The Queen's Rambles

I am tired of complaining all the time. I hate complainers. I complain about complainers, which makes about as much sense as spanking a kid for hitting. Me, I am so very sensible. Ha!

But seriously, I am ready to be more positive.

Today I am thankful that I had enough energy to go to Target, purchase all kinds of cleaning supplies and scrub down a bathroom. It’s not much, but it’s a start.

I’m also very, very, very thankful that I took my Be Vivacious life plan seriously and made myself some friends. Those friends were a lifesaver today. As much as I love my friends inside the computer, friends in the real world are so much better. They can actually do concrete things to help out a dire situation, instead of just wishing they could be there and sending you good luck vibes.

I went out to the car this afternoon, started things up, and wondered why the heck the car wouldn’t move. I finally figured out that the brake pedal was stuck to the floor. The car wasn’t going anywhere.

I was due to pick Erik up in 10 minutes.

Thank god for friends.

Dr. Saturn, the lady who had a baby less than three weeks ago, drove out and picked Erik up. Then she took him to her house, left him with her sister and son and came over and got me. She took me over to her house for an afternoon of socialization and dinner! Score!

I was feeling pretty panicked, hopeless and just generally down in the dumps. Sick again, car broken, kid stuck at preschool. Life was most assuredly Not Good.

But it could have been so much worse. What if I didn’t have a friend? What would I have done? I have no idea. I am just so grateful that I’m in a place where I have that kind of real life support that I need.

Ever since preschool has started, I’ve had these horrible visions of getting in a wreck on the way to pick him up and not being able to get to him. Hopefully this is as close as that vision will ever come to reality.

I don’t know what to do about preschool. Today was the third day that Erik dug in his heels and refused to go into the classroom. I wanted to talk to his teacher about it this afternoon, but that wasn’t meant to be. I’m so sad that his first real school experience is not what I was hoping it would be. I tried to get him to open up and talk to me, but talking to a four year old about something serious? I might as well have been talking to a parrot. He says he doesn’t like it because it makes him tired. He says he doesn’t like any of his school friends and just wants to play with his real friends (kids from co-op preschool). I know that isn’t true since he’s always happy and playing with kids when I pick him up. I just don’t know what’s going on and I’m really frustrated.

But this is all about the positive, right?

I’m really thankful my friend was able to lend us a pair of underwear and pants this evening, after Erik had a major accident in his pants.

What the hell?

But my friend saved us!

I have to keep focusing on the silver lining, or I’m going to go lay down and cry. I’ve already been tearing up, and you know what that does when you have a cold? Nothing good!

I’m also thankful to have a wonderful public library that has saved us hundreds, possibly thousands, of dollars in the past few years. Paying $25.95 for a book that was already damaged when I checked it out is just like giving them a thank you gift, right?

Tomorrow should be interesting. I’m so thankful we have AAA, because I’m going to have to have the car towed somewhere. I looked up the problem, and even though I was able to eventually pop the brake pedal back up, it is very dangerous to drive it right now. The master cylinder (whatever that is) is probably ruined, meaning we could lose our brakes at any moment. I’m very thankful we discovered the problem in a safe way that didn’t end in a wreck.

I’m so bored, I’m watching Dancing with the Stars. I don’t have anything against the show, but it is just not on my TV rotation.

We had a bit of a desperate situation earlier this evening.

I put my laptop down so I could do some laundry. When I came back, I had a big error message about my internal hard drive needing to be re-seated. The computer wouldn’t boot, and I would have had a panic attack if I would have had that much energy.

Mike is my fixer man, but he didn’t get home until after 8:30 tonight so I figured I would be screwed.

He removed the battery, put it back in, and things are fine. Whew!

Why no energy? My cold is about a thousand times worse than it was yesterday. The snot is back in full force. My throat hurts and I really and truly have NO VOICE today and my ears hurt. I’m taking Tylenol, but trying to take it easy. I know it is safe for the baby, but I don’t want the baby to OD and have liver problems.

Erik had preschool today, so that was good (except for the part where he refused to go in). I don’t know what we’re going to do tomorrow if I don’t feel better. He was going nuts this evening because I wouldn’t take him outside and I wouldn’t play tag with him.

That about sums up my day. What a thrill! I think it’s bed time for the sicko. Does someone want to come disinfect my house?

I am very slowly rebuilding the sidebar on this new blog. I am no longer using blogrolling because they have ads now, so I’m re-entering all the blogs I read by hand. Ugh!

It is a very, very slow process because I am lazy. If you’d like priority in getting your link back up, please leave a comment here and it will be done a lot faster. Loyalty pays, right?

What a rotten weekend. I’ve had a sore throat and a cough all weekend. Today I have no voice. Erik is very concerned about me losing my voice and wants to call everyone we know to ask them if they can help me find it. Silly kid.

As much as it sucks, though, it is MUCH MUCH MUCH better than morning sickness. There’s always that.

Are any of you watching FlashForward? I thought it was supposed to be great, but thus far I am pretty bored. I doubt I’ll continue watching it much longer. Just like Project Runway! What a horrible season. I don’t think I’ll even watch the finale. I can find out the winner from the Project Rungay blog and it will be much more entertaining to read their take than watch the show. Thanks, Lifetime, for ruining the best reality show on television!

I am on the verge of calling a cleaning company and getting someone in here to do a one time spring clean of the house–dust, vacuum, bathrooms, baseboards, and so forth. I’ve been feeling poorly for so long that things are out of control. Mike has been working more than ever, and when he gets home I am feeling so bad that I prefer him to take Erik instead of cleaning the house. It seems like if we could just get a fresh start with all the rooms being really clean, maybe I could keep up with it after I get over this cold. Our big plan for the weekend was to clean like maniacs, but obviously that didn’t happen. I barely got out of bed yesterday.

I also really need to return the holiday sweater I got for Erik and get a smaller size. Bah humbug! Normally I would just keep it so he could grow into it, but I don’t want him looking like a slob in his holiday photo. I have finally learned, after four years of motherhood, that it is ok if they look a little slobby when you first buy them new clothes because that means the clothes will last longer. Can’t do it for the pictures though. Just can’t.

I guess I also need to make an appointment to have portraits done, which is another bah humbug moment. Mainly because I am sick and tired and don’t want to think of everything I need to do. Last week I was so full of energy for the first time in forever, and now I am back in my “I’m sick and overwhelmed mode.” Hopefully this cold will be short lived and I will be back to myself very soon.

This year has been so crazy! It feels like I haven’t been normal since my birthday in March. We were so sick for so long with (I suspect) H1N1 and pneumonia, then we went on vacation and I couldn’t handle the stress of my sister being herself, then we got home and found out I was pregnant, then it was months of prenatal vitamin sickness.

I look into the future and see a few years of sleep deprivation and catering to the needs of a caterwauling infant. I might have energy again before my 40th birthday.

Speaking of the infant, I was looking through the baby name book and can’t find a single name for a boy or girl that I even remotely like. Other than Kai, of course, which Mike will never agree to. Maybe once we know the gender and I start feeling the baby moving around more I’ll feel more connected to this pregnancy, but at the moment I am kind of ignoring the reality of a baby on the way.

*I almost killed a teenager on the way to pick Erik up from school. We live kitty corner from the high school and they let out about five minutes before I have to leave. I always feel like I’m in a video game, trying to avoid frogger like pedestrians and teen drivers. Today I had a green light. I noticed the van in the far left lane was stopped and sort of saw a flash of running kid. I decided I better slow way down. Good thing I did, because right as I came up to the intersection a kid dashed in front of me. If I hadn’t been paying attention I totally would have plowed into him. The car in the right lane came even closer to hitting him. A group of girls saw all the stopped cars and decided to saunter across the road against their light. I was sure we were all going to get rear ended. We have a lot of pedestrian deaths in our area and the newspaper is always talking about the horrible, reckless drivers. Of course I feel bad for the kids who are killed and my heart goes out to their families, but it is not always the drivers’ fault. I feel like calling the police and demanding a crossing guard to keep the kids in control.

*Erik decided he wasn’t going to school today. I don’t know why. When we arrived, he hid behind my legs while we were waiting for his classroom to open. Once open, he refused to go in. Eventually the secretary asked if I wanted her to take him in. He was clinging to me, totally weepy. She pried him out of my arms while he punched and kicked her. It was heart wrenching! I kept waiting for the school to call and tell me to come get him, but they never did. He was happy and playful when I picked him up, so I don’t know what the problem was.

*When we got home from preschool I had a really weird message on the answering machine. It was some lady, who happens to have the same name as one of my real life friends who calls a lot, so I was really confused because I knew it wasn’t my friends voice. The person acted like we were best friends and said “I wanted to hear more about [mumble mumble] so I’ll try your cell phone, or you can call me back.” I was going to call my friend to figure out what was wrong with her voice, but when I checked caller ID it wasn’t her. I googled the name and number and came up with an employee of THIS SITE. I can’t figure out if it was a journalist or telemarketer. Either way, I’m not calling back. It was very curious.

*I took Erik out for a scooter ride and we ended up going to visit one of our neighbors. I was trying to make conversation, so asked how she had met her husband. My jaw hit the floor when she explained it was an arranged marriage (they’re Indian). She met her husband for the first time the day before the wedding! I asked if she was afraid, but she said no “I knew his family so I knew he wouldn’t cheat me.” I honestly have no idea what that means. I really wanted to ask if she was afraid of the wedding night. I would have been terrified to know that I would be having sex with some guy I didn’t even know! Sure, people do it all the time with people they pick up in bars or whatever (or maybe that is just on tv), but at least that is not really planned out and it is your choice. It sounds like she did get to approve this guy and she had a friend who had a friend who had a friend who was his cousin, but still! To know months in advance that you would be having sex with a guy you don’t know and that then you would be his wife and have to live with him and all that. I would be terrified!

*After the arranged marriage discussion, she hit me with another whammy. She asked me how I make my hair so straight and finished looking. No one has ever asked me for any type of fashion advice before! I generally hate my hair. This woman is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. Her hair is gorgeous with some natural waves, but not exactly curly. It is no surprise she was chosen for an arranged marriage. The guy is very, very lucky to have her if we are basing it on looks alone (I don’t know enough about her to make judgements on any other criteria). And here she was asking me for hair advice? I don’t do anything to make it straight. I use a big curling brush to give it some body, and finish it off with shine serum. I think shine serum is the secret to finished looking hair and am so happy I discovered it (thanks Kisha, for taking me coupon shopping!). That’s the extent of my fashion advice. Oh, and if you have big boobs, you should wear v-neck clothes. Avoid scoop necks like the plague.

*I watched the Dead Like Me follow-up movie this afternoon. It was beyond lame. How disappointing.

Yesterday was a disaster from the word go. Erik had to stay in since he had a fever the day before, but he was not sick at all. I have a cold. I was grouchy. He was hyper. Bad combination!

At least he still seems fine today so I can send him off to preschool this afternoon. I love preschool, though I am worried that Erik is not in a good place. He doesn’t have any complaints, but from the little I’ve seen the teacher is not fun, dynamic, or even very likable. She’s old and grouchy. I don’t want that to be his first teacher experience, but at the moment he doesn’t seem to notice. It makes my stomach hurt.

On Wednesday the teacher handed out special Halloween art projects. The kids had made little frames and then the teacher took a picture of each kid to stick in the frame. I know Erik can be a pill when he decides he doesn’t want his picture taken and I know it is not a professional photography studio, but the picture of Erik was so, so very sad. I kind of think it’s funny when I take pictures of him looking mad, but in this picture he looked like he was about to cry. I was no impressed. Maybe they were using old fashioned film and didn’t know how badly the picture turned out. Maybe. I don’t know. It just irks me that they sent home such an awful picture. I see it as further evidence that the teacher doesn’t like Erik, but then I think I am totally paranoid and it’s just a picture and it is hard to get good pictures of little kids. I’ll have to scan it in and show you.

Ah well. I should know better than anyone that it is impossible to get get pics of little kids. I just spent several hours putting together the yearbook for our preschool co-op. It turned out ok, I think, but it was hard to find good pics of some of the kids. There were plenty of Erik, but that’s because I am a camera freak. Or was. I hardly ever get it out these days.

On a completely unrelated note, I am so tired of hearing “Why dews that?” (Do with an s instead of does). Everything is “why dews that? Why dews that?” I thought we’d dodged the big “why” phase because he never really got into it when he was three. He would ask why, of course, but I could usually defuse it with a simple “why do you think?” He’d get so side tracked trying to figure it out that he’d forget to ask why.

Ah, how my clever days are over. That doesn’t work any more.

I can’t even think right now. Why am I trying to write an entry? I don’t know! I’m exhausted. I didn’t turn my fan on last night because it stirs up too much air and makes me even snottier. I have it facing away from us, but it still gets my poor nose going. Instead of hearing the soothing sound of the motor, I heard Mike snuffling, the house creaking, sirens blaring, birds singing. All those wonderful things that conspire to keep me up all night.

I better go take a shower and see if I can wake up a little more. I have several things on my agenda for the day, so better get started.

I think we may have an oinker. Please, dear ether, don’t let us have an oinker!

We had a MOMS Club meeting this morning and Erik was just a mess. I had to take him outside because he was doing an Incredible Hulk impersonation, only turning red instead of green. He was mad because we moved the tables and chairs to the side of the room. He was so mad no one could hear the president call the meeting to order.

Embarrassing!

Once I got him outside he had a total crying meltdown about the chairs. I started out being pretty angry, but quickly simmered down and got a bit worried.

We finally went back in and I thought things would be fine. Our guest speaker was a woman from FunFit, a family fitness place that does workouts for moms and kids. Normally this type of thing would have been right up the boy’s alley, but he spent the first ten minutes laying on the floor in a ball, claiming he was tired.

How stupid am I that I didn’t take him home right then?

He eventually warmed up and did the activity. I was naughty and did not do the activity, though the moms were supposed to participate to get our cardio for the day. Ha! I can’t jump on a good day, much less on a day I have an avocado baby in my belly.

I think I was sort of in denial about the whole thing since today was preschool and I really needed a few hours to myself. We didn’t have school on Monday, so I was feeling pretty antsy.

When I picked Erik up, he was pretty warm. The teacher said it was just because they’d been running, but when I got him home he had a fever of 100.7. Not bad, but I still felt a little guilty for sending him to school and infecting everyone with his crud.

I thought we might have a peaceful afternoon if he just needed to hunker down and rest.

But of course not!

He may have had a fever, but he was full of energy. Ugh! I couldn’t take him outside since he was sick, but he was driving me crazy in the house.

I was kind of mean to Mike, and turned over the care of the child to him as soon as he got home. I disappeared down into the basement to use the desktop since Shutterfly doesn’t agree with my new laptop, and didn’t emerge until bedtime. Bad mommy!

Here’s hoping the fever is just a fluke and we aren’t all going to be laid low with H1N1.

I’m pretty sure I had something else to say tonight. I’m not sure if it was clever, cute or even important. It seems like it was SOMETHING, though. I swear I’m losing my mind.

Oh well. At least I had a very satisfying few days in the reading department. When I first met Mike 10 years or so ago, he convinced me to read the Deverry series by Katherine Kerr. The first couple of books didn’t really grab me, but by book 4 I was totally hooked. Normally I wouldn’t give a series such a long chance. I barely give books 50 pages. If I don’t like it, I’m done. Life’s too short to read books I don’t enjoy. Based on Mike’s recommendation and the fact that I was in Sweden with very little English reading material, I plowed through the books and totally fell in love. The final book in the series, book 15, came out this week. It was fabulous. Kerr is really amazing. She took so many threads and held them in her very deft writerly hands for almost two decades. I was very satisfied with the ending and am feeling a happy glow with the way things all turned out. Now I just need to re-read the entire series in one go so I can really appreciate Kerr’s genius. It can be pretty confusing because one of the main premises of the book is that characters are reborn over and over until they get their lives in order. Over the course of the books we see around 10 lifetimes and how the souls of the characters interact with each other and change the course of history in their country. Good, good stuff, but hard to keep track of. Luckily I live with a Deverry scholar so I was able to ask him questions instead of being totally confused.

I’m so much happier these days. Today I checked several things off my to-do list and barely broke a sweat. Until I went to the gym. But a sweat at the gym is expected, yes?

Anyway, it was another gorgeous day, but Erik kept whining that he wanted to go to the mall. Bah. His grandma sent him several dollar bills and I told him he could use them to ride the mall rides, so he had his heart set on it. We managed to get his hair cut, find him a handsome holiday outfit at Children’s Place (amazing, as I am not usually a fan of their boy clothes), ride a bunch of rides, have ice cream and get me several pieces of maternity clothing.

I was totally amazed at the selection of plus sized maternity clothing. When I was pregnant with Erik that was NOTHING. Seriously. Not. One. Thing. I had two pairs of pants, two horrid denim dress things and a couple of shirts. I mostly wore over-sized regular clothing because I couldn’t find anything in brick and mortar stores or online. I couldn’t believe I couldn’t find stuff online, but at the time there really was nothing available.

This time the store had a whole (very small) plus sized section. Score! The gal working was really wonderful as well. Normally I hate talking to people about my clothing choices, but I guess it is such a niche market with so few customers that the customer service people have to really know their stuff and give a hard sell. I told her what I hated about the maternity jeans I was currently wearing and she found a different style that is about a thousand times more comfortable. I never would have tried them on, they were so funny looking. She also directed me to a few different shirts and sweaters that I never would have tried on without prompting. They just didn’t look my style, but she told me that they draped really well and looked good on. She wasn’t kidding. I need her to do all my shopping for me from now on.
Surely every stay at home mom needs a personal stylist, right? If only she could do my hair and make-up, too.

Since I never really dealt with maternity clothes in the past, I didn’t realize just how much fabric is involved in covering up the belly bump. My lord! I wasn’t sure if half the things were dresses or shirts. I need to wear the new shirts because my current shirts are too short and show off the fabulous “secret belly band,” but dang! They all come down to my knees and look stupid. I know they’ll be just right in a couple of months, but I’m not quite there yet.

It’s really nice to have tops that fit through the upper body, while still having room for the belly. With Erik, all my clothes were bagging out in the shoulders and looked really sloppy. I don’t care for the sloppy look.

I don’t know if the world is just more enlightened about plus sized pregnant ladies or if I’m just in a better place, but thus far I haven’t had one negative comment about my weight. With Erik, the doctors were constantly on my ass, telling me how fat I was and how it wasn’t ideal and how I would probably get diabetes and woe, woe, end of the world! This time I’ve seen three different doctors and not a single one of them has mentioned my weight. I mentioned it when the doctor couldn’t hear the baby’s heartbeat with the doppler at 12 weeks since I knew that was likely to happen, and the doctor just nodded and said not to worry.

It is such a relief to leave my appointments on a happy note, excited about the baby and hearing the heartbeat, instead of pissed of that I was once again treated like a stupid, fat, slob because of my weight. I had no idea how good things could be. I thought I just had to accept that treatment because doctors are assholes. It’s refreshing to be treated like a human being. I’m really hoping the rest of my appointments go so smoothly.

Of course, there have been several references to my age, but maybe those don’t hurt since I don’t feel old and I’ve known for years that 35 is the magic key to Advanced Maternal Age. I don’t feel like they are picking on me and I don’t feel like they are blaming me for being 35. It is just a reality that they have to draw the line in the sand somewhere and I am past that line.

Let’s go to a happy, happy, joy, joy dance for productive days and nice doctors! Except let’s do that dance in our sleep. I am exhausted. Instead of making Erik adjust to the time change, we’re having him go to bed an hour early. Which means he gets up an hour early. But I still go to bed at the same time. I need to get myself adjusted. He really does need to get up an hour early because it doesn’t work very well when he gets up at 9 am and I need to be at the gym by 9:30. You know it’s all about me. I never thought the day would come when my child would sleep so well, but the day is here and has been for about a year. I am not looking forward to the newborn days. Surely this new baby will learn to sleep before age 3.

Give me meat!

I’m feeling so much better! As of Saturday all I want is meat. I must need the iron since I’m not longer taking the prenatals. I’m like a wild animal, devouring everything in my path. Rawr!

I had the BEST prime rib french dip sandwich on Saturday. I tried to recreate it at home tonight, but failed. It was still decent since it was meat, but not nearly as good as my dream sandwich from Saturday.

Now that I’m feeling better, you all better watch out. All I’m going to talk about is food.

Or not. That would be pretty boring.

We had your standard Halloween night, with the addition of some drizzle. Oddly, it was almost hot outside so the drizzle didn’t rain on our parade too much. Due to H1N1 or the bad economy or both there were very few porch lights on. We did our neighborhood and a friend’s neighborhood. It was kind of sad, but the boys didn’t seem to notice. I guess I should post a picture, but I don’t really have any good ones. He was Swiper the fox again, so he basically looked exactly the same as last year, only when he sat down his pants came up to his knees. I was surprised they fit at all since they were 24 months, but they were ok when he was standing.

I think I’ve picked all the good stuff out of his candy basket, already. Dang!

Did any of you receive “candy sticks” in your baskets? I was sort of shocked. They are just candy cigarettes without the splotch of red dye at the end. I had no idea they still made that sort of thing. I’m so glad our society is trending further and further away from smoking. I remember “smoking” those candy cigs when I was a kid and feeling so cool.

Erik doesn’t even know what a cigarette is.

The other night we were out in the neighborhood and a guy was smoking on his front porch. Erik saw the lit up end of the thing and went over to ask the guy how he was holding a star. The poor guy was bombarded with questions, but was trying to be good and not say the word cigarette or explain what smoking was. Erik was pretty insistent and wanted to hold it so he could have a star too. It took a lot of cajoling and trickery on my part to get him out of there.

We didn’t have school today, but we did have glorious weather. Erik and I spent about three hours at the park, then came home and spent another hour with him on his scooter. Finally, a toy we made a good investment in. It’s the only birthday present we bought and I’m not sure what to get him for Christmas. He hasn’t mentioned anything, though I know he will want to open lots of presents. My thought is that it would be better to stick some money in his savings account than to spend it all on crap he won’t play with. But, I don’t want to deny him that Christmas frenzy of opening presents. If he actually played with his toys it would make it a lot easier to figure out.

ACK! I can’t believe it is time to start thinking of Christmas things already. I really need to get Erik’s haircut, buy him some sort of holiday outfit and get professional pictures taken. It has been a long time since we’ve had portraits done, so I think it will be worth it. I am planning on sending out wallet sized pictures to family members instead of doing photo cards for everyone this year. I have a whole stash of regular Christmas cards that I should use up. I can’t resist them when they are on clearance in the middle of April, but I haven’t used them in a few years so the stash is out of control.

I have also been worrying about Christmas gifts for the niece and nephews. I have the superman cape for the little guy since he didn’t get his last year. I think I am going to get the older kids each a magazine subscription. Any reccs for a 5 yo boy and 4 yo girl? As usual, I want something that they can’t destroy or lose, so a magazine will be perfect. When they are done reading it, it can be tossed. Bonus! They might actually learn something. I may get Erik a subscription as well because I think he would enjoy it.

I don’t know what Mike wants to do about his family. We arrive in Sweden on Dec 27, so the gift opening will already be done. I am not sure if they are planning on exchanging gifts with us or not. Btw, G’burg people! Mark your calendars! We will be in town Dec 28-29 and we’d love to get together at some point!

Ok, I’m hungry. I need MEAT! Gotta go find something to eat.

I think Mike is quite happy to get his wife back. I did a menu plan for the week and have been cooking. I’ve also had a few energy bursts and have done some cleaning. And, of course, now that I am feeling better the appetites of the second trimester are making themselves known. After a miserable 12 weeks, I think we are all relieved.