The Queen's Rambles

I’ve made a horrible, horrible discovery.

I’ve been on a huge Ceasar salad kick lately, ordering it any time we go to any resturant. I’ve even bought a kit and made it at home a few times.

Point 1: I’ve been watching a lot of competitive cooking shows lately.

Did you know Ceasar salad dressing is made out of pureed anchovies???????????

Do you know I have a major fish aversion? Do you know what I need to do? I need to go wash my mouth out with nuclear waste. I need to vomit out my last six month’s worth or meals. I need to go into a coma and not wake up until I can forget that I ever had a molecule of fish in my mouth.

The sad thing? I’m still trying to convince myself that the restaurants we eat at don’t make the dressing properly, so it’s still safe for me to eat.

Yes, it is “safe” for me to eat anyway. I don’t have allergies to fish, but the mental aversion makes me ill. What am I supposed to do about my Ceasar salad love?

Point 2: I have been spending way too much time outside since I refuse to let Erik go out there alone. It’s majorly cutting into my internet/Elsa-berry/cooking/reading/being human time. I take Elsa-berry out in her stroller, but she’s getting too big to just sit there. She wants out and I let her out and she eats the mulch, the rocks, the grass, the dead leaves, the . . . you get the story. Being outside is good for all of us, but the dear boy wants to be out there for hours at a time. He got used to being really independent and just having me swing by and check on him every fifteen minutes so he doesn’t get why he has to come in when I’m not out with him.

Point 3: I thought I won a major victory in my “just say no” campaign yesterday. My carpool friend asked if I wanted to do a sort of homemade kid camp swap thing this summer. Before Elsa came along that is something I would have said yes to without any hesitation at all. The carpool kid doesn’t listen to me and is much more . . .hmmmm. . . enthusiastic. . .than Erik. There’s no way I can handle him and Erik and Elsa for extended periods of time. And frankly, I don’t want Erik over at their house because the kid talks to his mother like she’s his slave and Erik doesn’t need to be hearing that. I heard the kid tell Erik that I’m the meanest mom in the world. Mwhahahaha. That’s right, and don’t you forget it! I will not be bossed by a five year old.

But then I said yes to something else. I agreed to run for president of our MOMS Club chapter. Ugh. In our club “running” is a euphemism for “being” since there’s no competition. I didn’t want to run. In fact, I was thinking of dropping out of the club altogether, but maybe this fall when Erik no longer has a weird school schedule, Elsa-berry and I will be able to partipate a little more. Not that we lack participation now, considering there are only three of us who ever show up to anything. I want to just drop out and e-mail my friends when we want to get together, but I also think MOMS Club is a great organization and really helps people. I know it saved my sanity more than once and has given me a great network of friends and acquaintances who I depend on. We are desperate for a president and there are a couple of people who might step up that would really irritate me, so I decided to just do it myself.

So I guess I still am a push-over. Since having Elsa I’ve given up a lot of my “just do it” attitude toward things and have been setting limits. I simply can’t do everything with two kids.

Point 4: I’m sure I had a point four, but I just lost all my brain cells trying to use the dark force to hold down a platform while my kid yelled at me that I wasn’t pushing Z correctly. How did I go from “my kid will NEVER have a video gaming system until he can pay for it himself” to this? I suppose I said a lot of things before he was born that haven’t panned out. I didn’t count on actually, you know, LOVING the kid and wanting to make him happy. Sounds so stupid when I put it that way, but I had no idea what mother-love was all about.

I don’t know what happened, but I guess I didn’t hit publish on this last week. I didn’t notice since the events of this post have caused me to have even less free time. I can no longer let Erik go outside on his own at all, even though it feels dumb for me to just stand around, trying to entertain Elsa while Erik plays with the nice kids. I thought we lived in a safe neighbhorhood and I guess it isn’t “unsafe” but Erik doesn’t need to be left alone with jerky 13 year olds.

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Ugh. So remember the girl who called Erik Hitler?

That wasn’t even half the story.

On the way home from school yesterday Erik piped up, “Mommy, you didn’t need to be so mad that that girl called me Hitler. All the big kids call me Hitler.”

Yes, I about had a seizure right then and there.

“They do? Like who?”

He named some names, and I found myself getting angrier and angrier. I thought some of those kids were good kids. I even bought stuff from one of them because I thought he was nice.

Mike came home early and took Erik to karate, so I started making phone calls. The parents were all mortified, outraged and appalled. There are several grounded middle schoolers in the neighborhood.

After the phone calls, the parents started stopping by to apologize in person. I was surprised by that and really appreciated it. They were all very supportive and thanked me for letting them know, telling me that as the kids get older it is imperative for neighbors to keep an eye out on things and report to the parents.

I certainly agree with that attitude.

The most appalling thing, of course, is that it was such big kids picking on a little five year old who didn’t even know he was being picked on. We had to have a little chat about Hitler, but I didn’t get too deep into it. I explained that he was a very bad man who only liked people with blonde hair and blue eyes.

One of my other neighbors is kind of weird. She has two boys, ages 7 and 4. She has been on my ass about sending Erik to school early (she did with her 7 year old and she is pissed that her 4 year old doesn’t meet the deadline for early testing). She is also always up in my grill about teaching Erik to read.

Dude.

It’s great if you want your kid to read early. If my kid expressed an interest I would foster that interest. Honestly, though? If he’s not interested I don’t give a flipping froufrou. Research shows it doesn’t really matter when they learn to read, as long as they learn by the time they are 8. I am sure Erik will learn by then. He already has some sight words and can sound out some simple words.

ANYWAY.

She told me I had to give Erik an explanation about why Hitler was bad and suggested I show him Valkyrie and Inglorious Bastards. That’s what she’s shown her sons.

Wha????

I know I can be pretty overprotective, but no way in hell am I showing my five year old a rated R or PG-13 movie. I don’t even let him watch Cartoon Network.

So that was weird.

In other news, Elsa had her spring pictures taken. It was a nightmare, as usual.

I am really irked at the photographer because she didn’t listen to me or use any of the props I wanted to use. I told her that Elsa doesn’t like strangers in her face or loud noises, so she got right in Elsa’s face and made weird shrieking noises, causing Elsa to freak out. I posted the pics on FB and need to get them on Flickr. You can see she is pretty red in the face in a lot of the pictures, poor baby. The lady just didn’t want to take any time with us and didn’t even want me to pick out pictures. I had a $50 gift certificate and she suggested I order a CD. I never get the CD, but with a coupon and the gift certificate I ended up buying it b/c it was obvious the photographer was done with us.

And now I’m being attacked by two over-zealous children so I suppose this entry is done.