The Queen's Rambles

My biggest problem with summer camp is the drop-off and pick-up. Of course that’s my biggest problem. That’s my whole exposure to summer camp.

I just can’t believe how rude the other parents, counselors and older campers are. Or maybe they’re all blind? Is it possible to have a hundred blind people gather in one place (that’s not some kind of blind convention)?

The entrance to the community center has a set of double doors, a foyer, then another set of double doors. The doors have a handicap button and I have Erik well trained to push it so I can get the stroller in with ease. The first set of doors require a button push and the right door opens. The second set of doors always have the left door open. When I go in I always go through the right doors (having Erik push the button) unless no one is coming, then I’ll zag over to the already open left door.

Other people? UGH! They are incapable of going out the door that is closed. If my right door is open the people coming out zag over to come out my open door just because it’s open and apparently opening a door is SO FREAKING HARD they have to make the lady with the stroller stand there while they slowly zag out.

Yesterday we were trying to leave, so it was opposite. We walked out of the left door and then got stuck because a counselor was bringing in his 30 kids. Could they all just walk in the right doors? No. I got stuck in the foyer waiting for all thirty bleeping kids to zag through the open door because the counselor was too lazy to pull open the door that would have allowed traffic to flow freely.

At least I had a stroller. The lady behind me was carrying her baby in the bucket seat without a stroller. At least her baby was a lot smaller.

I know that I’m pretty spoiled if this is the biggest problem in my life. Still. . . I don’t understand!

I go to lots of places and always have people helping me out or at least staying out of my way. I don’t understand why this camp, a place full of MOTHERS, is so full of rude people who don’t know how to manage door traffic. Do I need to start a door traffic etiquette class?

In other news, my redneck neighbors left for their new life in Texas today. They were good neighbors and I’m sad to see them go. We haven’t had to mow our lawn since they moved in. The lady was obsessed with mowing and did at least 10 lawns around us.

I will be glad that they won’t be bringing all their redneck crap to us. She brought over a bunch of books for us since she knows we like to read. I can’t stand to touch old, used, nasty books. They are all smokers, so of course the books all reeked. She also brought over a bunch of dusty, broken RC toys for Erik. Now he is freaking out because he wants to play with them (duh!) but none of them have chargers so none of them work. Thanks a lot, lady. I know she thought she was doing a good, nice thing but all she did was make my life harder.

I wanted to take a picture of their trash yesterday. They had a gigantic black crucifix sticking out of their garbage can. It was just so. . . unexpected. Before I could get out my camera someone trash picked it.

I can’t believe we are going to Oregon in just 9 days! I am so not ready. I talked to my very drunk father last night and he managed to totally piss me off. Surprise, surprise. I shouldn’t take anything he says seriously. He’s drunk and stupid, but he said Elsa was weird looking in all the pictures we sent. How am I supposed to take that? Ok, so I know she is not really very photogenic, but people should tell me that. She really is quite cute in person, but she gets a weird look in pictures. The most ironic thing: in pictures, I think she looks almost exactly like my dad.

It also sounds like my sister is spiraling out of control again. I wish she would just sign away her parental rights or get her act together. Her poor kids are so confused. It breaks my heart to think of the life they are living but I know I can’t do anything about it. I doubt I could ever get custody unless my sister and her husband both died. What would I do with a first grader, kindergartner, preschooler, toddler and infant? Three of them would need serious counseling. I suppose Erik might also need counseling if he suddenly found himself sharing me with three more kids.

I don’t know what happened this weekend, but her facebook went crazy. Either her husband broke into her account and posted all her text messages to her boyfriend, or her boyfriend broke in and posted them or she was so drunk she thought she was posting messages to just her boyfriend and she was posting them as her status updates.

How can two sisters be so very different?

Guess I better go shower and pick the boy up from camp. We’re having a playdate here this afternoon. Vacuuming would probably be a good idea. I am such a terrible housekeeper. Ugh.

If you want to see some awesome pictures of our playdate with Bethany, you should click HERE. She’s a better photographer and she wasn’t packing around a baby on her front. Just in her belly.

I had so much planned for yesterday, but did I do any of it? No! Erik was pretty grouchy when we got back from camp since he didn’t eat his lunch, so I cancelled our activities and went on a cleaning/sewing spree. He’s been sleeping in our guest room ever since my mom left and I decided if he wants that as a room I need to clean up all my sewing junk. What little boy needs to sleep in a mountain of mommy-crafts? I still have a lot of work left to do, but at least I started. When I finish his room I’ll have to start on our little bedroom. It is currently an explosion of pink baby clothes of all different sizes. Sadly I think most of them are the wrong seasons/sizes. As fast as the little darling is growing, I’m cleaning it out pretty quickly.

Anyway, last week there was a sale on a super-popular kind of diaper (Blueberries), but the trick was that they didn’t come with inserts. I went ahead and bought a few and figured I could use some micro-terry towels to make my own inserts.

Then I had an inspiration!

My friend gave me a bunch of Zorb, which is a highly absorbant cotton or something. I have no idea. It looks like really thick quilt batting. I used it to make some awesome (though extremely ugly) cloth pads for myself and never had a single leak postpartum.

Lightening struck and I decided to sew a big piece of the Zorb into a microterry towel. I just had to cut my pieces down a little bit, then I folded the towel around the Zorb, sewed the top, bottom and then a few seams in the middle to quilt it a bit.

Can we get an AWESOME? I used one this morning and didn’t have a single leak after FIVE hours! (Why yes, Elsa is an excellent napper). I don’t know how well they will hold up over time, but I think I may have just found an easy, cheap nighttime insert. We’ve been using disposables at night because I see no reason to wake a sleeping baby. Don’t tell anyone, but our baby sleeps 8-10 hours a night with one or two dream feeds. Shhhhhhh! Don’t curse me! There is no way in h-e-double-hockey-sticks that I am going to wake her up just to change a diaper. I’m thinking I may sew a couple of the pieces of Zorb into one of the towels and see if that works for an overnight. It would be great to get rid of disposables entirely.

The sewing of the inserts was sit-com worthy since Erik decided he wanted to help me “make a quilt.” I did the lead sewing and he ran the pedal. Have you ever tried to sew something with a four year old laying on his belly on the floor, running the pedal? By the time we did the last insert we had our groove down pretty well, but the first two were terrible and everything kept getting messed up because he didn’t know to stop when my brain needed him to stop. Eventually he figured out to stop right when I started saying “ok” even before I said stop. Smart boy. Still, I wouldn’t recommend making an actual quilt with another person running the foot pedal.

Today we were supposed to host a MOMS Club splash party but only one family showed up. I was so glad! I feel so worn out and didn’t know why the heck I was wanting to host a party at my house. Instead we just had one of Erik’s best friends and they played in the pool while the other mom and I lounged in the basement, going out occasionally to yell at them if they got out of our line of sight.

Also, we had to fish a slug out of the water. Isn’t being a mother glamorous? Actually, that’s why I’m exhausted. I was going to put out the slip-n-slide but our neighbors are moving and had all the space taken up with their moving stuff*. I figured they wouldn’t want a bunch of kids spraying water all over their stuff. The pool was N-A-S-T-Y. I found six slugs under it, then spent a good half hour scrubbing the whole thing out so it was usable. Gag gag gag. I’m glad Elsa was sleeping so I had a chance to make things half-way presentable

The kids decided they wanted to put the little slide into the pool. I didn’t look it over very well when I put it in, but I guess it had a slug in it somehow. Come to my house and you’ll have a fancy, slug-bathing time!

*We’re in a townhouse. The only space long enough for the slip-n-slide is the community property between our houses.

It has been totally crazy around here. Sunday afternoon it was so hot I thought we were going to die. Suddenly it got really dark, the power went out, and we were hit with a whammy of a storm. I thought we were having a tornado.

Do you know what happens when you have a curious four year old who doesn’t think he really needs to listen to his mother in middle of a possible tornado? Mommy has to get a little cranky to get the kid away from the windows.

In the midst of it all Erik would not quit talking. He never quits talking, so that’s nothing new, but it is much more stressful to listen to constant yammering when you are worried a tree is going to come through the roof. He kept saying “I’m so scared I can’t talk!” Over and over and over and over again. I didn’t notice the not talking.

It was over pretty quickly, but I think there are still people without power and it happened two days ago. Yesterday there were still several intersections without power, but only a few of them were monitored by police. Do you really trust crazy Maryland drivers to handle darkened intersections? I don’t.

We showed up to Erik’s camp yesterday morning and found out they didn’t have power. No camp for the boy.

Luckily we had big plans! Bethany Actually and her daughter, Annnalie, were planning on coming over for lunch and then we were going to head to the splash park after we picked Erik up from camp. It worked out nicely that Erik was actually here. Happily he and Annalie got along really well and had a great time playing. We had a little lunch and I showed Bethany all my cloth diapers and sold her a few I loved (but are too small for my big girl–really, small diapers should last a lot longer than three months on a normal sized baby), and then we hit the splash park. Hopefully Bethany got some good pictures, but I am not so sure. The kids were not cooperative models and it was very wet. We both are yearning for a water proof camera so we can take amazing pictures like Brenda.

And now I better run and take a shower before baby wakes up. Then it’s off to pick up Erik, over to the bowling alley, back to the gym, cook dinner, go to bed. Whew! I might have to cancel the gym portion of the program, but Mike is working late so I need something to do with the kids. I was looking in the mirror today and wondered just how, exactly, I have ended up where I am. I try not to self-loathe or even talk about weight any more but some days it is very, very difficult.

I bought the bag. It was only $100 at Amazon and we had a $40 credit floating around, so why not? Mike and Erik took all our change to the coin counter a few months ago and got an Amazon credit. We were going to let Erik pick something out, but that never happened. Not like the boy is deprived anyway. So now the bag is mine, all mine. I loved my other diaper bag, but it is in pretty sorry shape.

In other news, I found a couple of gender neutral Christmas shirts that Erik wore when he was 15 months old. I was looking at them and I seriously doubt that Elsa will be able to wear them at Christmas. She’ll be 9 months old and they will be way too small. You should see this child’s chunky thighs. I’m going to dip her in batter and fry her up.

That sounded kind of terrible, didn’t it? Where do all the sayings about eating babies come from, anyway?

I finally had another ultrasound on Friday and have been paying the price all weekend. Nothing like sticking a 20 inch wand up your hooha and stirring all your innards around. I am so sorry for all you ladies that have to have regular internal sonograms for fertility reasons. I had no idea it would be so painful. I was almost crying and I thought it would never end, but she did finally say she found the ovary and could see the cyst. She wouldn’t tell me anything else.

I am really tired of this pain and am ready to have the whole thing taken care of, but I don’t want to go through surgery. Who ever does want to go through surgery, though? I guess we’ll see what the doctor wants to do.

I just found out my babysitter had to have an emergency cyst removal surgery. She had a dermoid cyst, but her’s was 10 cm. In addition to hair and skin, her’s had two teeth and a bone. She said her surgery was just like a c-section without a baby. I am hoping my cyst will be small enough for laproscopic surgery.

How is it I’ve never heard of a dermoid cyst before that night in the ER a couple of months ago and now all of a sudden Brain, Child has an essay about a woman who had one and my babysitter has one?

Speaking of my body. . . ugh. I’m so out of shape. I went to Latin Cardio today and just about died. Before I was pregnant I was thinking about dropping that class because it was so easy I didn’t even feel like I was getting a work out. Today I had to stop several times just to catch my breath. I couldn’t do the balance challenges either. I need to become a gym regular again, but so far I’m only making it about three times a week in my postpartum world.

Also, I need to stop eating ice cream and cake every day. And salty things. I’ve never been one for salty things, but since having Elsa I can’t get enough chips and fried chicken.

Ok, time for a shower. And maybe a nap. Only I am never taking a nap again. I took a nap yesterday and was wrecked the rest of the day. Elsa is a good sleeper, but last night she was trying to flip over in her sleep all night which was not conducive to my sleep. If she could just get her arm out of the way she’d be able to do it. Maybe next week she’ll be mobile. Nooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We had a MOMS Club potluck last night and I didn’t really want to go because of the heat. I should have listened to myself, but it was going to be so thinly populated that if we didn’t show there wouldn’t be a main dish.

Erik was aggravating me because I thought he was hungry and wouldn’t eat. He was just laying around whining.

Ummm.

The kid never lays around and whines. Why oh why would I not think that maybe something was wrong?

Eventually (maybe 30 minutes after we arrived) I grabbed him and put him on my lap to try to tease him out of his mood. The second I touched him I knew something was seriously wrong. We practically ran out of there and got the boy into a cool bath at home. His temp was 104! No wonder he was just laying around whining.

I was hoping it as just heat exhaustion since his temp went down pretty quickly once we got home, but I just checked it about an hour ago and it was back up to 100 so I guess he’s sick. He’s certainly not acting sick. He’s bouncing off the walls and we aren’t letting him outside since it’s supposed to be even hotter today. When it’s too hot to go to even consider going to the pool you know it’s a bad day. On days like this all I can think about are the slaves out in the fields back in the day–even if they weren’t slaves there was no such thing as A/C so there would but no escape from the heat (except a creek I guess). Just the thought makes me ill.

I was in such a hurry to get home last night that I didn’t shove my diaper bag all the way into the van. The door closed automatically, but then started squawking at me because it couldn’t close all the way. I do not recommend having an applesauce container and a half-rotten banana in a diaper bag pocket and then smashing it all with a van door. I love my diaper bag, but after that little experience I’m in the market for a new one.

I think I want this one: HERE but it is about triple what I want to pay for a diaper bag. I showed it to Mike and he just started laughing at me.

I guess that’s all I’ve got for now. Mike is up getting Elsa to sleep and Erik is in my face with a baby blanket and a Lego. He’s a ghost with a gun.

Erik’s camp is at the community center, which shares a parking lot with our outdoor public pool. On Monday I promised him that we could go to the pool one day after camp and I realized that today was it. I don’t think we have another free afternoon in the next two weeks.

Bad idea!

Very, very bad!

I’m used to HOA pools that usually have picnic tables with shade next to the pools, but this place just had a grassy area with huge umbrellas. They were far enough away from the pool that I wasn’t comfortable leaving Elsa in her stroller away from me or leaving Erik in the pool away from me (he had a floatie thing on).

I used my new wrap to hold Elsa and went in the pool (never would have done that with the Moby, but this other wrap is thin enough that it didn’t feel weighed down). Problem? Babies can’t have sunscreen until they are 6 months and I forgot her sun hat. Also, she was sleepy. Finally she fell asleep with her feet dangling in the water, but it was really uncomfortable for me since I couldn’t bend down and let the water take her weight–she’d drown!

Eventually I did put her in her stroller and sat her semi-close to the pool, but the place was packed and I was paranoid something would happen to her or Erik. They were both fine, of course, but you can never be too careful. Splitting my attention two ways just doesn’t feel safe at the pool. We won’t try that again unless I have another adult with me.

It was a really cool pool. They were closed for re-modelling last year and they came up with some really neat things. They have one section of pool with ropes across and big floating “lilly pads and logs”. The kids (or grown-ups) are supposed to balance on the pads and logs while holding onto the ropes and try to cross the pool. I would have loved to give it a try if I was about 25 years younger.

There were three camps there and one of the camps almost stole Erik. After checking on Elsa I found him sitting in a line with all the campers. I asked what he was doing and he pointed to a teenager and told me she told him he had to get out of the water and get ready to go. I’m glad I noticed! I don’t think he actually would have left with them, but who knows. There seems to be a never-ending parade of teenagers working at his current camp so I guess he is used to listening to them.

He is still loving camp. They have all the kids’ names up on a whiteboard and give them stars when they are good. He is very impressed with that idea and wants me to give him stars. I noticed today that only one other camper has more stars than he has so I guess he’s being a good boy.

I know some of you use stars but I’ve been hesitant to do so because I’ve had bad luck with long term reward systems in my teachery past. It all starts out great and the kids love getting rewards and I love having an easy behavior system, but after a few days/weeks/months the kids start expecting rewards and want a star for everything they do, even things that are not star worthy. I find it very difficult to wean away from this system so have not wanted to start it up with Erik unless it was absolutely necessary. I have friends with kids who potty trained around the same time Erik did and they still get M&Ms every time they use the toilet. I don’t like it when the system gets me by the tail. I’ll have to think about this further and see if I can give him stars without it becoming more trouble than it’s worth.

I have the baby monitor on and am doing everything I can to keep from jumping up and running up the stairs like a bat out of hell every time she fusses. I’m trying to give it five minutes before the bats start flying. Thus far she’s been alone for an hour and seems to be well and truly asleep after a few bouts of fussing. I’m amazed. And guilty. What if she neeeeeds me? What if Erik would have slept if I would have left him alone? But if she needs me I will go. Erik? Well. We tried sleep training. The boy could sustain a scream for hours. Elsa isn’t screaming, just fussing around a little. Big difference. I would have known the difference back then, right? Maybe not.

Other reason to feel guilt: I’m letting Erik play Indiana Jones while I type this. We should be doing something real, but it’s not worth the fight and I’m enjoying a little me-time.

Last reason to feel guilt: Erik doesn’t eat his lunch at camp. Today he ate one cookie and a bag of fruit snacks. Yesterday he ate a bag of fruit snacks and three pretzels. I pack a lot of different things that I know he likes and, of course, he chooses the nutritionally bankrupt items that are sent as a little treat, not a main meal. We had a long talk about putting good stuff into our bodies so maybe tomorrow will be better but I’m not holding my breath.

At least he’s totally into camp now. I knew he would be, but it’s hard to leave your kid when he doesn’t want to be left. He also picked a new pair of tennis shoes–the tackiest things you’ve ever seen. Not only does the heel light up, the whole blim-blamming toe lights up. Fire Sketchers! Whoo-hoo! *gag gag*

Oh well. I’m sure I didn’t have the best taste in the world when I was four. I walked around telling everyone I was a blue fairy.

I just got an e-mail from GoodMama. They are the ones that sent me a bunch of diapers with bad snaps and that weren’t waterproof. It has taken them forever to get back to me, but finally they e-mailed me a refund for some of the diapers and for my return postage. They are mailing the other repaired diapers back. Hopefully I can sell them, though I feel guilty when I try to sell things that I think are total crap. But some people swear by these diapers so I don’t know. Maybe I just got unlucky.

After all my swearing off of work-at-home moms for diapers, I went out and bought a gauze baby wrap on Etsy. I got wonderful service and a beautiful wrap from babyette.net. I thought I loved my Moby, but I didn’t even know what wrap love was. This new wrap is about a bajillion times lighter, which is great for summer. It isn’t stretchy, so it feels a lot more secure to me and the baby isn’t dragging down by my knees after an hour of wear. The price was great, too. Some of the brand name gauze wraps are upwards of $150! Holy crap! I know fabric is expensive, but I can’t justify that for six yards of fabric with serged edges.

Now we just have to figure out what we are going to do regarding baby transportation on our Oregon trip. She won’t be quite steady enough to sit in our dedicated airport umbrella stroller. I don’t think our snap & go will fold down correctly with the car seat attached to it and she is traveling as a lap infant so we won’t be able to bring the baby seat onto the plane. I love carrying her in the wrap for short amounts of time (an hour or two) but after that it starts bothering my back. It would be really good to have her wrapped up on my lap on the plane, though, since it would mean I have free hands. I guess we’ll just go with the wrap but it would be so nice to have a stroller. Our cheapie stroller is not good for travel, actually, because it is so cheap it flips over when you hang bags on it but I am not taking our good stroller. The cheapie has only been used at airports and after 8 trips or so it is beat all to hell. I don’t want my good stroller to get beaten up by the baggage guys.

Maybe I’ll make Mike bring along the front carrier so he can carry her sometimes too. Traveling with an infant is just oh-so-much fun /sarcasm.

And there is a real scream. Guess I’m done.

Finally! I get a picture with a smile! She is such a smiley baby, but when she sees the orange glowy light from the camera she gets perplexed and won’t smile.

I have about 20 minutes to post something deep and profound before I have to pick the boy up from camp. I have a feeling this is going to be less deep and profound and more “Camp! Yay!”

Except, of course, Erik was having a total revolt and didn’t want to go to camp. I know he’s having fun, but it sure did break my heart to send him off when he kept telling me he was mad at me and would never talk to me again.

Last night we went over the camp rules, as required by the camp. We even had to sign a paper saying we went over the rules. The rules were the problem. Or rather, The Rule: no sandals or crocs, tennis shoes only.

The child is obsessed with his Crocs. He has an old pair with the toes worn out sitting on his bookshelf because he won’t let me throw them away. His new pair also has the toes worn out (scootering is tough on Crocs) but I don’t even dare suggest a new pair.

He took the piece of paper with the rules and crossed out everything then asked how to spell “Erik can wear his Crocs.”

That made it really fun this morning. Lucky for him his tennis shoes didn’t fit, so I had to send him in his Crocs. Mom of the year, right here. He probably hasn’t worn his tennis shoes since April so I guess his feet have grown a bit. As soon as I pick him up we are headed to Kohl’s for a new pair of shoes and a pair of pajamas for PJ Day tomorrow.

In other news my ironfast rule of never, never, never asking a woman if she is pregnant paid off two days in a row. One I wasn’t so sure about and then she started talking about how she would love another baby so I knew she wasn’t pregnant. The other lady? I was 110% sure she was pregnant and it took all my will power not to say something and ask about the baby. I felt so guilty about not making a big deal over her baby when other people where making a big deal over my baby, but after she left I found out she wasn’t pregnant.

I have to start thinking about the MOMS Club newsletter again. That just keeps happening. . .like. . . every month. What have I gotten myself in to? Does anyone have any tips for getting ready to go back to school they’d like to share? Or items to add to my 31 Things in 31 Days list? (example: ride a roller coaster, make homemade ice pops, have a water fight).

Dang! I hear a baby crying so have to run.

If you haven’t heard by now, there was a very unexpected earthquake in our area at 5 am. Looking at the map, I can see the epicenter was across the street from my babysitter’s house. Meaning it was less than 1/4 of a mile from our house. We felt it, but we weren’t even sure if it was really an earthquake. I was feeding Elsa, felt the bed vibrate, and told Mike I thought we were having an earthquake. He told me to go back to sleep.

I’m hearing from local friends that a lot of them jumped out of bed and ran to their kids’ rooms. Or they got up because they couldn’t sleep. Or they ran around like maniacs.

Duh. I never even thought to go check on Erik. I am not good in an emergency. I did briefly think that I was glad we didn’t have anything hanging over our beds.

Other than that today has been non-eventful. We had a MOMS club brunch and Erik had swim class. Big excitment.

Erik no longer watches DVDs in the van. This is good except for one small problem–country songs are not necessarily appropriate for four year olds. One of the really popular songs out right now goes “Rain makes corn/corn makes whiskey/whiskey makes my baby feel a little frisky.” Erik has latched right onto that, but since he doesn’t have a baby he sings “whiskey makes my mother feel a little frisky.” And no, I have no idea why he is calling me his mother instead of his mommy.

Can you imagine if I drank a shot of whiskey? I suppose since most of you have never met me and know nothing about my alcohol consumption (there is none), you don’t know that a shot of whiskey would knock me out cold. There would be no friskiness.

In other non-related news, I HATE selling used crap. No wonder I give everything away on freecycle. I feel like I can’t just give these diapers away since the ones I want to get rid of are barely used. I hate bargaining. I’ve finally figured out that if I put a price a few dollars more than I really want I can bargain and not feel ripped off. But then there are the people who want something for nothing.

One lady has been e-mailing me all freakin’ day long about these two diapers. She basically wants them for nothing and keeps telling me I’m not giving her a chance. A chance for WHAT??? She has a chance. Just like anyone she could paypal me the amount of money I want and I would happily send her the diapers. She has tried everything to get these diapers from me, asking me if I would just sell the pockets and not the inserts, if I would double the amount of inserts, if I would send it the cheapest shipping (that was already my plan), if I would not do delivery confirmation (ummm. . . NO!). Ugh. I am thinking about putting my next batch of outgrown diapers on Craigslist so I don’t even have to deal with shipping. We shall see.

I guess baby needs me. She’s slept all day so I hope that doesn’t mean we are in for a long night!

I am keenly feeling my computer absence. I sat down to write an entry no less than three times yesterday and guess what happened? There was some little baby person that kept crying and wanting to suck on my boobie.

I’m so couth. Is that the opposite of uncouth?

And I wonder why my son walks around talking about boobies all the time. As in “Mommy, can I touch your boobie?” Don’t worry. The answer to that is always no, even when he says “Just the white part, I promise!”

He’s always been a boob man.

Elsa turned three months yesterday, which is why I am no longer having much me time. She’s awake a lot during the day now and won’t just sleep through Armageddon like she’d been doing. And believe me, every day is Armageddon in my house. Now she wants to sleep on top of me, which I’ve been discouraging. I don’t want to get into that trap, but when I look at her sweet, red eyes I know I have to facilitate a nap in what ever way I can.

Oddly enough, she takes her best nap when we are out and about in places with a constant roar of noise. She slept the whole time we were out on a mall excursion yesterday.

Oh. Dear. God.

The mall.

*shudder*

You know how little girls can go to Target and choose from a selection of gaudy, tacky, absolutely-beautiful-to-a-preschooler princess dress? Yeah. Boys can’t go to Target and choose from a collection of deadly, destructive, brown cosutmes. I guess they can at Halloween but I’m never that on top of it.

Erik is beyond obsessed with Indiana Jones and is already planning his Halloween costume. Mainly, it involves a whip. He thinks he’s going to be swinging from cliffs and grabbing girls and kissing them if he gets a whip. Little does he know he will get his whip and he will have it ONE DAY ONLY. I do not need a four year old with a six foot whip. He’ll either kill himself or I’ll kill him.

Anyway, I looked online and found a slightly expensive, super cheap looking Indiana Jones costume. I hate acetate. I decided that if I am going to go to the trouble to get him a costume that he is going to want to wear every day it’s going to be an actual, wearable every day kind of costume. I have an order in for two safari shirts that should arrive in a few days. We found a hat in Gymboree. The only thing we lacked (other than the whip) was a satchel.

How hard can it be to find a little brown bag that a little boy can carry around as his very own man-purse?

I suppose it wouldn’t have been that hard if I would have started at JCPenny’s, the store we entered in. I didn’t even think of their handbag department and started looking at children’s shops and handbag stores. Nice, plain handbags that would be fine were $100+. I love my son, but not that much. I thought we might be on to something in the $10 or less store, but it looked like there was a Bedazzler explosion in a Chinese sweatshop. Not exactly Indiana Jone’s style.

In the end we found the perfect $12 bag at Penny’s. I don’t know what a woman would ever do with it. It has a spot for sunglasses. If you had a very small cell phone you might be able to squeeze it in. Maybe a lipstick and a tampon? That would be all. There was no room for a wallet. It looks perfectly proportioned on Erik, don’t you agree?

And now Mike has left for work and the baby is crying. This is going to be a long ass day. I got almost no sleep. The baby finally went down at 12, then the fire alarm went off at 2 am. The good news? No doubt we will be able to hear it if there is ever a fire. The bad news? There was no fire (which is good news, actually) but we couldn’t get the alarm to stop unless we took it apart. If there is ever a fire at 2 am I don’t think we are going to be lucid enough to save ourselves. Anyway, after that I couldn’t sleep because I was convinced the house was about to burn down and we no longer had a fire alarm to tell us to get the hell out of the Dodge.