didn’t have car seats for them because she didn’t have a way home.

Talk about being put between a rock and a hard place. Let kids ride in my car with no car seat or look like a total bitch? I had a booster in the car, so Erik and the youngest boy each had a seat and we only had one totally illegal child in the car. Until the other kid escaped the seat belt and was dancing all around in my back seat while the mother just kept repeating “oh my god!” and laughing.

I was a little grouchy by the time I finally got home.

Scratch that.

I was ready to rip the balls off Satan himself by the time I got home.

But things are improving! Erik is suddenly listening a lot better and I am doing 1-2-3 Magic and things are just a lot happier around here.

We are starting to have an issue with lying, but at this point I know it is perfectly normal and not worth turning into some mega-battle. We talk about truth and fibs, but I’m not freaking out that he’s a liar.

Here’s an exchange from yesterday that amused me:

Erik walks in with candy pieces stuck all over his mouth
Me: Did you just eat candy?
Erik: No.
Me: But you have candy all over your face.
Erik runs to mirror and looks: No mommy, that’s not candy. That’s. . . . uh. . . pizza.
Me: Pizza? Where did you get pizza?
Erik, without skipping a beat: Mexico!

Don’t worry, we did have a talk about fibbing, though it totally flew over his head. He is pretty transparent in his desire to lie and trick me. This morning he kept telling me to just stay upstairs and he would get his own breakfast. Ha! I knew he was going to try to find his candy stash from a Halloween party on Sunday. A few minutes later he came in, very frustrated, wanting to know where I hid the candy.

Guess it is time to try to get Erik to bed. Here’s hoping tomorrow is a less spinny day.

I’m calling animal control tomorrow morning. We weren’t attacked by a dog, but we were growled at and lunged at by a pit bull and I think I need to at least make the attempt to have something done. I don’t know if they take that kind of thing seriously here. I know if it was just a regular ol’ dog like a German Shepard or Black Lab they probably wouldn’t, but pit bull? Maybe it is worth the call.

Our neighbor has a pit bull. A big, non-neutered male that scares the bejeezus out of me. Usually the man is with it, but sometimes he leaves it outside tied to a tree. Sometimes he checks the mail with the dog off-leash. If I’m out and see the dog out without a leash I will stay in my car or hot foot it to the house until it goes away. Maybe I’m just a big wimp, but when it comes to dogs that can clamp on to your neck and not let go until they damn well choose, I’m not taking any chances.

Anyway, today some teenage girl that I’ve never seen before was out walking the beast. Erik and I had to walk right by her and the dog to get to our house. I tried to put on a brave face but I’m sure the dog smelled the fear. As I walked by it growled at me. It was fine with Erik, but then it growled at the two hooligan kids that were following us, hoping I’d fart out candy.

We made it home safely, but we weren’t really on a mission to go home. We were just on a mission to pee.

When we went back to the playground, the girl and the dog were there. She asked if the kids were going to play there and I told her they were, so she left but didn’t go far.

Suddenly she was back with the dog. Another mom had come out at this point and the dog started barking, growling and totally lunging at this lady. I was sure we were going to have to call 911 and hope the gang of drug dealing hooligans across the street from the park had a gun to shoot the damned dog in the head. I don’t know how the girl got control of the hell hound because she certainly didn’t look like she had the strength for it, but luckily she managed.

Erik and the other mom’s kid were on top of the double slide about ready to go down, so I yelled at them to stay at the top of the slide. Not that it would have done much good, but thankfully they complied even though they were confused. With the way things are made for safety these days the dog would have had no problem jumping up there if it decided it wanted a tender little morsel.

It took us awhile to decompress after the incident. It is scary enough to be around an aggressive dog, but it’s terrifying when it feels like a pit bull is about to attack. I have heard so many pit bull apologists whine about how the owners are at fault, not the dogs. It is all in the training of the dog. Blah blah blah. All I know is, I don’t like that dog in our neighborhood. I want it gone. If it decides to really attack there is nothing we are going to be able to do except look on in horror as it rips out the throat of an innocent victim.

And to think, before all this happened I was sitting on the bench hoping the drug dealing guys that seemed to be giving each other dirty looks didn’t have guns and weren’t going to start a shoot out. Never thought I’d be hoping they guns so they could save us from a dog! I don’t really know where they would store a gun, though. They wear their pants down around there knees. Do you think a holster fits in their boxers?

Did you know that a lot of local business will give a tour of their place to little kids? Our MOMS Club is always doing tours of local places like Coldstone, Trader Joes, Petco and so forth. Today was California Pizza Kitchen.

Since Erik has preschool on Friday afternoons I almost didn’t go, but then figured out they were serving lunch (free pizza for the kids!), so we headed over and I’m really glad we did. I was so proud of Erik. They told the kids to put their hands in their pockets and not touch anything and Erik managed to keep his hands in his pocket the whole time. Shocker! He is really maturing these days.

After looking all through the kitchen, the kids got to make their own little pizzas. It was probably the best tour we’ve been on with the group, other than the pet store.

I’m glad we got to do something fun together this morning, because this afternoon we were at each other’s throats. Or I was at his throat while he just wanted to have fun. He doesn’t understand why I don’t find it great fun to be abused and screeched at all day. Somehow all his games involve him fake hitting me, but he doesn’t know what fake hitting is and can’t pull his punches. He gets in trouble ALL THE FREAKING TIME for these games, yet he still persists.

It is just wearing. I’m grouchy, sick, and tired of repeating myself ten thousand times. He can be so sweet, but the minute I ask him to do something he decides not to do it. Every little thing turns into a fight. He just stands there and makes horrible noises instead of getting a move on. I may rip out his voice box.

It all came to a head this evening when I threw him in bed without a story and stormed out of the room. He was screaming and crying and then I was feeling like the worst mother ever, so I went back in there and hugged him and told him we would try to be nicer to each other tomorrow.

He has a standard answer for when I flip out on him. “Mommy, I just have to be crazy sometimes. You shouldn’t get mad. You have to be nice to me.”

Out of the mouth of babes, right?

I need to read 1-2-3 Magic again. That should motivate me to use the method, right? It does work and works well, but I just forget to use it in the heat of the moment.

At least I got to have an hour of peace this afternoon. I went over to my friend’s house while Erik was in school and got to hold the baby for an hour. Awwww! She was so teeny tiny and sweet. She slept the whole time I was there, as newborns are wont to do. I got to hear all about the crazy birth. My friend was in the birthing tub, waiting for the midwives to arrive when she felt like she had to push. The midwives were on the phone and told her not to push and to get out of the tub. She said she got up on her knees and couldn’t help but push. The baby just plopped out and my friend had to catch her by herself because her husband had no idea what was going on. From the sounds of it, it was a good thing she was planning a home birth because I don’t think she would have made it to the hospital if she had been planning a hospital birth. She never really thought she was in serious labor.

Hard to believe I’ll be holding my own little baby in a few months. Yikes! Maybe I better concentrate on being a better Mommy to the child who is already here, huh? I really need to stop the yelling.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway!

Don’t you love hearing about pee problems?

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

Thus began our day of incarceration.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bright side of life, eh?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ah, my pride and joy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Didn’t you want to hear about that?

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

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

What the hell?

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

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

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