The Queen's Rambles

Mike is home today! Let’s celebrate! How? By sleeping.

Poor, poor Elsa. I think her fever must be caused by something other than teething. When I am able to get meds down her throat she does ok, but then it comes back again six hours later and she’s clingy and lethargic. If she is not better by tomorrow morning I’m calling the doctor. I know they’ll ask what her actual temp is. Ugh. I hate taking a baby’s temp. Those ear things sound like a great idea, but don’t give anything near an accurate reading. The doctor’s act like you’re stupid when you say you can just feel the fever, but duh. You CAN! Every single time I’ve thought my kid had a fever and I took a reading it really was a fever.

I have her meds at 2:30 am, which was a mistake (not really, she needed them). The howling and yowling resulted in a very awake baby, then twenty minutes later the meds resulted in a very happy baby and she was ready to party all night. We finally went back to bed at 6:30.

You can imagine how fun and happy I am today.

I may not be fun and happy, but I finally did a fun and happy thing that made Erik light up like a souped up Christmas tree. You know he loves math? You know he is constantly quizzing me with math problems. I should have taught him to write down big math problems a long time ago, but. . well. . I just haven’t. He’s usually quizzing me in the car or when I have Elsa or something. Today? I had no patience, so showed him how to write down the problem then add it up.

You’d think I’d just sat him in front of the gates to Disneyland and gave him an all-access pass.

He took right to it and now he is off adding away, leaving me out of it. I hope it is as easy to teach him to carry as it was to teach him to add it up, otherwise I may regret this.

What else?

Opinions!

I very, very stupidly signed up to bring in plain heart-shaped cookies for the Valentine’s party. Stupid! I hate making roll out cookies. I don’t have a heart shaped cookie cutter. Stupid! I don’t even have a good roll out cookie recipe. Why would I sign up?

I bought some heart shaped cupcake pans yesterday and am thinking I’ll bake little brownies in them and take those in. They will be sturdy enough to hold up to the kids frosting them after I remove them from the pan. Do you think that’s an ok plan? It didn’t say they had to be sugar cookies. Brownies are a type of cookie, right?

Why didn’t I sign up to bring the frosting?

Also, at karate the kids were handed a stack of “Valentines” to give to their friends. It’s basically an advertisement/coupon that says Happy Valentines and has a place for the kids to write To and From.

Erik wants to give them out to his friends. I find them tacky, esp because if someone signs up and uses our name we get $75. So do I ditch them and hope Erik forgets about them (about 50/50 chance of that) or go ahead and let him give them out in addition to more traditional Valentines that Erik is already planning on making (green hearts with light sabers. Very romantic). The coupon is nothing to sneeze at–a free month of classes which is about $100. Is it tacky as hell to send them along (my inclination) or nice to give people such a great coupon?

I didn’t know it was possible for a person to be this tired. You guys should see me right now. I look like some kind of horror show freak with bags the size of Texas under my eyes, clothes covered in goop, and a little purple bow halfway hanging out of my hair (courtesy of Erik. I should remove it). I smell like infant Advil. I have it all over. I need a shower.

Poor, poor Elsa. I guess she is teething. She started being extra clingy and whiny yesterday afternoon and ended up with a fever. I know they say teething causing fevers is just an old wives tale, but in my limited mothering experience it seems to be true. She’s feverish, drooling, chewing, and I can see a bit of a tooth popping through.

She cried and cried and CRIED yesterday. I had to hold her constantly. Luckily I have some baby wearing devices, but 25 pounds of baby is still heavy on my bad back.

Erik is a very sweet boy. He tries very hard to help.

It is NOT helpful to have a kid trying to cry louder than the baby. I guess he thinks it will distract her? I don’t know, but it’s a good thing I managed 20 minutes at the gym yesterday and a full lunch so I was less grouchy than usual. I gritted my teeth and tried hard to be nice to him even though I was ready to go nuts and start screaming. I was able to keep telling myself “I am a dignified and graceful mother. I want to create the kind of home I would have liked to live in as a child.”

I think the food piece is key. I have been so grouchy with our low fat diet. I don’t like the food (I just recieved two cookbooks so hopefully that will change soon) so I avoid eating it. Then I’m hungry and fill up on junk. Junk makes me grouchy and isn’t very filling. So I’m hungry and filled with sugar and even more grouchy.

Who knew healthy food could have such a negative impact?

I made a damn good tortilla soup yesterday. Seriously, people, this soup is so so so so good and so simple. I don’t really have a recipe so shouldn’t even mention it.

Back to being tired. Ugh. I’m tired. Full stop.

Mike has been in AZ since Monday. He got home at midnight last night, talked to me long enough to let me know the business trip hadn’t been as good as it should of been and he has a lot of damage control to do today. He was gone before we got up this morning and is not expecting to get home early. His original plan was to take Friday off, but now it looks like that’s not going to happen.

The only positive here is that Erik had carpool and lunch bunch today, which meant I have over 3 hours without him! I love him and love having him with me, but no when I am tired and grouchy. He’s just a happy go-lucky kid and doesn’t understand why mommy doesn’t want to hear his non-stop stream of chatter and noise.

Ok, I better go take a shower while I have the chance. I’ve been putting Elsa in the shower with me, which works, but which is also a major PITA. Maybe I’ll look less like an old, haggard drug addict and more like an old, nice mommy if I get a shower.