The Queen's Rambles

Let’s hope I can get a post in today. Elsa is such a quiet baby that she doesn’t cry when she wakes up. I listen to the baby monitor and scratching noises I run up the stairs to see if she’s awake. Running up two flights of stairs when you have hurt-y lungs is. . .well. . . hurt-y.

I thought I was over my cold, but then it took up residence in my lungs. I’m crackling when I breathe, which makes for lovely, long nights. What I wouldn’t give for a full dose of Nyquil and a bed all to myself.

I am feeling somewhat better today. I am looking around the house and feeling a strange sort of energy that sounds like “clean me, clean me.” The house is a disaster. Total and complete. Mike was sick this weekend and he usually does a lot of the more complicated cleaning, so things are out of hand. If I was a good little wifey I suppose I would ignore my own needs for blogging therapy and get my ass up the stairs and find the vacuum.

Like that’s really going to happen.

We started Elsa on oatmeal cereal the other day. I thought it would be an Erik first solid situation–let her sample the spoon, take pictures of the funny face, d-o-n-e.

I should have known better. When has this girl ever done anything like her brother? She eagerly ate every bite I gave her and I gave her a lot of bites. This sounds like a stupid thing to say, but it got really boring after awhile. Not that feeding your child should be like going to a circus. Most of parenthood is really boring, punctuated by moments of searing joy.

I don’t know what to do about Erik and his teacher. She sent home the most baffling paper the other day. I swear I am not a helicopter parent who thinks my child can do no wrong, but I was confused.

Why was I confused? Because this is not a terrible scan. The pictures are really that blurry. How is any four year old supposed to be able to look at the shoe and visually match which person is wearing the shoe? This is like that old argument about SAT scores not being valid for minority populations because the SAT assumes they know things about the cultural that they may not know. This worksheet assumes students know things about weird shoes. I don’t think Erik has been exposed to most of those ideas. The worksheet looks like something the teacher (much older than me) did when she was a kid and she’s been making mimeographed copies of it ever sense.

I don’t get it.

I also don’t get her reluctance to give Erik a time out. We had to have a big talk because he puts his hands in people’s faces and likes to hug and touch people. I agree 100%. I know he does that and at home he gets an automatic time out–no warning or counting. The teacher said she told him over 12 times to stop, but she didn’t want to give him a time out because he might get upset. All I can say is WTF? You teach preschool, lady. Kids are going to get upset. He can’t be allowed to act like that. I gave her full permission to give him a time out and told her to ignore his whining and stomping. She said she only had to give him one time out and his behavior improved significantly. Gee, ya think?

Oh well. I didn’t care for his teacher at the beginning of the year last year either and I ended up liking her. I am hearing a lot of grumbling at school about this teacher and I know other parents have talked to the director. She has a lot of expectations for kids that are just four years old.

I guess Elsa is going to be Princess Leia for Halloween. Boo! I wanted her to be a pretty, sparkly princess but we were looking at Halloween costumes and saw the Princess Leia one. Erik is obsessed. I suppose Halloween is for children so I should let him have his way. Ah, the sacrifices a mommy must make.

I think I’m going to ask my mom to buy Erik a Darth Vader costume for his birthday. I know he already has an Indiana Jones costume, but I knew when I bought it that there was the very serious risk that he’d no longer be obsessed when Halloween came around. If my mom buys it for him it will solve two problems. A) He’ll be getting a present that he really, really loves. B) I won’t feel like I’m wasting my money.

Win, win all around.

And I hear the finger nail scratching. Guess I better run.

Elsa and I are feeling a little better today, so there’s that. I thought I was going to just curl up in a ball and die yesterday. Not literally of course. But I felt pretty bad.

Until last week’s dead grandma situation I had not let the neighbor kids into my house. I knew the second they came in it would be all over. They have no boundaries at all (because of a really shitty home life) and I know that if something when wrong their mom would not hesitate to sue me (if she could come up with the funds).

Now that they know we have a fridge with water and ice in the door they are totally obsessed. They won’t quit knocking on my door, asking for water and ice. Even when I ask them nicely. Even when I ask them not so nicely.

If I leave my door unlocked, which I often do when Erik is outside because I’m not going to lock my kid out, they just walk on in and make themselves at home. Yesterday I cleared out Erik’s lunch bag so there was a whole pile of snacks that I bought for the plane ride that Erik refused to touch.

They started scarfing them down without even asking. I didn’t begrudge them the food and I would be ok with feeding them if they were really hungry (I know they do get food at home), but it was irritating that they didn’t even ask.

Then they just kept knocking and knocking and Elsa was trying to sleep and I was cranky and zombie like and they kept knocking and then the other neighborhood kids got in the act and I had twenty (ok, so only 7) kids hanging on my porch, knocking every other minute because they wanted ice.

There’s a fine line between being a nice person and helping traumatized children and being a door mat.

I don’t do well with kindness when I’m sick and my baby is sick.

Bah! And now my baby is crying so I guess I just get to whine and run.

I’ve been thinking and thinking about what to put in the birthday party favor bags. I can’t stand plastic crap. Can. Not. Stand. I know kids love to look through it, but my kid never actually plays with any of it. Such a horrible waste.

Bethany suggested something useable with a mylar balloon attached. The mylar balloon idea is excellent. I don’t know a kid who doesn’t long for their very own balloon. Erik’s first word was “boon.”

I thought about ordering an assortment of Halloween books from Scholastic, but Erik doesn’t get excited about books. I thought about giving out Star Wars t-shirts (I have an excellent coupon) but maybe other kids don’t get excited about clothing.

It’s slightly out of my budget, but I think I’m going with those Mr. Potato Head pumpkin decorating kits. Something else might strike my fancy on the Halloween junk aisle, but that is my current plan unless someone tells me it is a horrible idea (and gives me a reason why).

The party is three weeks out and I just have to order the pizza, cake and buy the favors. Otherwise I have everything. I overbought on plates and such, but saved receipts so can return what we don’t use if I don’t open them. Whoo-hoo!

You guys will all be happy to know that I am no longer feeling guilty and blaming myself for not calling 911. I was in such shock to hear the news that it was overwhelming, but after reading your words and having time to reflect I’ve come to the conclusion you are absolutely right. There was nothing more I could have done. I doubt anyone would have banged down the door since there was really no evidence anyone was in there, in distress. Instead the kids would have been taken by CPS and it would have been really scary. I did the best I could with the information given. The kids got a full belly and some fun times. They love playing with Erik. The little girl and Erik are total best friends. The mom told me that she says Erik is her best, best friend because he plays with her, shares with her and doesn’t fight on her.

The mom thanked me profusely for taking care of them that day, so that was good. You just never know what people are going to say.

Anyway, we are all sick here. I have a sore throat and phlegmmy lungs. Elsa has a snotty nose. Mike. Well, who knows. He got home at 3 am and feels like shit. Erik seems to be ok, so he’s going to school this afternoon, thank goodness. The teacher hasn’t said anything else about him and he hasn’t said he’s going to kick her, so maybe it will be ok. Our homework for the week was to make sure the kids can count to ten. Are there really four year olds who can’t count to ten? Our bedtime ritual now consists of me counting out loud to 100. Have you ever heard of such a boring bedtime ritual? Boring is good at bed time, I suppose.

Oh dear. Elsa is awake. I better go get her so Mike can sleep some more.

Remember last week when my neighbor kids showed up at my door and I didn’t call 911 b/c they are from the drug house and I figured this was just another example of their neglect?

Yeah.

The grandma was dead inside the house.

I feel like utter shit that I didn’t call 911.

The mom called about an hour after the kids showed up and Mike walked them home. She told Mike that the grandma had been home all day. Apparently at that point she just thought she was taking a nap, but she was actually dead.

I want to throw up. I know, logically, that my actions made sense at the time. If it had been any other household I would have called 911 immediately, under the assumption something was wrong. Neighbors not calling 911 is what you get when you show a pattern of irresponsibility.

But still. No excuse. I should have made the call.

I think she had been dead quite awhile and getting the paramedics there wouldn’t have made a difference, but I guess I’ll never know.

I just can’t believe it.

I need a shower to feel human but I need to post before I burst. I guess post wins, and hopefully I’ll still have time to shower later.

Where to start?

We had quite an afternoon yesterday. We were going to meet some friends at the park, but it started raining about a half hour before our meeting time so I invited everyone over to my house. My house was not company ready, but they were good friends and the place wasn’t a total sty, so who cares?

I had the door propped open because the weather was beautiful, despite the rain, when I suddenly had two extra kids pop in the door.

I told them they had to go outside and play, but they explained that they’d been knocking on their door five thousand times and no one would answer. Have you heard me talk about the drug house before? The kids belong there. If it had been any other kid I would have called 911 immediately because it would have been clear that something was wrong.

This situation? It’s tricky. I wanted to call 911, but I didn’t want the kids to feel like they were in trouble for seeking help. If they were not taken away from their parents I didn’t want them to get in trouble for seeking help. I don’t want to be a person they take advantage of all the time, but I do want to be a safe place for them if they need it.

Does that even make sense?

I went down and banged on the door. No one was there.

I left a note with our phone number and brought them home and fed them. Thankfully my company was very understanding and they took over Elsa care and big kid care (the two strays brought the total number of kids up to 7).

I knew the kids would be hungry, but holy cow! I gave them each some meatballs and bread and jelly and it was GONE in ten seconds flat. They’d been standing out in the rain for an hour, trying to figure out what to do. They knocked on the cops door, but he wasn’t home. I really, really wish he had been home! Then I wouldn’t have had to be involved or have any reason to question my actions. I think I did the right thing, but I still wonder if it would have been better to call 911.

In the end, they were with us for an hour before the mom called us. Apparently the grandma had been home the whole time, but she was taking a nap. The mom was pretty mad at the grandma, as she should have been, so I hope she wasn’t mad at the kids. Of course you and I would never blame our children for any wrong doing in a situation like that, but we are normal people. I have a pretty good insight into this ugly world of drugs and poverty thanks to my sister. She blames her kids for her dirty house. Yes, of course our children dirty up our house, but she goes beyond the initial “my house is dirty because I have kids” into “my children won’t clean my house, so why should I?”

So there was that.

Then there was preschool.

Erik loves it, but I am not in love with his teacher. She is supposed to be fabulous, but I’m not so sure. She’s very intense and expects a lot out of them, which is good, but I think she may be just a wee bit too intense for Erik.

Yesterday she told me (in front of the other parents!) that Erik doesn’t know his right from left, doesn’t know how to write his name, doesn’t know how to sequence a story and doesn’t know how to hold a pencil. On the plus side, he speaks in complete sentences.

Is any of that true?

He can’t hold a pencil properly. I am well aware of that.

The rest?

No. Not true. Just completely not true. I know I’m his mommy and I am biased, but I do think I am fairly clear sighted when it comes to his strengths and weaknesses.

She’s known him for seven days and she suddenly knows him better than me? I don’t think so.

He has two major problems: he often chooses not to pay attention if he doesn’t find you interesting and he is very literal. She doesn’t say “show me your left hand” she says “show me lefty loosey” and he doesn’t get that. He doesn’t know why his friend Lucy would be at his school. He and I often go round and round because I’ll speak in metaphors or idioms and he doesn’t understand or want to understand.

Sequencing stories? Same thing. He doesn’t care for fiction (my soul is weeping) and doesn’t really pay attention. If he doesn’t care about something, he’s not going to cooperate.

The teacher is very good at playing games with the kids, but they are games he isn’t interested in. She’s the sergeant but he doesn’t care. He keeps telling me “I’m a boy, not a soldier.”

I hope she figures it out sooner rather than later. I don’t want to speak to her about it because it is clear that she thinks she knows more than the parents. It’s preschool. I don’t really care at the moment as long as Erik is happy. But if it continues I’ll have to start to care.

I think I have Erik’s birthday party figured out. I’m not a party planner. At all. I’m frugal and parties and frugality don’t mix–at least not the kind of parties kids/parents expect.

We have the karate place for free and I don’t have to do any entertainment, so I’m feeling like I don’t have to be so frugal. We can invite as many kids as we want without extra payment to the place.

I will be a good hostess. I will have pizza even though the party is in middle of the afternoon. I will have soda even though I always forget that people drink soda (I only drink water). I won’t cheap out on the goody bags even though I personally hate a bunch of cheap plastic flotsam. The kids are old enough that they enjoy the thrill of getting a bag o’crap.

My mantra. I won’t cheap out.

There’s just one little glitch in my plan, but I think I have it figured out. Erik would love love love love to invite all his neighborhood friends. I counted and there are 25 kids that I should invite if I were to do such a thing.

This isn’t so much about being cheap, as about having a party that’s fun for a Erik’s friends and that doesn’t drive me crazy. There are age gaps, personality conflicts, irresponsible parents. . . it just wouldn’t work out. I finally convinced Erik that he’s going to have two parties. Whoo-hoo! Two!

I’ll buy a few dozen cupcakes and maybe a pinata and take it all out to the little park on his birthday. That counts as a party, right?

I thought we were in the clear, but tonight one of the moms wanted my e-mail address so she could invite us to her kid’s Chuck E. Cheese party this weekend. Thing is? I can’t stand this kid. He’s a total brat and really mean to Erik. If he wasn’t in the picture I would probably try to figure out a way to invite the other kids (though that is way too many kids, but I would hope most of them wouldn’t show up). Last year Erik worshiped the ground the kid walks on and insisted on inviting him. All he cared about was the “return gift” aka goody bag and was really pissed that the goody bag was just a bag full of pinata candy.

We won’t be going to his birthday party. We have other things going on that day and I just don’t wanna. I’ve heard that Chuck E. Cheese is horrible and everyone gets sick when they go there. I’m sure Erik will learn of its existence eventually, but it doesn’t have to be this weekend.

So what do you think? Good plan? Age appropriate friends from various places at the official party and a big neighborhood cupcake party? Erik really, really wants to invite his best little neighborhood friend, but she’s from the drug house and there are at least four kids in the house that run wild. I’m afraid we just can’t do it. She is such a sweet little girl. I want to ask them if I can have her, but I guess that’s not exactly appropriate.

In other news, Erik is still excited about school but he’s less excited about his teacher. She says the students are all soldiers and she’s the sergeant. I guess they play this all day and Erik hates it. He told me “I’m going to tell her I don’t like that game and tell her and tell her and tell her and then I’m going to kick her.”

Oh yes, there was a conversation about how it is ok to use your words and tell the teacher things, but you never, ever kick your teacher or any body else. I tried to explain that it was just a game and it was supposed to be fun, but he was having none of that. He was going to tell her, gosh darn it!

He is also assigned “homework.” He’s supposed to be cutting things and coloring things at home, practicing proper form. I remember loving to color when I was a kid, but it’s such a joyless exercise for him. She wants them to practice since holding the crayon properly and staying inside the lines prepares them for real writing, but it is like pulling teeth. He does it, but we have to make deals and take turns and . . . just. . . blah. The worst? He chooses a single color and colors the whole picture with that single crayon. No wonder there’s no joy! He refuses to change things up, though, so what can you do?

I’m just glad he’s not crying when we arrive. Today was a madhouse. It’s the second week and I guess the shine of going to school has worn off for a lot of the kids. There was much crying, whining, and screaming in the hall this morning. I was very happy I wasn’t a teacher and could run out the door as fast as possible.

I posted a few pictures on Flickr if you are a stalker. Click through to see them. They’re also on FB. I know you are living to see pics of my kids.

I had to post this one. Do you know who he is?

Star Wars fans can surely tell that’s Bobba Fett you’re looking at.

We are creative in our costume execution in these parts. Don’t you know a jet pack when you see one?

And of course I have to put up a picture of my sweet girl. She’s looking more and more like her brother. I had her in a blue sleeper last night and it was a big disconcerting. I kept having flashbacks to Erik’s baby hood (only without the screaming).

We’ve been having a pretty rough weekend. I’ve been Miss Cranky Pants, mainly due to disturbed sleep. I guess the old chestnut “sleep begets sleep” is really true. We tried many, many things to get Erik to sleep but nothing worked. All the simple, easy advice works with Elsa.

Problem?

Preschool.

Don’t get me wrong. I love preschool. But poor Elsa is all messed up. She no longer sleeps in the car or in her car seat and all the in and out and up and down is messing up her sleep. No sleep during the day means no sleep during the night. I don’t get it, but there you have it. No sleep begets no sleep.

I even had to take her out of the bed a couple of different times this week. Yes, I know that’s what you do with babies, but I was spoiled. She hasn’t been awake during the night since she was six weeks old (she starts grunting and I feed her, but she never wakes up all the way).

Ah, the joys of baby sleep talk.

At least we are finally getting somewhere with Erik’s night time routine. Mike and I are both very empathetic parents and both remember the feeling of lying in bed alone, being very afraid. We’ve not wanted that for Erik, thus one of us always lays with him until he goes to sleep.

No more!

We’ve been slowly weaning him off us and I think our work is complete. Now we lay there 15 minutes or so and then leave. It’s some kind of miracle. He doesn’t even seem traumatized.

How about something completely different?

I had a weird experience at Safeway the other night and I’m still feeling guilty.

We were in a big hurry and just needed to pick up a couple of items before karate class.

As we walked in I noticed a little boy, maybe 8 or 9, climbing up on the soup table and getting some crackers. Weird, I suppose, but nothing worth commenting on.

We rushed through the aisles and ended up in the produce section. The boy was sprawled out on the floor, cracker wrappers spread around, reading a magazine. Ok. Definitely weird.

My son, the social butterfly, went over to say hello. This happens all the time and we get various reactions–a friendly hello, running away and hiding, the reactions run the gamut.

This kid didn’t even look up. Erik got even closer and shouted at him, but again the kid didn’t even look up. At this point I noticed he was making some repetitive hand motions and an alarm bell went off. I started looking for a parent, but there wasn’t one in sight.

Erik kept asking me what was wrong with the boy and asking if he was lost. When your four year old notices something’s off, you know it’s really off.

I kept him in my line of sight as we got in line. When we finally got up to the checker, I told him what was going on. The woman in line behind me chimed in that she agreed with my assessment. The checker pissed me off royally because he refused to do anything. He just looked at me like I was stupid. I asked him to call a manager or security to go check on the boy, but he didn’t.

As I said, I was in a big hurry and didn’t really have time to be rushing around. I suppose that is no excuse, but what can I say? I felt guilty for walking out of the store, but I notified the staff. I should have went to customer service and talked to them, but there was a long line. I know that logically there had to be at least one staffer member keeping an eye on the boy. Don’t all those stores have plain clothes security roaming around? The guy probably didn’t call anyone because it was probably already being handled. Still. I feel guilty. I’ve googled and am not coming up with any missing children in the area. It was just so weird. I couldn’t help but think about that case in New York a few months ago about the autistic boy who got lost on the subway system. It took days before someone took an interest in him and figured out how to help him. I don’t want to be the type of person who leaves a child in trouble, but how much help can you give when the child won’t respond to you? You don’t want to cause a scene and get in trouble for harassing and innocent kid who has a parent on another aisle.

Ok, we have a wakey baby I must attend to. Night night!

I had an awesome “get into shape” plan. Too bad my baby is thwarting me. My plan? Simple. Go for a walk around one of the local lakes every day after dropping Erik off at school. My baby’s plan? Refuse to sleep in her stroller, but desperately need sleep.

So we’re home and the baby is sleeping happily and I am wondering when going to the gym became something I don’t do. I used to be so faithful, but I haven’t been in four weeks. I need to just get off my butt and go. My back has been bothering me a lot and I’m scared to do BodyPump. The thought of going the elliptical when I could be out doing real walking in such nice weather turns me off.

So here I sit.

Maybe we’ll go on a walk after I pick Erik up from school, but that is not quite the same as going on a brisk walk. He can keep up with me, no problem, but he’s a four year old boy. He’s quite distracted by little things like geese, ducks, falling acorns, feathers, grass. . .

We ended up having a great day yesterday. I was going to take Bethany’s suggestion and cancel the pizza party, turning it into a park playdate instead. I checked our RSVP list, though, and things had changed. It ended up just being us and one of my new-ish friends. We’ve been spending a lot of time together this summer and it’s been fabulous. Erik and her son get along really well and she’s really low-key and fun. She has a very successful Etsy shop and I got to see some of her work tools the other day. So fun!

Anyway, after they left I called my other friend and they came over for a bit. We were in the middle of doing a cooking experiment when they showed up, so the boys had fun cooking. I saw a recipe for s’mores bars, but then lost the magazine it was in. I decided to make my own by making a graham cracker crust, a brownie, and spooning on some marshmallow cream ice cream topping (a lot thinner than jet-puffed marshmallow cream).

Boy, howdy, that was some seriously sweet stuff! I don’t know what happened, but it was so sweet that I couldn’t even eat it.

What else is going on? Elsa is sitting up by herself! She continues to be the sweetest baby I’ve ever seen. Even when she’s mad, she’s sweet. I’ve never seen a baby who doesn’t cry. Seriously, she might cry a total of five minutes a day and that’s a bad day. I shouldn’t even be typing this. I’m going to jinx myself, but it is so bizarre that I have to mention it. I have never once had the impulse to call this baby an asshole. It’s not Erik’s fault that he was an unhappy baby. I don’t know if it was my anxiety, his personality, or a combination of the two, but I just can’t get over how different these babies are from each other.

I’m hungry so I guess I better wrap this up. I need to pick Erik up in fifteen minutes. Where did my two hours go? Thank fred for preschool! There are 8 boys and 2 girls in Erik’s class. One of the boys has been crying hysterically every single day. I am so glad that’s not Erik. I feel terrible for the mother. It must be so hard for her to leave him, but I don’t get it. I remember when I was in kindergarten and there was a little girl who cried and cried and CRIED and I kept asking my mom “What’s she crying about?” Even as an adult I still don’t get it. I mean, yes, I have more sympathy than I did when I was a kid, but I just wonder what is going through their little minds that is getting them so upset. I guess I was always so focused on getting out of my house (yes, even as a kindergartner) that homesickness was never an option.

It’s the start of the school year and I’m bleepin’ exhausted! It’s really hard to give a little baby the right conditions for napping when you have to drive all over the country every couple of hours. She’s no longer a little newborn who can nap anywhere.

Erik had a most excellent first day of class. Two of his buddies are in his class and they were thrilled to see each other. His new teacher is excellent and enthusiastic–good for him, exhausting for me. She has us go into the room when we drop off and pick up because she has things to tell us and assignments to give us. That’s wonderful, of course, but not so easy with a big ol’ baby.

His school is on the corner of a road and a big corn field wraps around it. They’re harvesting the corn this week so he had a brilliant idea. He asked the teacher if he could have some corn so he could make his grandpa some whiskey.

I’m sure he made an impression. Not sure if it was a good one or not (good–corn makes whiskey–science! Not so good–four year old talking about whiskey).

Drat those country music songs.

His first karate class started about an hour after his school ended, so I guess that’s where the exhaustion comes in. It was a hilarious class and he did pretty well. I think I’m going to like this activity a lot better than swimming.

I’ll have to post pictures later.

I’m also exhausted because I stupidly planned a little pizza party playdate here tomorrow. I’m cleaning like a fool, but nothing ever gets any better. We didn’t do a lot of general house cleaning this weekend because we spent hours and hours cleaning out our dishwasher.

Did you know that if you turn your hot water heater below 140F you are creating the perfect conditions for black mold in your dishwasher? Did you know that parents are recommended to turn the water down to 120F so they don’t scald their babies?

We were bad parents with Erik and never bothered, but when we had our plumbing crisis a couple of months ago I thought about it and went ahead and turned it down. We’ve been suffering from cold, low pressure showers ever since. I had no idea that it was also causing all the mold growth in our dishwasher.

We’ve tried all sorts of things to clear it up, but I finally read that the only solution is turning your heater back up, pulling the whole thing apart and scrubbing it all with bleach water.

Oh the nooks!

Oh the crannies!

So yeah. My house is a disaster area even though we worked our asses off this weekend.

One of the ladies who says she’ll be here is really particular about germs and cleaning and all that. I kind of want to just stick my head in the oven and forget it.

Why is that a saying? Is it because of the natural gas in the oven?

OK, I better wrap this up. I smell my diaper soup. Why yes, I do live an exciting life. I’m boiling all my diaper inserts to get rid of the wet dog smell. I wish I could boil the pockets as well, but I think that would be a terrible idea. I may have to give in and bleach them. What’s the deal with pockets and bleach? It destroys them upon contact? Or I can get away with doing it once in a while?

I am really tired of Mike’s new job. I used to think he was late if he arrived after 5:30. Now I think he’s early if he’s home before 7–yet another reason I’m exhausted.