The Queen's Rambles

What a weekend. It finally stopped raining today, but I spent most of the morning hunched over the sink, puking my guts out. I am 14 weeks and only puked once yesterday so was hoping the morning sickness part of pregnancy was over. Ha! Hahahahahaha! Not so! I even skipped Latin Cardio this morning because I couldn’t walk into the other room without puking. How was I supposed to cha-cha-cha?

It started raining Wednesday afternoon and finally let up this morning, so we’ve had a loooooong indoor weekend. I took Erik to Bounce U, one of those big bouncy entertainment places, for a couple of hours on Friday but not even that was enough to get the wiggles out of the boy. There wasn’t any school on Friday, so by the time Mike got home that evening I was done. Totally and completely done.

I am probably a bad mother and wife, but I spent most of the weekend with my earplugs in and Glee and Cougar Town playing on YouTube. I’m really enjoying Cougar Town. Who knew they could still make a sitcom that would make me laugh? Glee is also entertaining.

On Saturday Erik insisted on going to the “gym restaurant,” which is really the Indian restaurant. There was no way in hell I was going there so Mike and Erik got to go have a bonding experience. Afterwards, we took Erik to the Halloween store and tried to make him pick out a costume.

He was pretty freaked out by the zombie crawling across the floor, but then he got totally into the decorations and refused to look at the kids’ costumes because he was too busy looking at zombie babies and skeletal clowns. He kept gleefully announcing that he was scared.

But did we get a costume?

No.

At one point he wanted to be a clown, but then he saw a princess costume and was in love. After much dithering I decided that if my little boy wants to be a princess then he can damn well be a princess. After all, the most popular jocks are always determined to cross dress for Halloween and other costume days, right? Mike was not so sure, but it was a moot point. He soon gave up on the idea. He says he is not going trick or treating and that he doesn’t like candy because it is too sweet. Ha! Hahahahaha!

I made an executive decision. He’s going to be Swiper again and he’s damn well going to like it. I just need to repair the whiskers and ears on the hat since the little shit likes to peel things apart. I also need to get a new brown sweat suit, sew on the round felt belly and add snaps for the tail and it will be done. Good thing I have a friend with a snap press. I like those crazy cloth diaper ladies*.

This afternoon my poor friend and her family came by. Before we even got in the house she announced that she and I were going out for coffee while the boys stayed home. She is due with her second child on Tuesday and is convinced the girl child will never be born. She had her son at 36 weeks so she’s pretty discouraged that she’s not dilated at all. Her midwife told her she will never go into labor if she doesn’t relax, which I think was a kind of crappy thing for the midwife to tell an overly tense pregnant woman. I’ve never heard of any woman being pregnant forever just because she couldn’t relax.

She’s been planning a midwife attended home birth, but now believes she is going to have to have a hospital induction or c-section to get the baby out. I’m crossing my fingers that she goes into labor soon. She is feeling pretty crappy, as do most women who are 40 weeks pregnant. It’s also frustrating because her mom flew out to make sure she didn’t miss the birth, but she’s going home on Tuesday so will most likely miss it anyway. She missed the first birth because he was so early.

I’m glad we were able to get out for a couple of hours because I think we both needed it. We even got to have a confrontation in Target!

I had a Target Starbucks coupon for buy one get one free Grande Latte. I didn’t realize that meant you couldn’t get a flavored latte. Bah! My friend said she would take a plain latte adn I could get a flavored one. Makes sense, right? They’d actually be making more money since the flavored latte is more than a plain one.

But no.

So I asked my friend if we should stay or go to the nicer Starbucks across the street. Of course, we both wanted to go to the nicer Starbucks. The one in Target is pretty crappy. It was crowded, bright red and full of a bunch of little kids. I took my coupon back and the barista was so rude about it! As we were leaving she really snottily goes “well, excuuuuuuussssse me!”. I guess you had to be there. It wasn’t really a confrontation, but it was pretty ridiculous for her to be so rude. We only went to that Starbucks because we had the coupon.

At least I did one good mommy deed at Target. Erik has been asking about the Backyardigans robot episode so I made an effort to find the DVD. He is very happy with it.

OMG!!! I just hit refresh instead of spellcheck! Thank goodness for restore draft, eh? I about had a heart attack!
*For new readers, those crazy cloth diaper ladies are two of my very best friends. I’m teasing them, so no need to get offended.

We had a preschool field trip at a pumpkin patch/farm today. I was sure we would be totally late, but we were the third car to arrive. Erik and some of his buddies spent a good half hour flying off the haystack, nearly killing each other. You should see the bruises on his legs. Basically, the lower half of his legs are black with a few specks of pale Viking flesh.

It was really funny to watch how the boys and girls approached the hay stack. The boys generally flew off with big smiles on their faces. The girls generally slid down or just stood on the stack and did nothing. There was one girl who joined the boys, but overall I was getting a good giggle out of gender stereotypes being played out right before my eyes.

I guess it wasn’t really giggle worthy, but after getting a smack down a few months ago from the bitch quilting mod about my pink baby quilt (which the mother claims to love, btw) I enjoy seeing the stereotypes play out. Silly, I know.

I am beginning to question whether this is the right school, or at least the right teacher for Erik. When his teacher finally arrived she came around and gave the parents all a note but I didn’t hear her greet a single child. Erik was trying to talk to her, but she totally ignored him. I was shocked and pretty pissed.

A couple of the teachers interacted with the kids during the trip, but most of them stood huddled away from the parents and kids and didn’t participate in anything. It made me wonder why they bothered to organize a trip. I could go to the pumpkin patch on my own and have the same experience.

She did tell Erik bye when we left, but it was not very enthusiastic. I’m not sure if she was like that with all the kids or just Erik. I’ve gotten the idea that Erik is not her favorite student. That’s ok, I guess. I just don’t want him to have a teacher that hates him. I know he is a handful, but he is not mean and he generally does listen and comply once he knows he’s pushed things to the limit. But yeah, he will push it to the very edge. And he’s wiggly and he talks a lot and he thinks he knows everything. He’s a very typical preschooler, but maybe something about him just rubs her the wrong way. I wouldn’t expect him to be the teacher’s pet. I know him too well for that, but it does worry a mommy’s heart when she thinks the teacher doesn’t like her kid.

I’m not really sure she likes any of the kids, though. She always seems frazzled and tired. Hell, I would be tired too after teaching a class of 8 boys and 3 girls for a few hours. Thus, I am not a preschool teacher. I am sort of wondering if she has something else going on in her life right now that it making it hard for her to be the best teacher she can be. At the moment I am not impressed, though I shouldn’t really make that judgement. I haven’t seen her in action in the classroom, but if today’s behavior at the farm was any indication she is not a fan of children. I found it so bizarre that she didn’t greet the kids.

I don’t want to be stewing and fretting about this the rest of the year. Maybe I should call and see if they need volunteers and try to get into the classroom to observe what’s really going on.

In other news, I got the test results back from the nuchal scan. Everything is normal! They aren’t recommending an amnio or CVS, though I am welcome to have either procedure done if I want. I don’t want. I haven’t even been thinking about the test since I was so sure it would be fine, but it was nice to get the results and hear they are ok. This pregnancy is so different. With Erik I just knew something terrible was going to be happen, but with this one I am totally calm and just assume everything will be ok since I already had one normal baby. I know that isn’t very logical, but it is nice not to be worried 24/7. Now, if I could just get rid of the pukies. I had to run out of Zumba class today because I was overheated and the motion was making me ill. I didn’t throw up, but came awfully close!

And with that, I’m going to go brush my teeth, which will inevitably lead to another fun “session.”

I can’t believe I’ve been a mom for four years! Or maybe I can. I can barely remember the first year, mainly because I’ve blocked it out. I can just remember seeing him for the first time and being knocked senseless by the love I felt for him. I started crying because I knew he was going to grow up and wouldn’t always be that tiny little newborn.

Now, of course, I know that a four year old is so much better than a newborn but you can’t tell a hormone laden postpartum mother anything.

He’s been wanting to be four for so long that I was sure he’d be happy today. That would be too much to ask, wouldn’t it? I announced that it was his real birthday and he was finally four. “When do I turn five? I want to be five!”

Typical.

Tonight I was telling him the story of his birth, sort of. Hard to explain a c-section to a little kid. Anyway, I got to the part where we took him to my mom and told her his name was Erik K3nt P@lsson and he freaked out. “That’s not my name! I’m just Erik! I’m just Erik!”

Then he finished the story by telling me he crawled away because he is not K3nt P@lsson.

Silly boy.

I think he mainly had a good day. We spent a few hours at a busy park, so he was able to make several friends. Too bad it ended abruptly when he threw dirt at one of his new friends. How embarrassing! On the way home, he finally told me he wasn’t throwing dirt. He was just trying to have a snowball fight with his best friend. Ugh. Let’s hope he won’t do that again.

He also went to his exercise class and seemed to have more fun this week. They’ve been working a specific muscle each week but this week I can’t figure it out. They’ve done triceps, biceps, glutes and abs. This week they did something with the legs. Erik couldn’t remember the name of the muscle, so I suggest quads, but he freaked out and said no. I tried to figure it out, but it wasn’t quads, thighs, calves, or hamstrings. Anyone know what you would call the muscles on the front of your thighs? I am at a loss and he kept asking me all night and pointing to the front of his thighs.

In other news, I am happy to report that my maternity coat problem has been solved! My friend is big into babywearing and other crunchy stuff and saw an ad for a used Kindercoat on one of her forums. It is a baby wearing coat, which is not something I’d ever thought about buying, but the price and size was right. I was a little concerned because the seller said she wore a size 16 and the coat was a little snug on her, but all the other research I could find about this size coat suggested it would fit me just fine (I could only wish I was a size 16). I think the woman must have some delusions about her real size because it was pretty loose on me and there’s no way I could fit into a size 16. Oh well. SCORE!

Now I may have to take up baby wearing to make this coat worth it. It’s the only coat I’ve ever owned that requires a video demonstration to figure out. I don’t think I need a demonstration to wear it as a straight maternity coat, but it has all kinds of zips and pockets in the front, back and side for sticking a baby under and letting the baby’s head pop out. It is not exactly stylish or chic. I really wish the other maternity coat would have fit because it was chic. I want to be stylish, but instead of a dressy, red wool coat I’m stuck with a sporty monstrosity. My choice, I know, but it still irks me that I always seem to have to settle instead of getting something fabulous. If I could just bring myself to part with a lot more money I suppose I wouldn’t have to settle as much. Or if I could lose about 100 pounds. I am so sick of being a fat ass. I’m bigger than I’ve ever been and am miserable with it. My metabolism was never great to start with, but it really took a hit this past year.

Speaking of losing weight, you may remember when I mentioned my cousin and her husband were supposed to lose a bunch of weight in 30 days if they wanted to adopt a baby from Korea even after they’d been told by their agency that there was no weight requirement. I finally heard the end results. They are getting a baby! I’m so excited for them. They want a girl since they already have a son, so they won’t be getting the baby until this summer most likely. They’ve been waiting a long time for this and I couldn’t be more thrilled for them. When she was pregnant with her son they discovered that she had a horned uterus so there wasn’t room for the baby to grow. Her son was born very early and in the NICU for a while. I haven’t heard much about it from her, but I read enough infertility blogs to know that days in the NICU are a special kind of hell. But now they are getting a new addition to their family and we are all so happy for them! I was really worried because I don’t know how you lose 20 pounds in 30 days. I guess you just starve yourself if you want it badly enough. Can you imagine the stress of having such high stakes? Lose the weight or no baby for you? I guess it would be very motivating, but I’m a stress eater so it would be hard.

People, I am so sick. So, so, sick. I can’t even count the number of times I tossed my cookies today. I’m 13 weeks so I thought the morning sickness was supposed to be waning, but it is ramping up into high gear. Ugh. UGH. UGH!

At least Erik is starting to accept the idea of a baby. He’s been talking to my belly a lot, and expecting me to answer for the baby in a high pitched voice. Also, he’s decided the baby’s name is Coonie. Not Connie. Coonie. Like a racoon.

We still have many obstacles to get past, but at least he is liking the idea of being a big brother and having conversations with the baby. I’ve tried to explain that I’m going to be the mommy’s baby, but he refuses to accept that part of the deal. I am his mommy and only his mommy. As an eldest child I’m afraid I can relate a little too much to his feelings. In some ways I feel like we are totally betraying him by having another child, but in other ways I realize that it will be good for him on many levels to have someone else he can lean on in times of trouble.

Hopefully.

I talked to my sister today and she has given me permission not to come out right now. So very gracious of her. I really do understand where she is coming from, but from what I can tell this is not a crisis situation. It might be a crisis situation in a few months, but it isn’t right now. If I feel it is developing into a crisis situation I’ll hop on a plane. I am thinking about taking a short trip out in January if the situation holds stable until then.

She was also asking me “What am I supposed to do? Should we hold an intervention? What should we do?”

I tried to give her some common sense answers, but I could tell she was frustrated with me. She loves to try to control other people’s lives because it is much easier than controlling her own life. I told her that there is nothing for her to do. She can’t make him quit drinking. An intervention is just going to piss him off and make him want to drink more. About the only thing she can do is stop buying him beer. She is his main supplier, so that is something she actually has control of. I know he would find another supplier but at least it would feel like she was doing something.

She seems to think that it is her job to fix him and somehow keep him alive or get him to heaven. I feel bad for her. I spent years upon years praying for his salvation. I spent even more years praying for an end to his drinking. I have come to peace with the idea that I can’t hope or pray or talk or bully or browbeat the alcohol out of him or the God into him. It simply doesn’t work like that. I tried explaining that to her, but she is not in a place where she can listen to that.

I did manage to get her to think a tiny bit. I asked her how she felt when people told her what to do and she said “it just makes me want to go out and do the stuff they don’t want me to do.” Yes, dear sister. And that’s exactly how dad is so an intervention is not going to work with him. I think it is pretty basic human nature, actually, but some people are just more stubborn than others.

Despite all the troubles I’ve had with my sister over the years, I can honestly say she is a very caring person and feels things deeply. I am more of a logical, rational person which is probably to my detriment in some cases, but it’s just how I am. It is partially a defense mechanism, partially a learned response and partially my basic nature. It does make it hard to relate to the emotional people in my life.

Soooooo. . .

How ’bout them scooters?

Or rather THE scooter that Erik got for his birthday.

If I have gray hairs the next time you see me, you’ll know why. That damned scooter is going to be the death of me. Or him. Or both of us.

He can go FAST, much faster than on his trike. I have no way to catch him on it and he doesn’t want to listen to me so he is bound to be hit by a car sooner rather than later.

I am hoping to get his scooter behavior under control by being Nazi mom and taking it away if he doesn’t obey immediately. I gave him three warnings tonight and that was it. Seemed fair enough to me. It is unacceptable for him to keep riding when I yell stop. He threw a huge tantrum, but maybe tomorrow night he’ll listen. If not, I can play the part of bad cop until he figures it out.

What am I going to do in 15 years when he gets a motorcycle? I may as well curl up in a ball and die at that point.

This is the face of one happy, goofy, almost four boy. And he’s silly, to boot. Not that any of you ever would have guessed that about him.

Our day almost turned into a disaster on two fronts. In the end it was ok, but by no means perfect.

We woke up to rain. Rain rain and more rain. Lots of rain. I was obsessively checking the weather and it kept saying the rain would be done by noon, but even so I was worried that the park would be soaked and it would be miserable.

Tra la!

Around noon the sun came up and the weather ended up being perfect. The park wasn’t wet at all, and it was not too hot or too cold. It was too windy, so I didn’t even take the fifteen balloons out of their giant garbage bag. They attacked my guests like a giant amoeba and it was just sort of embarrassing. I wanted to send each kid home with a balloon because I know that thrills the kids, but I was scared that if I opened up the package, the balloons would be long gone before I could tie them to something.

Disaster one: weather. Solved.

Disaster two: overcrowded park. Not solved.

I figured that this late in the year I didn’t really need to book a pavilion for a party. Since it was so rainy, I figured we’d get to the park and have the whole place to ourselves.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I got there a half hour before the party and was greeted by the sight of a giant bounce house. Some company was having a picnic and had done the right things by reserving the two main pavilions. Luckily I knew about a third pavilion down in the woods, but it was not handy or fun or conducive to the kids playing on the playground while the adults lazed around.

At that point I had no choice but to take that pavilion and work with it. About five minutes after I started taping up decorations, another lady came down and wanted to know if I was using the pavilion.

Uh.

That would be why there are balloons and stars and tablecloths and all manner of other party shit around.

She had also planned a party but hadn’t booked a pavilion. Her party was supposed to start an hour after my party. I was planning on doing the main party stuff right away, then letting the kids play so I told her she could have a table and that we would be wrapping up around the time her guests started arriving.

She was very grateful and I was very frazzled. I know I could have told her no, but that would have been pretty shitty. We were out of there by 3 anyway and it all worked out. We didn’t want to leave our stuff down in the hidden pavilion anyway, so it was good to just clean up and head up to the main playground.

A little bit later her friend arrived and tried to kick me out. I was not pleased.

She tried to tell me that she had the pavilion reserved and I had to leave, but there was no reserved sign. She even called the rec department and they told her they didn’t have her booked. I don’t know what happened, but I was just very lucky that we had a spot for the party.

Mike and Erik finally arrived and managed to find me. I put Mike in charge of locating our guests and pointing them to the hidden pavilion. He found most of them. Our neighbors showed up over an hour late, then were not happy that they missed all the fun. Erik adores their six year old son but I think he’s a brat. He had a total meltdown because he missed the pinata and all the candy.

He wanted a “return gift” but I had no idea what he meant. I finally figured out he meant a goodie bag, but I didn’t give out goodie bags. The kids filled their loot bags from the pinata and our other games and that was that. Mike went and found Erik’s bag and gave them some candy, but apparently chocolate isn’t “real candy” so he was still pissed.

When we got home I tried to make it up to him by taking down a fake goodie bag with fruit snacks and stickers. I also took down some cake, balloons and other party favors. I did feel bad that they couldn’t find us or contact us, but I know Mike was up on the playground looking for them for at least a half hour so it wasn’t totally my fault. They were surprised we started the party on time because I guess in their culture they do things at a much slower pace. I had seven three year olds waiting for party games and cake! I couldn’t hold off any longer.

I was fairly pissed about the company picnic, mainly because they had a huge bounce house right next to the playground but only kids with company wristbands were allowed inside. I think it is extremely rude to host a private event on a public space if you are not going to share something like a huge bounce house. There’s another park in the area that would have been much more appropriate for their party. It has lots of pavilions kind of out in a field, so they could have set up there and not had a GIANT TEMPTING HOUSE OF FUN that we weren’t allowed to use. I feel like writing a letter to the rec department about it. They were doing other rude things too, just basically acting like the whole park was their private area when that is simply not the case. You rent the pavilions, not the whole park. My friend went into the bathroom and said they had electronic crap all over the bathroom, including all over the changing table so if someone needed to change a diaper there wouldn’t have been any place to do it. Rude!

Oh well.

In the end it was all fine and most of the kids had a good time. We played “Houston Says” which is very similar to Simon Says, if you can imagine. We also did a take on the British Pass the Parcel, only called it Pass the Planet. I wrapped 11 layers of little party favors and candy. They would pass the planet and whoever was holding it when the music stopped would get to unwrap a layer and keep whatever fell out.

Then, of course, there was the alien pinata that we got to beat all to hell. I let the kids all go through the line twice with four whacks each, but they had barely made a dent. They were getting anxious and cranky, so I took a turn. I sort of forget how strong I am sometimes. I’m sure any adult could have whacked it open in one blow, but most adults might have been a little more careful about it. I decapitated that nasty ol’ alien in one swift blow to the head.

The cake was also a semi-success. The local Safeway decorators are pretty Wrecktastic, but I don’t think any of the local grocery store bakeries are any better. I had them do the background to their Star Trek cake, but leave the USS Enterprise off. I added little plastic astronauts and space debris. Luckily I had just enough for each kid to take one home. We were also lucky that the girls didn’t care that they got crappy little weird space things instead of cool astronauts or shuttles.

Despite some setbacks, I think it was a mostly successful party. Erik loved it and that’s what counts, right?

He got a Razor scooter for his birthday, so he thinks he’s pretty hot stuff. I need to make him wear his knee pads, I think. His poor legs are all bruised up. I can’t wait to hear what the peds say about that at his four year well check next week.

On a totally different note, I have more information about my dad. He is not on his deathbed. My sister and mom have been very upset, but it was mainly because no one was telling them anything and his room is just down the hall from where my grandma died. I can imagine it would be very hard to go back in there after you watched your mom/grandma die just two months ago.

The doctors say his heart is damaged, but he doesn’t have to die. It’s basically up to him. They can send him home and he might live a bit longer if he loses weight and quits drinking. If he goes home and starts drinking again, he’ll land right back in the hospital and death will come sooner rather than later.

His response?

“They can’t tell me what to do.”

And that, my friends, is why I can’t bring myself to worry. Of course I’m worried, but I can’t stew over it. It’s in his hands and he has to decide what he wants to do. I guess he had a different doctor today and she really gave it to him straight. He didn’t like her. Imagine that.

I also have a major disconnect since I am not there and can’t see what it happening. It is easy to live in la-la denial land. I was seriously thinking about going back. I found some pretty decently priced tickets for next week, but I’m just not sure. I don’t think anything is going to happen right now unless he gets pneumonia. If he gets pneumonia then I’ll re-evaluate the situation.

This afternoon Erik and I went on a quest for a new water filter for the fridge. I knew exactly where they were at Home Depot, so off we jaunted. We got to the aisle and all I could find were dryer ducts and lint filters. No fridge water filters.

Eventually I found them, but they didn’t have the kind I needed.

I asked the worker girl and she managed to dig some out from underneath the display. No way would I have ever found them. I thought about buying two just to have one on hand, but they are so expensive I decided against it.

I got up to the self-check line and ran into a problem. The item wasn’t in their database.

Erik and I spent over 45 minutes dealing with six different customer service people and managers and they finally figured out a way to sell it to me, though no one had any clue on the price. At one point I went back and got another one just because I didn’t want to go through this song and dance again for a long time. I should have cleaned them out. The guy who decided on the final price gave them to me for $9.99 each. I expected to pay at least $40. I’m not complaining! I can stand around with sore feet and an impatient preschooler all day if it means I’m going to save that kind of money.

Erik was pretty good even though he did get restless and run around in circles for quite a while. We were in the back and there was no one to disturb, so I let him. I normally wouldn’t, but you have to make concessions sometimes.

I was really planning on this being an in and out sort of mission, so I didn’t clean the child properly and that was sort of embarrassing. Earlier in the afternoon he decided to paint. I got him all set up with paper and washable paints, which he smeared around for about three minutes before deciding the inside of his ears made a better canvas. I gave him a quick once over with a warm cloth, but he still looked like a rebel grave digger.

Speaking of grave diggers. What a nice segue into my next topic. Or morbid. Or just plain inappropriate.

My dad is probably on his death bed right now. The doctors just come in, look at him and shake their heads. They tell him he should have been taking care of himself, there is not much they can do. The swelling hasn’t gone down at all. His body is just tired of taking abuse, I guess.

It is easy for me to feel disconnected since I’m not there. I’m sure if I was there I would be more emotional. Wouldn’t I? But he’s done this to himself. He’s spent the last 40 years systematically killing himself with alcohol and other abuses. He has had a much more supportive family than one could imagine. He’s had supportive employers. He’s had state mandated therapies. He never cared. For whatever reason, he didn’t have the strength to kick the habit. I know he suffers from depression and that’s a big part of it. His childhood was a nightmare. But his adult life was pretty damned good.

My sister is terribly upset. She wants to know what to do because he refuses to accept Jesus into his heart and gets angry when she mentions it. I understand her pain. I spent years upon years praying for his soul. At this point I don’t even believe in any of that, but if I did it would be very upsetting to believe he was on his way to eternal torture.

I hope he manages to make a miraculous recovery like he has so many times before. Bladder cancer? Can’t find it on the x-rays anymore. Diabetes? Huh. Seems to have disappeared. Raging alcoholism? Oh yeah. Still there.

Aren’t these some nice, cheery thoughts for your Friday morning?

Just a few minutes ago I started searching frantically for the tab that had my in-progress post and couldn’t find it. Oh no! I knew I must have had one going because I remember doing a lot of typing, even though I had no idea what I was typing about.

Then I noticed an open e-mail tab.

I’d been typing and typing an e-mail to my friend and had forgotten all about it. Even though it was what I’d been working on for the last 20 minutes.

I blame the lack of sleep.

Erik came in at some point and was crying because he was having a bad dream. Some nights I am able to be the stern, strict mother that makes him go back to his own bed. I always lay with him until he goes to sleep, so I guess I’m not too cold-hearted, but it still makes me feel guilty. My baby is scared! He needs his mommy! Must not let my baby be eaten by crocodiles!

Last night he was so pathetic that I couldn’t send him back to his room, even though it would have been best for both of us. I then spent the next several hours with a naked kid shoving his face into my armpit while his sticky, sweaty body stuck to me. Great call. How on earth did we ever co-sleep for three years?

Well, for one thing, he was still wearing pajamas when we were co-sleeping. I kind of laugh when the Sprout commercial for giving poor kids pajamas comes on. Every child deserves a good night. That’s the tag line and I don’t disagree. I’m sure many of those children really do need pajamas to sleep comfortably and keep warm. It just cracks me up since my own child refuses to put them on. We are very lucky to have easy, on-demand heating and cooling so he doesn’t freeze. I know there are many children who aren’t so lucky. But I still can’t help giggling.

Btw, thank you all so much for your advice about the ebay situation. I didn’t realize sellers were no longer allowed to leave negative or neutral feedback for their customers. Nor did I realize PayPal had such a good dispute system.

What else?

I was creative at dinner tonight! A miracle, since I didn’t even cook.

Erik informed me he would only eat purple punky dunky monkey for dinner. I inquired as to what that might consist of and got the total teenage punk “Duh, mom, DINNER” treatment. How can a four year old be so very teenagerish? We have swung back into the crazy stage and I miss my little angel. This time it’s complete with the promised stuttering, shouting, clumsiness and temper tantrums. Yay!

Anyway, a few weeks ago I stumbled upon a whole network of mommy blogs that made my skin crawl. Nary a bad thing was said about any of the little angels. The moms seemed to be in fierce competition to see who could make the cutest lunches, the most elaborate crafts and otherwise be Super Mom of the year. Nothing wrong with cute lunches and elaborate crafts, of course. Except it was all so sugar coated that it made me want to gag. You know I can’t handle cutsie.

But I was inspired! I had a set of Ikea forest animal cookie cutters that I’ve never used (because honestly? Am I ever going to roll out sugar cookies again when THESE SUGAR COOKIES are the most amazing sugar cookies you will ever taste and you just have to drop them? No. No I am not. It always sounds like fun to decorate cookies, but in reality it sucks the life out of me with the stirring and mixing and rolling and stirring and did I mention mixing and rolling? I am not a patient person. I need things that go quickly.)

Hmmmm. I wonder were my son gets his impatience?

Ha! I was just about to hit post when I relaized I went off on a paranthetical tanget and never explained what I did with the cookie cutters. Nothing terribly fancy. I made a sandwich and cut it into shapes, then made some really flat apple slices and cut them into shapes, but that didn’t work as well b/c of the core and seeds. It seemed to satisfy his desire for something different, even though it was the same old food we always have.

I bought a new crockpot tonight, so am hoping to make something exciting for Crocktoberfest and my boys tomorrow.

This being Old Lady Pregnant is interesting. I spent 2 hours at the doctors’ office today. The majority of it wasn’t even waiting, though there was certainly enough of that to last a lifetime.

First I saw the genetic counselor who explained the tests (nuchal translucency ultrasound and blood tests) and what, exactly, the results would indicate, and what numbers we were looking for. I knew in general what the test was all about but really had no idea how they interpreted the results.

Then it was time for the ultrasound. I guess I was expecting it to be quick since I just thought they were measuring the neck, but it took a full thirty minutes. The tech measured all kinds of things and was very good at explaining everything to me. According to my dating ultrasound I should be at 12 weeks exactly. According to this ultrasound I am at 12w5d. According to my highly scientific charting I should be at 12w3d. They say it is better for a baby to measure bigger than expected than smaller than expected. Erik was 8 lb 13 oz and five days late, so a big baby would not be unexpected.

Part of the reason it took so long was because the baby wouldn’t cooperate. It was rolling all over the place, kicking with its feet, sucking on its hand, and having a fine time swimming all around. Hopes of having a calmer second baby? Dashed.

Then it was time to consult with the doctor. He basically repeated everything the first woman said, then carefully went over each ultrasound capture with me and explained what it all meant. I really, really liked him and wish he was my OB. My insurance would never cover that since he is a high risk pregnancy specialist and I am not truly high risk.

He did tell me that he thought my chances of a successful VBAC were good since Erik’s c-section was due to him being wrapped in the cord. I sort of laughed and told him I would prefer a planned c-section. With Erik I felt like I should want to experience child birth even though I didn’t really want to. With this baby I have no such qualms. I was in labor 45 minutes. It SUCKED. Never, never again.

Lastly, they took five drops of blood from my finger. They do some fancy equation with the mother’s age, history, weight, two blood proteins and the nuchal measurement. Assuming the blood proteins are good, we are on the safer side of things (never any guarantees, of course). They want the nuchal measurement to be under 3.0 mm. The baby’s was 1.9 mmm, so that makes me pretty happy.

I’m really glad we went ahead with this test even though almost everyone I talked to thought I was crazy. I guess I am just a cold hearted bitch, but if the baby had one of the trisomy defects that the test looks for, I would want to know and terminate the pregnancy. I’m not sure what I would do about Downs, but the other two defects are horrible. The baby is not expected to live past a year. In fact, in most cases it only lives a few minutes or days. I can’t go through a pregnancy, give birth and have that as a result. I have heard of women who knowingly do it and I’m not sure where they find the emotional resources to deal with that. I know I couldn’t.

I have the big anatomy scan scheduled for Dec. 1. I can’t wait to find out the sex! Then we can start our knock down, drag out name finding mission. Sorry to say, but we won’t be telling anyone any of our name choices until the baby is born. We learned that the hard way last time.

The day went into a downward spiral from there. When I arrived at the babysitter’s Erik had a total and complete temper tantrum meltdown. You think a toddler temper tantrum is bad? You ain’t seen nothing. I can only assume it gets worse and worse as they get older. I suppose it is good that he likes the sitter, but holy crap. I didn’t think I was going to be able to haul him out to the car without injuring one of us.

We had to rush to the gym for his class, but we made it in time. I did 30 minutes on the elliptical but had to cut my workout short because some lady who ate way too much garlic got on the machine next to me. I tried stick it out, but I really thought I was going to vomit so I had to run away.

On the way home I got pulled over. I had no idea why, so was pretty relieved when he told me the tags were expired. I thought I would just get a warning and be told to get them renewed.

Nope. Got a ticket. Not a bad one–only $60–but it still wasn’t my favorite way to spend a chunk of money. The best part was when he told me he was being nice because some officers would have towed my car and arrested me for driving an unregistered vehicle. I’d really like to meet an officer who would arrest a mom with a kid in the car for being six days over due. We are so diligent about taking care of things like this that I’m not sure how it slipped through the cracks. I came straight home and we paid the fee on the website. They had a little temporary tag I printed out and taped in my back window.

When I got home I found out my dad has been admitted to the hospital. It all started when his scrotum started swelling up. Just what you all wanted to know? Listen to this. As my sister is talking to me, she’s telling me “His balls were as big as a grapefruit!” She turns to her friend in the car “What do you think, Susie?” Susie shouts out “No! They were as big as a cantaloupe!”

Why on God’s green earth would my sister and her friend even be looking? I am so disgusted I may vomit. My sister said everyone was looking because they were just hanging out. Have I ever mentioned that I am so, so very glad to live across the continent?

Apparently he has major swelling everywhere and a valve in his heart isn’t functioning. They are hoping to have him lose at least 50 pounds in fluids in the next five days, then they are taking him to the neighboring town to put a stent in his heart.

My sister was crying pretty hysterically because she thinks he is going to die since grandma was in the hospital just two months ago and never came home. I don’t know if he will die or not. It wouldn’t surprise me. It is easy for me to distance myself from it since I’m not there. He’s had a death wish since he was a kid so I don’t know what to say. Everything in his adult life has flown in the face of medical advice and common sense. You don’t drink 20-30 cans of beer a day if you’re concerned about living a long, healthy life.

In other good news, I’ve been reading the most excellent book I’ve read in a very long time: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.

I’ve heard of it, of course, but never really had an interest in reading it because I couldn’t figure out what it was about. Basically, it is about a writer in London who strikes up a friendship with a group of people who survived the Nazi occupation of their island during WWII. It was very hard not to cry in the waiting room today! It was also very hard not to laugh out loud. It has a major feel of L. M. Montgomery, only the later years when she allowed a little more darkness into the books. You will cry. You will laugh. You should read this. It’s excellent.

I checked it out of the library, but now I’m thinking I need to own a copy. I was worried because it was a new book so you can’t renew it. I guess I was thinking it would take me forever to read it, but I started it this morning and only have about 30 pages to go. I didn’t even look for my computer when I got home today. I finally had to find it to write an entry, but that’s the extent of my computer time. I’ve been way too obsessed with this book, which is a good thing! Tomorrow I’ll have to make an effort to be a better mother.

Virus protection is enabled, but I still am a little worried. Just a few minutes ago I was having a major problem. Whenever I would hit enter, the battery saver control panel would open. Then half my keys stopped working. Weird. Scary! I rebooted the computer and things seem fine, but it has me a little freaked out. The virus protection is up to date, so I hope it really works.

I am also really confused because the computer has started sending regular e-mails to the spam folder. If I hadn’t gotten a group reply to a very important e-mail I never even would have thought to check. Grrrrrr.

Anyway. . .

We went to order Erik’s birthday cake today and now I’m scared. As I feared, the book had no outer space themed cakes, which was a little irritating since HELLO! Little boys love space! I didn’t see any pirate themed cakes either. The Safeway book was pretty threadbare, unless you are interested in the most popular shows on television. Too bad the Safeway cakes are about a million times better than Giant. Costco has the best cakes, but we don’t have a Costco membership and I’m not going to buy one just for birthday cakes. I wouldn’t mind having a membership if the store wasn’t so flippin’ insane even during weekday mornings.

I’ve been sort of worried about finding an outer space cake, so I had a couple of plans running through my mind. I bought some little space figurines the other day and was thinking I could put them on top of cupcakes or something. But making and frosting cupcakes? Meh. I don’t want to do any work.

I also looked up outer space cakes and found some examples of homemade birthday cakes. Some looked great, some looked horrible. I know me. Mine would be right in line with the horrible ones. I do not have good fine motor skills.

Another problem? I need to feed about 25 kids and adults with this cake. I need 1/2 a sheet cake. I don’t want to deal with that at home.

I have, perhaps, hit upon a solution.

Star Trek is a popular show, yes?

They had a Star Trek cake. It was very spacey looking with a plastic USS Enterprise and the plastic words Star Trek plopped on it. I asked if they could just leave the Star Trek stuff off, while still airbrushing the cake to look spacey. Then I can put some astronauts and robots around on the cake and it should be good enough.

The baker was very confident that this would work, until he started writing the directions to whoever the baker will be on Saturday morning. I’m hoping whatever they come up with with work. I am going to pick it up about five hours before the party, so we should have time to do damage control if need be.

Anyone have any great space themed game ideas for a four year old’s birthday party? We are doing pass the planet instead of pass the parcel. We also have the pinata, but I was at that park today and have no idea how we are going to hang it, unless we hang it off the monkey bars. How much would the other park patrons hate us? Probably way too much. All of the trees in the park are so old and huge that they don’t have any lower branches that would be reachable, even by a ten foot ladder.

I saw a picture of a guy holding a pinata off the end of a fishing pole, which could work if we had a fishing pole (and very little fear of four year olds with baseball bats).

Mostly, the kids are just going to play at the park. Erik is getting to an age where he really enjoys organized games, so I want to do a little something to make the party more than “play in the park, eat cake, go home.” I wouldn’t want to go overboard, though. No bounce house or astronaut clown for us! Ha. Maybe I can get Mike to dress up like an astronaut clown. I should ask him. At the very least he’ll laugh so hard that he’ll turn bright red and look like a clown. An alien clown. Because human clowns are chalk white. Right? It all makes sense in my head. Stop looking at me like that!

First, I want to highlight an excellent post by one of my old college friends.  Isn’t facebook weird?  I knew Eva my senior year. She was a freshman, so I didn’t know her well (esp since I was student teaching the first semester), but we did hang out in the same general group.  I always thought she was a lot of fun and knew she was smart, but didn’t realize she was brilliant.  Brilliance was not a requirement for admission at our small little Christian college.  In fact, it was quite rare.  The school was the best place for me and gave me a very safe place to get to know myself, but it was not exactly prestigious or challenging.

Anyway, Eva now has a Ph. D. in something science based (I remember reading about it a few years ago in our alumni newsletter) and has tackled a big issue:  Evolution from a Christian perspective.  I know a few of you would find it really interesting, so I’m posting the link here.  I gave her the link to this blog a few weeks ago since I felt kind of guilty for lurking around a sort-of-IRL person’s blog. 

It is uncanny how similar our views are on things, since our views are mostly completely opposite from the views of our conservative Christian college.  Of course, the main difference is that I am not longer a Christian.  I grappled with several issues for years, but in the end I came out on the side of “there is no God, at least not as identified by any religion I know.” 

If I were still a Christian, this post explains what I would believe.  Heck, it was what I did believe for a long time, though I never could have stated it so intelligently.

Well, wasn’t that just a little walk down memory lane. Or something.

Anyway, we had a nice weekend, sort of.  It was absolutely gorgeous weather out, but Mike and I were both queasy.  I think Mike had food poisoning, not the stomach flu.  We did manage to each take a two hour shift at various parks in the area.  Poor kid needed some sunshine and exercise.

I was actually feeling pretty good on Saturday until I made banana bread.  The first slice was so good I had to try a second.  That’s when things went very, very wrong. 

Just what you all want to hear about.

Tomorrow Erik starts his weekly lunch bunch at school.  I don’t know exactly what it is all about, but I know I pay extra and take him an hour early every Monday with a packed lunch.  I was looking at the sign up sheet and noticed it was all boys.  I couldn’t help but laugh. All us boy mamas have to get our kids out of the house. 

I feel kind of guilty about that, but then I see all the arts and crafts and things that my friends with girls do with their kids.  They are able to sit at a table and glue things or color or paint for awhile and have a nice, calm time.  I guess.  I don’t really know how that works.  There is rarely a calm moment in our house.  When I try to get him to do arts and crafts, he wants me to sit and draw or color or whatever, while he goes and watches TV.  Not exactly what I’m going for. 

I have made a new commitment to myself to limit his TV time.  It requires me getting off my ass and going down in the basement.  I limit the number of toys upstairs, so the basement is like a kid’s dreamland of toys.  He’d really rather just sit on me all day and use me as his personal jungle gym.  This weekend I’ve spent a lot more time in the basement and he has spent a lot more time playing with his toys.  I’ve got to keep it up. 

I also have to order a cake this week!  Yikes!  His birthday party has snuck up on me, even though we’ve been talking about it for a <s>month</s> year.  I just hope next weekend is as glorious as this weekend.  Or at the very last, I hope it’s not raining.  We have ten confirmed kids counting siblings.  We’re doing it at a park, so at least we don’t have to clean up the house.