The Queen's Rambles

Never thought I’d be so happy to see some rain! As I was driving down the road, I could see great big billows of yellow in the air. The pollen is almost like a sand storm. Crazy! I guess that’s the price we pay for so much greenery around here. We have rain tonight, so I’m hoping it helps cleanse the air. I know this is totally boring, but it’s all I’m thinking about with my clogged up throat and Erik’s red eyes.

At least Erik was back to his happy, friendly self today. I really think his problem was returning to preschool and being tired out. I just hope he is ok tomorrow after preschool. Even when he does his insane temper tantrums during his 1/2 year transitions he is never like he was yesterday. I was stunned and repulsed by his behavior. I was quite glad to have my sweet boy back today.

Also! I no longer have the son of Spock living with me! His last haircut was pretty terrible and I could hardly stand it. The poor child seriously looked like a blond version of Mr. Spock. So dorky. I know I’m vain, but I hate having a dorky looking kid.

Tonight, we were finally able to talk him into getting a buzz cut for the summer. My mom told him it would make him swim faster, so he was all for it. He looks much better.

What else is going on?

Not much. Had my last ultrasound. The tech couldn’t figure out why the doctor ordered so many ultrasounds. I’m a cynic. I think she ordered them because my insurance was paying for them. Everything was 100% normal with nary a concern. I’m glad, of course, because I want a healthy baby. I was hoping they’d decide I needed a c-section tomorrow morning, but no such luck. I am so ready to be done. Tuesday can’t get here fast enough.

Here’s something kind of funny. We went to a MOMS Club thing this morning, so I had to explain to Erik where we were going. We know about five little Isabelles so I thought I’d be smart and tell him we were going to “Isabelle and Christian’s” house so he wouldn’t get excited and think we were going to his little preschool girlfriend’s house.

Duh!

I totally forgot that his little preschool girlfriend has a brother at the preschool as well. His name? Christian. What are the chances?

Luckily he wasn’t too upset. Probably because there was a huge trampoline in the backyard so he didn’t have time to cry over his girlfriend, he had some jumping to do. The poor kid got his pants covered in yellow pollen, which turned out to be a problem because the little Isabelle wanted him to take his pants off. He thought that would be cool and was offering to show her his penis. Luckily we stopped them before that happened, but the joys of motherhood know no bounds, I suppose.

I don’t know what happened to my son today, but he was suddenly a total jerk face. I was ready to disown the child. He was fine in the morning, so I’m thinking maybe his first day back at school was too much for him to handle. Or maybe his allergies were acting up even more. I don’t know. Allergies sort of make sense. We walked out of the house this morning and discovered our van was covered in yellow pollen. Even I was having problems breathing and I’m not really an outdoor allergy person.

We went over to our neighbor’s house for a little bit and I finally had to take Erik home because he kept telling the little girl that he liked the dog better than he liked her. Thankfully she didn’t really get it, but I was just about ready to beat him upside the head for being so rude.

When we got home he started yelling at me, yelling at his grandma, then he punched me in the face when I wouldn’t give him ice cream.

What the hell happened to my kid? Could someone please send back my nice boy? I don’t like assholes of any age.

Here’s hoping tomorrow will be a better day for the lad. Too many changes, too much going on, I don’t know. We’re in for a wild ride the next few months, aren’t we?

In other news, I’m allergic to eye wash. I’ve always been allergic to most things like that–Visine, Murine, all that fancy stuff. When Erik’s eye problems started I went and found an eye wash that seemed to be just saline. I guess I didn’t read it well enough.

My mom has been tricking him into using it by letting him put it in her eyes, then she puts it on him in various spots before putting a couple of drops in his eyes. I thought I’d play the same game with him today, not even thinking about my sensitivities.

Somehow my eyes survived, but a lot dripped down my face. Ten minutes after the fact my face looked like someone had splashed acid on it. The burning! OUCH!

Thankfully the redness and swelling seems to be ok now. Maybe the kid isn’t so crazy for not wanting the eye drops.

It’s hard to write about my zany adventures when I sit on my chair all day, barely moving. I did go to the doctor, but that wasn’t too zany. I let her check me even though I thought it would be futile. As expected I had no dilation or effacement. It is very unlikely the baby will try to make a debut appearance before the scheduled c-s next Tuesday. That’s good and bad. Good because I don’t want to go through any labor at all and bad because I am d-o-n-e being pregnant. I may feed my kid organic food, use cloth diapers, and co-sleep, but I fail miserably at crunchiness. Not that I give a rat’s behind. What good to labels do, other than provide a basis for competition? Cut this baby out and don’t bother me with contractions, I say!

Poor Mike seems to be coming down with a cold. If my mom wasn’t here I would kick him into the guest bed. We do not need sickness in our house next week! Maybe I’ll kick him into Erik’s bed and kick Erik into grandma’s bed. Then I’d get the king sized bed to myself. I’m liking this plan.

Poor, poor Erik. My mom and I promised him he could sleep in grandma’s bed tonight. We’ve been resisting just because we don’t think it would be good for him to get used to that, but at this point I’ve realized it is going to be a pretty bad adjustment when she leaves anyway so why not let him be happy while she’s here?

Mike didn’t get the memo.

I did my bedtime part of reading him a story, giving him a hug and kiss and leaving him for his daddy. Then daddy came along and made him leave Grandma’s room and go to his own room. We heard him crying and screaming, but didn’t go up to investigate. I was quite surprised when Mike came down and said he made him go back to his own bed. No wonder he was crying. I guess we need to communicate better from now on.

We went grocery shopping today, which was an adventure. My mom and I have slightly different cooking styles. I’ve never seen anyone buy so many canned goods in one go. She says she’s never seen anyone buy so many fresh fruits and vegetables in one go. She ate her dinner tonight (veggie heavy Thai peanut chicken), but I can’t say if she liked it. I know we are going to be having quite an adjustment when she takes over cooking after I have the baby. She asked today if we were going to have meatloaf. Uhhhh. What? How would you cook such a thing? WHY would you cook such a thing? Ewwwwwww.

Erik has a new imaginary horse that won’t leave us alone. She’s black and white with a purple dress. Her name is Rubella. I have no idea were he came up with that, but since he tells every single person we meet about Rubella, I’ve been learning to handle the looks of “wtf??” I swear we don’t have German measles. He had quite the conversation with a guy in line at the library about the horse. I’m ready to put the horse out to pasture, but apparently I can’t since the horse will bite me if I go near her. Not such a nice Rubella.

Thank goodness school resumes tomorrow! We couldn’t even take Erik outside to play today because the wind was blowing really badly and his eyes turned stop light red whenever we went outside. It was a beautiful day (high of 88!), so it was kind of disappointing. I’m not liking the idea of keeping him cooped up in the house all summer, but I guess it is necessary at least until some of the budding trees stop budding.

Monday again, and somehow we are still on spring break. Will it never end?

Actually, it wasn’t bad at all. My mom is here, and that makes life a lot easier. That’s going to be a familiar refrain for the next month. Of course she is driving me slightly crazy since it is hard to suddenly be living with another person who does things completely differently than you. She’s very helpful, but takes up a lot of room in my kitchen. Teaching her to recycle is going to be a month long process as well. We rarely have a full trash bag on trash day. Heck, we rarely have a half-full trash bag on trash day (we have two trash days a week). The majority of our waste goes in the recycling bin. It bothers me when something gets thrown in the trash when it could have been recycled. I guess it is just a generational difference.

My mom bought Erik a bubble gun and a bunch of bubble wands, so we went outside and played. Our neighbor girl came out and joined us and suddenly we had company all afternoon. It was nice! None of the grown-ups had to entertain the children–they were quite happy entertaining each other.

At one point they totally disappeared and we finally found them in Erik’s little play tunnel in the basement gorging themselves on Easter candy. I hope the other mom wasn’t mad! She didn’t seem to be. She’s also pregnant, due April 16th. She’s just as tired as I am.

Not much to report otherwise. Erik is all about his grandma. He wants to live with her and wants nothing to do with me. My feelings might be hurt if I wasn’t so tired.

Tomorrow I need to write out a bunch of “taking care of Erik” information. Feed him, clean him, give him medicine. Sounds easy, but I guess I should write things down like “Five fish sticks=55 sec in microwave.” How would you know if it is something you never cooked before? And then there’s the Zyrtec, which I already tried to explain but which is apparently too confusing to understand.

The store didn’t have normal bottles of Zyrtec. I’ve checked several times in the past week, but they continue to be out of stock. Instead, I had to buy stupid pre-dosed “spoons” that are for ages 6 and older. Our doctor said to give him 1/2 teaspoon per day and the spoons come with 1 teaspoon. So when I get out a spoon, I squirt half of the dosage into a little medicine measuring cup and save it for the next day, then give him the spoon with the other half. Simple, right? What a pain in the frickin’ butt. Why does anyone need all these plastic pre-dosed spoons? What’s so hard about a bottle and a measuring cup/spoon? Seriously, even if I wasn’t having to do all this squirting out of exact dosages I would be annoyed. That’s just so much plastic waste that is completely unnecessary.

All these little details of life are second nature, but trying to explain them to someone else takes more energy than I have right now. I never really feel like we have a schedule or structure to our days, but looking at it from the perspective of telling someone else what we do? Yeah. We’re pretty structured and scheduled. Not that I think it’s a bad thing. In fact, I know children thrive on schedule and structure so I’m pleased to figure out I’ve been doing it “right” all along without realizing it.

I’m sitting here with swollen feet and braxton-hicks contractions. I think I better go to bed and hope these stupid braxton-hicks go away. They don’t exactly hurt, but they are annoying when I’m in a sitting position. I keep thinking maybe my water will break and I can go have a c-section tonight. You wouldn’t hear me complain. Unless something happens at one of my appointments this week or I go into labor, I have 8 days to go!

I hope you all had a great Easter. We did! My mom’s flight was delayed yesterday, but it didn’t end up too bad. She got in at 9 pm instead of 3 pm, but at least she made it.

Erik remembers her, of course, but we were all surprised when he became a total Grandma’s boy instantaneously. He wouldn’t even sit on my lap tonight to watch his show. He had a big tantrum when we made him go to bed in his own bed instead of Grandma’s bed. I have a feeling Grandma is going to wake-up with a naked butt in her bed. She’ll be thrilled. She is not comfortable with Erik’s level of nudity. Most people aren’t, but after his bath we let him go free since he doesn’t even own any pajamas.

My mom made us a ham dinner and I made an Easter cake. Mom and Erik took turns hiding eggs all day. We dyed eggs, but they were all broken pretty quickly. Erik tried to fix them with tape and glue, but soon discovered that mommy was right–you can’t fix a broken egg. I’m beginning to see the wisdom of plastic eggs.

Here’s a couple cute things for your viewing pleasure:

Baby Elsa’s quilt! I feel kind of guilty because it’s from a kit, so it was really quick and easy. I am having some kind of creative crisis so a kit is about all I’m capable of at the moment. It’s a perfect spring quilt for a spring baby, though. The fabrics are from the Spring Fever line by Me and My Sister’s Designs.

Annnnnnnnnd. . . .

Are those not the cutest little booties, bib and snail toy you’ve ever seen? Thank you Clumsy_Chord! I love them and am so touched you would make my daughter such sweet gifts! I love how the fabric has snails and you made a toy snail. Such a cute thematic idea!

I was being a bit creative and used the back of Elsa’s quilt as the background.

Grrrrr! I’m cranky again! Big surprise!

We went to the playground today and saw a ton of people we knew. One lady brought her old man cousin along. The first thing he asked me: “Are you having twins?”

I’ve heard of people getting comments like that before, but it’s never happened to me. I never understood just how upsetting it could be. I wanted to punch him in the face. For the record, never never never never ask a pregnant woman if she’s having twins. Stupid men.

Then we ran into the most obnoxious woman I’ve ever met. Seriously. I have dealt with her on many occasions and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her act like a normal, nice, reasonable adult. I think the last time I wrote about her I was telling you about her grabbing her kid and whaling on him at the playground after threatening to leave for an hour.

Anyway, her son is a total brat. He comes by it honestly. His mother thinks she owns the world, so why wouldn’t her son think the same thing?

Erik climbed up in the handicap swing and was twisting himself around since I refused to push him. I refuse to move these days unless it is 100% necessary.

Erik has a good memory and remembered that the last time he met this kid, the kid was really mean and kept hitting him with a stick. The kid came up and tried to push Erik. Erik asked him to stop. He kept asking him to stop. He turned around in his seat and started swatting at him when the kid wouldn’t leave him alone. He probably shouldn’t have done that, but at some point you’d think the kid would get the message and leave. I probably should have intervened at that point, but I thought the kid would take the hint.

Suddenly I hear “Look! Carrie is sitting over on her ass while her son HITS MY KID!” Then she started screaming at Erik to stop. He wasn’t hitting him. He was swatting at him to get him away. Whatever.

Then the kid walked around and started slapping Erik in the face.

You can bet Mama Bear forgot about round ligament pains, cervix pains, and my waddle. She came over too and started saying to her son “Oh you poor thing, let’s go somewhere away from the mean boy. He’s a mean, mean boy who won’t play with you.” I can’t even remember what I said, but it wasn’t very nice.

Erik was really confused since in his mind he’d done nothing wrong. He’d asked the kid to leave him alone. The kid refused. He’d defended himself then the kid started whaling on him.

Not that he should have ever hit him, but he does find it confusing when he asks someone to stop doing something and they refuse. We make a big deal out of respecting people’s wishes to be left alone. If we are tickling him or something and he says “stop” we stop immediately, even if he really wants us to keep doing it. I think it is very, very important to teach that sort of respect about our bodies and our wishes.

Then the bitch went back over to her picnic table and I kept hearing “Carrie blah blah blah Carrie blah blah blah.” I don’t know what she was saying, but I was pissed. I decided I better just sit down and stew in my own juices because getting into a confrontation wouldn’t do me or the baby any good. She was actually with two people I know from MOMS Club so no telling what they were saying. I did hear her say that she is moving out of town next Friday so I hope I never run into her again. As I said on FB, I wanted to kick her in the face. I doubt I could have mustered up the energy to kick her in the shin, but it still kind of makes me upset to my stomach when I think about the whole deal. I hope typing it all out makes me feel better because I could really use some sleep tonight.

It’s not that I think Erik is an angel. I know he isn’t. Just in this particular case I don’t think he was over the top wrong. About a half hour before this incident happened I had to charge across the playground like an angry rhinoceros, yelling at the child because he took a toy away from a toddler. I really hate feeling like an angry rhinoceros.

In other news, the Zyrtec might already be working. His eyes were looking a lot better today. It might also be because we spent a lot less time outside the past two days. I am trying to keep him in for his eyes and I just don’t have the energy to take him out, so I guess it works out. I hate to miss out on these beautiful spring days, though!

At least my mom will be here tomorrow so she can start taking him outside. Life is going to be so much easier once she gets here. I’m so glad I have a helpful mom. On my birth boards, I read all these people complaining about their mothers and trying to keep their mothers away from their homes when they have their babies. I’m very lucky to have her and very lucky she is able to stay a month.

I just hope this baby stays in until tomorrow evening! I’ve had a few walloping contractions this evening. Nothing steady, but enough to take my breath away and start to concern me a tiny bit. I never had anything like that with Erik.

*Fringe was excellent tonight. I don’t know if any of you watch or care, but it made me happy. I’ll say no more for fear of spoilers.

*My ultrasound appointment wasn’t totally terrible. I was really grumpy about it because the office is such a pain in the ass, but after taking over 20 minutes to pull my chart and take my co-pay, I went right into the u/s room. I don’t know why this office takes so long. The other office always has that stuff ready when you walk in the door.

Anyway, everything was fine, as I thought it would be. I was sort of worried because I know the one predictable thing about birthing babies is that you can’t make a plan. I did not want to have the baby today due to child care concerns, the date (sorry, but I think April Fool’s Day would be a bad birthday), and lack of my mommy. I’ll be happy to have her any time after my mom arrives, but not before. Mom will be here Saturday afternoon.

I guess the doctor was most concerned about my fluid levels and thought they must be really low. Why? I don’t know. My understanding (but I could be wrong) is that a normal level is between 8-25 and it’s a bad situation if it dips down to 4. Mine was at 15, so I think I’m good to go. I have no idea what those numbers mean, but it must be good to be in the middle, right?

*Even though it was a beautiful day outside and we should have spent the day at the park, I took Erik to the movie instead. I wanted him out of the pollen and he’s been begging for “the dragon movie!!!!” all week. Thank you all so much for your input! The majority of you thought it would be fine and it was. I kept thinking he would be scared, and there were a couple of parts were he climbed on my lap, but he was fine. He told me “Mom, that wasn’t scary at all. I don’t know what you were talking about.”

Really, the main problem was all the talky-talky parts. Granted, there aren’t many of them, but towards the beginning there was quite a bit of dialogue and he was bored. About five minutes into the movie he wanted to know when it would be over. Once the more exciting parts started he was hooked. I really couldn’t care less if he liked the movie or not. It was more about getting out of the house and doing something a little different.

*With the realization this baby could come today, I quilted her quilt! I even have the binding half on. It is just a tiny little thing made for a kit, but it is very springy for a spring baby. I’ve discovered the best way for me to bind a quilt and the best tool to use. It is not very “proper” but I’m not the type who will ever enter my quilt in a judged quilt show so who cares? I can’t stand hand sewing the binding on the back, so my alternate method will just have to work. For the quilters out there, the tool I love is one of those stiletto things. I’ve had one for ages and never tried it because I didn’t understand how it was supposed to make things easier. I had a little problem tucking a corner in, so pulled it out and was AMAZED at how effective it was! It is so much easier to manipulate the fabric with a thin stick of metal than with my big, fat fingers. I’ve been missing out! Pictures tomorrow!