The Queen's Rambles

My throat was getting so bad that drinking water made me cry. I have had a fever for four days. I just wasn’t getting better and my lymph nodes were the size of baseballs. I did something completely out of character and went to the urgent care. I figured they wouldn’t do anything for me, but I was going to start crying until they gave me something.

Luckily I didn’t have to cry.

Actually I did cry, but not because they made me cry. I was just so run down and in pain and emotional that I couldn’t quit. She took one look at my throat and didn’t even bother to do the strep swab. She said I have one of the worst cases of strep throat she’s seen in years. No wonder even drinking water feels like sucking down red hot ground glass. I am so hungry that I bought some slimfast. The little tiny gritty pieces were like swallowing needle spiked rocks.

Anyway, I have a z-pack and I am hoping it will work fast. It has already given me digestive woes. I have yogurt as a preemptive strike against a yeast infection. We’ll see what happens.

My dad is now on a feeding tube and morphine. I think they are taking him off the drugs later today. Death in modern times is so difficult. They could keep him alive a long time with the drugs, but he will never be able to go home when he is off them. He can’t even breath without his oxygen mask. They expected him to be ready to go sooner, but they underestimated his strength. Imagine how long he would have lived if he wasn’t a raging alcoholic?

My sister is trying really hard to be helpful, but she can’t focus. You can’t trust her for five seconds. She was really ragging on me to let her take Erik to her house, but that just was not going to happen and I told her exactly why: she drives like a maniac, has a drug dealer living in her garage and everyone over there smokes pot because they have medical cards. Erik is not gong over there. He was pissed at me because she kept making excuses.

He is so ready to go home. His two older cousins are both sick, thus they don’t want to play. Grandma isn’t around at all. Mike flew home today. It is just one big ball of boring over here.

I really should have taken Ellen’s suggestion and bought earplugs. Bud, the giant lab, has been fine. He was just excited the first night we were here and couldn’t decide who to sleep with. However, my mother is insane. She got up at 2:30 this morning and started washing dishes and cooking a bunch of food. I guess that’s how she deals with stress.

Ok, I gotta go see if I can eat some pudding or something. I’m starving. I haven’t had anything but a glass of slimfast today. Do I know how to party, or what?

As usual, a trip to Oregon turns into oh so much fun. I came down with some horrible flu thing yesterday and my throat is totally raw. I spent most of the day curled up in bed. I am not allowed up at the hospital when I am sick, so it just seems stupid for me to be here. I know it’s not stupid and I’m glad we came, but this sickness is making me cranky.

The hanging thing in the back of my throat is so swollen that I had a hard time breathing last night. We are at 4,500 feet, so the air here is really thin. If you live here you don’t really notice because your body makes up for the lack of oxygen in the air. When you haven’t lived here for almost 20 years your body no longer has the extra iron to hold on to the little bit of oxygen. Thus I spent all night last night almost going to sleep, then waking up gasping for air. Maybe I need to send Mike out to buy some house plants to stick around my bed. They produce oxygen, right?

In other news, my sister is still crazy. Was there any doubt? I about slapped her yesterday. Erik came out of the room with high water pants on because that’s all he has. I am not buying him a new pants wardrobe now when he won’t be wearing long pants until October. She looks at him and goes “Why’d your mom dress you so funny? Your pants are way too short!”

He can be really sensitive about things like that. Why would you say that to anyone? I don’t care if the person is 5, 15 or 55. You don’t make rude comments about a person’s appearance.

Let’s say we had words. I didn’t scream or anything, but she knew I was unhappy.

Her excuse is that she says shit like that to her kids all the time and they don’t care. And that’s the sad thing. She does say awful stuff to her kids all the time, making fun of their hair and clothes and stuff. Then she wonders why they are super shy and don’t want anyone to look at them. She has a total disconnect.

Wouldn’t you just love to be raised by a mother who constantly insulted your looks? And she never, ever says please or thank you. She just barks out orders. I told her if she wants to raise polite children she needs to start setting an example. When she was barking orders at me I would treat her like Erik and make her ask me again in a nice way.

Long time readers may remember that we have a half-sister we’ve never met. My dad abandoned her mother when she was pregnant (they were both 16) and has never made any attempt to contact her. My mom did send her our contact info a few years back and she never responded. I don’t blame her at all.

My sister knows one of her friends and wants to go over to her house and tell her about dad. Geeeeeeee. . . let’s think about the many ways that could go wrong. She started crying and saying this girl was our family and we have to go there and take care of her. WTF??? Take care of her? She’s a woman in her mid-40s. I don’t think she needs a drug addled bi-polar unwanted half-sibling showing up on her doorstep. My sister refuses to understand why this lady wouldn’t want to talk to us. “But we’re her family! We didn’t do anything to her!”

I don’t see it that way at all. If she wanted to meet us I wouldn’t be opposed to the idea, but we have no right to go and try to insert ourselves in middle of her life. She has a father who raised her and I assume she has siblings. She doesn’t need to get involved in all our dysfunction.

I’m so glad I can vent here. It makes it a lot easier not to beat her with a stick when we are in a room togther.

Now I have to go take dogfood out of Elsa’s mouth. She won’t eat real food, but that dog food is pretty tasty stuff I guess.

After a long, long, LONG day yesterday (delayed flights all over the place), we made it home and fell into bed. My mom took out most of the carpeting a few years ago and her big lab has long toenails. All night long that dog was walking all over the place, clicking and clacking, moaning, howling, sticking his nose in my face.

It was not a pleasant sleeping experience.

I am so tired today, but at least I am not wrangling children. Instead, I’m watching my father die.

Doesn’t that sound melodramatic? I think I’m in denial. I mean, I know it’s happening and I have been tearing up, but I can’t imagine it really, really happening.

He woke up when we brought the kids up and seemed happy to see them. He wanted to touch Elsa, so I helped him do that even though she was terrified. I’m glad they let her in because they don’t normally allow babies (or even children) in the ICU but since my dad isn’t contagious they let her in for a few mintues. They don’t want babies leaving the place with pneumonia.

My mom and I have been here all day. I would think it is boring, but there’s only been about 20 minutes of time without visitors. He has a lot of friends who are popping out of the woodwork.

At this point strong meds are keeping him alive and can probably keep him alive for awhile longer. Eventually my mom and her doctor will have to decide if they are going to remove the meds or what. My dad has already said he doesn’t want to be on a ventilator.

It’s a tough thing, as I know some of you know. I am glad I don’t have to make decisions about it. I don’t know what I’ll do when it is is my mother. I do love my dad in the way that a distant daughter loves a father who never did much for her. My mom is my mommy. Hopefully nothing bad will happen to her for many, many more years because I certainly won’t be this calm, cool and collected.

I am so glad Mike was able to come with me. He has the kids and gets to be Mr. Mom today. I am wondering how his grocery shopping excursion went. He can probably do a better job at momming the kids than me because he has a lot more patience.

I would like to talk my mom into going home for the night tonight, but I don’t think she’ll do it. She has been keeping up basically a 24/7 vigil at his side. I can’t believe how gentle and loving she’s being. I didn’t even think she liked him.

I am going to try really hard not to explode on my sister. I know she is sad and hurting. I am just pissed because my travel kit is mostly empty. Last time I was here I bought a box, filled it with several toiletries so I wouldn’t have to pack as much, and wrote “Carrie’s Travel Kit. DO NOT TOUCH!” on the lid.

If you came across that in your parent’s cupboard would you open it and take out all the contents? Would you use the bleep-bleepin’ TOOTHBRUSHES?

I didn’t pack much in the way of toiletries because I knew that was there, but she took everything out but baby shampoo and a thermometer. If we weren’t in the situation we are in I would be in her face, totally going off on her. I know she does a lot of stupid shit and chooses a horrible life style, but that just crossed some invisble line in my head. It was just so blatantly rude and selfish. Just thinking about it is getting me riled up. I’m going to try not to fight with her, but you know in a time of high emotions like this a fight will happen and that will come out.

Ok, I better go. My mom’s neighbor is up here and I’m going to try to bum a ride home with her. I need some rest.

My sister called at 1:30 in the morning to tell me that my dad was doing really poorly and not expected to make it. I feel bad for her. I really do. I just wish she would have listened to my mom and not called me at that hour. There is absolutely nothing I can do from here. I guess in the old days I could have stayed awake and prayed all night, but I think the net result would be the same no matter how strong my faith was. An unsaved alcoholic with a body shutting down is not likely to get a miracle.

That’s basically what’s happening. His whole system is shutting down. No kidney function, no liver function. Heart at 30%. Lungs full of crud. I talked to my mom this morning and they didn’t think he would make it through the day.

I called a few minutes ago and my my was having lunch. My dad’s friend was there, trying to convert him to Christianity. I can understand that. If you really believe in it, you really believe in it. Of course you don’t want your friends or family to roast in hell for all eternity.

My dad has some kind of breathing machine on that made it hard for him to talk, but I tried talking anyway. I have no idea what to say. He is scared, as anyone would be, but what can I say? I just don’t know. It was awkward. I tried talking about the kids, because I thought that would interest him the most.

Mike was at some big space meeting thing where he had to wear a suit and listen to the governor give a speech. I have been unable to plan since I really need to coordinate with him. He can take some time off, but not two weeks. I think we will all go as a family and just stay a shorter amount of time. I want to be there for my mom and my sister, but I just can’t do the travel with the two kids alone. My back is so bad it just isn’t possible.

My sister was really angry at me for not hopping the first plane out and didn’t want to hear my excuses. Her solution was to have a friend come out with me to help with the kids. Because we all have friends who can drop their lives and be our personal nannies for a couple of weeks? I don’t know about you, but as a *cringe*late*cringe*thirty-something I don’t have friends that can drop everything and fly out on a plane for a couple of weeks. My friends have small children or careers. They aren’t going to be using their vacation time to take care of me and my kids. I guess when all your friends are drug dealers or party animals on welfare, they have more flexibility in their schedule.

Facebook is going to be helpful, I think. I already had two leads on babysitters in Klamath so I won’t have to depend on my sister’s drug addled people to take care of Erik during the funeral. I have friends with vast connections so the Mormon church. Those Mormon kids are generally pretty good people that you can trust with a 5 year old. If that falls through, I have another more distant friend getting reccs from a teacher at a Christian school. I guess some people take their kids to funerals, but I’m not really comfortable doing that. I suppose Elsa will have to go because she has such stranger anxiety, but Erik will be much better off some place else.

And I guess I better go now because I smell something rank, which tells me life goes on. Diapers need a’changin’.

My dad is in the hospital and we are not sure what’s going on. My sister called yesterday, full on hysterical, telling me he was going to die and I needed to get out there RIGHT NOW.

I talked to my mom a little later and she said not to come just yet. He is in very poor health, but he’s always in very poor health. Will this be the time he finally gives up the ghost or will he pull through and be at home getting drunk by the time I arrive? It’s hard to know. She is going to corner the doctor and ask him if I should come out or not. I want him to see Elsa one last time (and Erik, of course) if this is really it, but I do not want to travel alone with the kids if it is not it. Just the thought of trying to contain Elsa on that trip makes me want to cry.

My sister is freaking out, of course. She always freaks out. She wants everyone to pray that he will come to know the Lord. I suppose that is an admirable goal, but I prayed so hard for so many years. Not only did I engage in hard core praying, I devoted birthday wishes and every other sort of magical thinking to the wish that he would be saved and not be a total drunkard. I get tired of her drama.

I do feel bad for her, though. She’s obviously mentally unstable. Mental illness runs in my dad’s family and she is clearly suffering.

She has also been dealing with a lot of death. Her sister-in-law died last week. She was a mirror twin and in a wheel chair in very poor health for years and years because her organs were in backwards and didn’t work correctly.

Last month her step-sons’ older half-brother lost his baby to SIDS. Her husband was basically the only father the boy had ever known. Somehow the boy had made a good life for himself with a nice wife, good job, good kids. In other words, he was a normal, contributing member of society. And then he lost his baby. I can only imagine the grief he and his family are going through. It was tough on everyone and somehow my sister inserted herself right in the middle of it all.

And now my dad.

I will know more tomorrow, I hope. I’m trying not to think about it. Of course it will hurt when he goes, but at the moment I am pretty shut down. I can only think of all the terrible things he’s done to his family. He never cared about us at all, or at least not in a way that made any sense. He paid the bills. That’s about the only positive thing that can be said about him.

The last few years he has become sentimental and has tried to show love, but it is sort of hard for me to accept. Too little, too late, you know?

*We are in need of a new dining room table. Ours is ugly, chipped and gross. Our chairs have built in padding that is completely shot. We could probably do something to fix them if we knew what we were doing, but they are still crappy particle board with chips all over. Mike said we could get a nice, new table if I didn’t spend any money in May.

So I went and bought a new camera.

Guess I didn’t want that new table as badly as I thought I did.

You can’t have kids and live without a camera, though. I had a small budget, but then I decided to go to Ritz and talk to actual human beings instead of ordering online. I was talked into a camera a little above my budget, a protection plan, a fancy card and suddenly my budget was about triple what I intended to pay.

The pay off?

Beautiful pictures. I’m so happy to finally have a camera that takes nice pictures. No more blurry photo books! It’s a Sony Cybershot in case anyone cares.

*I have a head cold. I thought I was having an allergic reaction to something in the air, but after 24 hours of constant snotting, I’m pretty sure it’s just a cold. I guess that’s better than allergies since it will go away, but I don’t know how I’m going to sleep tonight. I did take a Sudafed since I don’t care if my milk dries up so I’m hoping that will help.

*I don’t care if my milk dries up. Sob! I nursed Erik till he was almost 3. Elsa is only 13 months, but she’s a biter and she has other issues. She severely iron deficient and needs to learn to eat real food, so I’ve only been nursing her at night and before naps. She’s finally starting to eat more food, though I still can’t get a fruit to cross her lips no matter the form.

*I’m supposed to be giving her 4 ml of iron supplements a day (260 mg elemental iron). We haven’t worked up to that much, but she is getting some. I was so worried at first, but now that I know she’s getting about half the doctor recommended dose every day I’m relaxing. We never could get her to take it in juice. Instead, we slowly built her taste tolerance in just plain water. The water starts out clear, but an hour later it looks like apple juice. I guess my baby is drinking rust water. Gross.

When she spills it or spits it all over it smells really rusty. I’m just hoping that since it is in water it will clean up nicely. I had a bunch of baby clothes from a formula fed baby and they were covered in iron stains. Apparently you don’t notice the stains at first, but eventually they come out. I’m telling myself the fat in the formula makes the clothing and carpeting hang on to the iron. If not, we won’t be able to pass on a single outfit from her and we’ll have to have all new flooring. I’ll also need a new wardrobe.

*Erik is obsessed with Beyblades, a really dumb toy for boys. Basically they are tops that do battle. Instead of spinning them with your fingers, they go in a launcher and you rip a cord and they spin super fast. I bought him two when the neighbor kids first got into it, then my mom bought him one when she was here.

He lost one down a storm drain (since recovered by an old man with a crowbar and a friendly teenager. I love our neighborhood.) and was begging for a new one. I refused because they are $8 each, he has two others and he needs to learn to be more responsible.

He kept begging and whining and begging and whining and complaining to me about the cost of the stupid things. In a moment of truly inspired parenting I told him not to complain to me about the price, since I didn’t set it. Complain to the Beyblade people. I then looked up their customer service number and had him call them.

They were a little surprised, but he clearly stated his complaint and they thanked him for his comments but said that is just how much they cost. He said he was mad at them and hung up. He hasn’t complained to me since.

I may have created a monster. I’ll be on the look out for “customer’s suck” stories about a little kid that calls in and complains about everything. He loves to talk so much that it will be brilliant to have him call other people and leave me alone.

Do you know when Erik was a little baby I was making plan to homeschool him even though I am not a fan of homeschooling (for us and our family, I don’t care what you do)? I was so worried that he would be bullied and picked on and life at school would be so hard for him. I was projecting a lot of my own past on him, of course, and then adding regular mama worries on it. It’s so hilarious though. I look at this boy and wonder where he came from. Bullies might try to take him down, but I am very confident that he can stand up for himself. In fact, I am much more worried that he will be a bully. I am trying my best to make him a kind, compassionate, polite human being but it’s tough work. He is nothing like I imagined he would be. He’s so much more. I am going to be so sad when he’s away from home 7 hours a day this fall. I am going to be happy for him because I know he’ll love school and I’m going to be happy to have some free time with just Elsa, but 7 hours seems so long. I suppose we’ll get used to it rather quickly and it will all be fine.

Did you just hear a wail of pain across America?

I just read that they cancelled Outsourced, one of my very favorite new shows. Why? WHY?????

They also cancelled Traffic Light, which I enjoyed but I didn’t wail in pain. The Event and Chase are also gone, but I am not too sad. I was mostly watching those because there was nothing else to watch.

I wonder if they’ve cancelled Hawaii Five-O. I wanted to like that one. I tried to like that one. I couldn’t watch it. It was so boooooring. How can a cop show be so boring?

Despite all the cancellations, I’m just glad most networks are getting back to scripted shows. I like certain reality shows (Top Chef, Project Runway, Pregnant in Heels) but most of them don’t blow up my skirt.

And now I have to go tell Erik a Harry Potter story. I wish he had enough concentration to listen to me read the book, but he was bored by page 2. All those owls at the Dursley’s place weren’t that impressive I guess. I am sort of sad that he plays Lego Harry Potter because now he thinks that’s the real Harry Potter. He won’t get to experience the joy of being introduced to Harry through the books. I’ll never forget the day I was at a little bookshop/coffeeshop/New Agey shop in Astoria and I found this hardcover book with a kid flying on a broomstick. I almost didn’t buy it because it was $12 and who spends $12 on a kid’s book when they have access to a high school librarian who consistently sets aside piles of books you might find interesting? I read that bad boy in less than 2 hours, then ran up the stairs and thrust it into my roommate’s hands. She was a middle school librarian and she’d already read it. In fact, a few weeks later she dressed as HP for Halloween and no one knew who she was. Can you imagine a time when you had to create your own HP costume and no one even knew who you were? Well of course you can, but isn’t that a sad, sad world?

I am glad they haven’t turned HP into little kid reading leveled books, but I sure wish I had one right about now.

If there’s an award for crankiest person on the planet, I am the current top contender. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I want to yell at every person who crosses my line of sight. Be glad you are no where near me.

I went to the gym today, which should have filled me with happy endorphins. Why the crankiness?

Elsa was good! She was only hysterical for 10 minutes, then she mellowed out and played so I was able to get in a real workout. Too bad I was only planning on a 20 minute arc trainer run. I was sort of at loose ends for the next 40 minutes, but did quite a lot of weight training.

There are two types of personal trainers at the gym–private professionals and gym hired workers. If you can afford a private trainer you’ll get a much better workout, but a lot of new people get trained by the gym trainers for a few weeks. That’s how I learned to use all the machines and set up a workout routine when I started a few years back. I have never had an issue with any of the trainers. Not that I know them all well, or anything, but in general they seem to do their job as far as I care.

Today?

Not so much.

There was this woman who was a total nightmare. She was working with a shy, obese girl who was probably in her very early 20s. She was totally rude to her and wouldn’t do any of the things that a normal trainer would do. The girl didn’t know what one of the exercises was and the lady told her “I’ve already demo’d for you. I’m not demo’ing again.” WTF???

Even though I had nothing to do with this whole thing, I was seriously contemplating saying something to the manager. It was that ridiculous.

Later I went to get on one of the machines and they were on the machine next to it. The trainer told me they were going to use the machine I was getting on and asked/told me to get on a different machine.

If she would have asked nicely, like any of the other trainers or people usually do, I would have been totally fine with it.

Instead, I copped a major attitude. I am not usually one to cop an attitude in public, but did I mention that I’m in the running for crankiest human on the planet today?

I did let them have the machine, but I was not gracious or kind about it. I said “Fine” in a rude way and made sour faces.

You know how it seems like people always cater to bitchy people? I need to be bitchy more often.

Suddenly this lady was my best friend. She was acting fake nice to me, wanting to know my name, telling me she was here to help me, blah blah blah. She asked my name and wanted to shake my hand. I just stared at her for about 20 seconds before answering and shaking her hand. The meaner I was, the nicer she was. It was some sort of magic. I guess people really don’t like it when others are mean to them.

After the gym, I continued on the cranky streak. I finally completely blew a gasket at my car pool kid. He is not a nice child. I don’t believe he has many boundaries at home, but who knows? All I know is, he requires a lot of correction and determination when he’s in my car.

Normally I turn the radio up really loud (because he usually demands I change the radio station, which isn’t going to happen), but the radio was off today so I was actually listening to the boys’ conversation.

Big mistake.

Carpool kid: Johnny is so awesome! Johnny is my best friend! He’s so awesome! Johnny is so awesome!

Erik: Am I awesome?

Carpool kid: No, you’re hateful.

Whoa Nelly. Erik is many things, but hateful isn’t one of them. I assume this kid has heard the word hateful because he is hateful.

I slammed on the brakes, pulled the car over to the side, and lit into that kid like nobody’s business. “You do not talk that way in my car! You do not talk that way about my son! I will not have a rude child sitting in my car, saying rude things about members of my family!”

I was all ready to tell his mother that I was through carpooling, but when we arrived at her house she was in a hurry and I wasn’t able to continue my cranky pants routine with her. I only have to pick him up five more times and we will be through forever, so I guess I can handle it. I will not be sad if I hear from her and she wants to cancel the last two weeks of car pool because of my outburst. Frankly, I’m amazed I lasted as long as I did without going off on him.

And now I’m just sitting here, cranking away. Erik went to a movie night at his karate place and Mike has Elsa downstairs. I am trying to destress on the computer. After I write this entry I will go work on my Harry Potter quilt project and hope that takes away even more of the stress. I am very much looking forward to a weekend with Mike home and some help around the house. It has just been a long, long week of constant demands and I’m done.

Mike is home! Mike is home! He’s been in AZ since Tuesday. I know I was only on solo parent duty about 60 hours, but it was a l-o-n-g sixty hours. No way could I ever be a military wife. It’s physically exhausting carting around/keeping up with a 26 pound toddler and her overly affectionate brother. I swear that child is going to knock up a girl when he’s 12 just because he can’t keep his hands off other people.

After almost 8 years of marriage, I learned a new fact about Mike tonight. He doesn’t like coconut.

How can we get through so many years of marriage without the coconut question being addressed? Probably because I loathe coconut so we never had to fight over a coconut based dessert.

Poor Elsa has the most sensitive butt skin in the history of butt skin. I would love to blame the cloth diapers and throw them all out (just to have something to blame), but when I put her in disposables it only gets worse. I have tried all kinds of cures, all promising to be the ONE THING that will help ANY baby with super sensitive skin. Most of it just makes it worse and I’ve yet to find anything that makes it better.

Some people in the cloth diapering community have recommended pure coconut oil, so I went on a search for the stuff today. Thanks to FB and people at preschool I was able to find a jar at Whole Foods. I didn’t have the first clue where to look so was very grateful for the input. We shall see if it works.

People on FB mentioned it tastes good in food, so I told Mike he could put some in his oatmeal because it is supposed to be insanely good for cholesterol.

And that’s how I found out a new fact about my man of mystery. I live such a life of excitement.

Hee. My mom told me I should write a book about all the weird people I know. It could be like a diary that documents all the weird shit they do.

Hmmmmm.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Ok, I am done amusing myself.

Want to hear something that made me cry?

After karate one of the students came up to me and asked me why I’m so fat. I tried to ignore him but he just kept asking and his mom was just standing there. She didn’t shush him or grab him away or make him apologize or anything. If Erik ever tried something like that I would sink through the floor, then I would make him apologize for being rude and make it a lesson. Maybe that would have embarrassed the mom even more. I don’t have a problem disciplining my kid in public, but I know some people do.

I finally told the kid I was fat because I ate too much ice cream and ice cream is delicious. I wish I would have said something a little different. I mean, I KNOW I am fat and I KNOW I eat too much ice cream, but even when I was eating no sugar, no fat, and exercising a minimum of 2 hours a day I was still fat.

I am not at all happy with my body these days, mainly because I am short of breath sometimes and I hate that. I also hate my hurty back and I am sure taking some weight off would help that, but being on my feet makes it worse.

You guys know me. You KNOW I used to be obsessed with exercise. You KNOW I would love to be doing something. As it is, all I can do is walk 1.31 miles on days it’s not raining. I suppose I could walk further, but we like to walk around the lake because it is safe and child friendly.

Now that I’m not nursing so much I am not starving so I’m getting back into more healthy eating habits. I just need the excercise component. I try not to make excuses, but it is really difficult to find time to excercise at the moment.

Reasons:

1) Baby cries hysterically when left at the gym daycare. Even if I was ok with her crying hysterically, they are not ok with her being in there for longer than 20 minutes. I keep going, and it keeps being futile.

2) When would I exercise at home? I’ve tried doing some DVDs but it is impossible to do with the kids in the house. Mike doesn’t get home until around 7 most nights. I can’t really cook dinner until he gets home (I can’t cook with a baby screaming and grabbing at my legs). By the time we eat dinner and get the kitchen cleaned, it’s time to put the kids to bed and I’m flat out exhausted by the time that’s done.

3) Walking. I can do walking. I do walk. There are some issues. It was an insanely rainy spring so there were a lot of days we were stuck inside. Now my allergies are kicking in and it’s miserable to be outside. Wetness + heat = pollen covering everything. I literally have to take a shower at the end of the day to wash all the pollen away just so I can sleep.

4) Going early in the morning before Mike leaves for work. I have been seriously considering this, but I really doubt I’m going to be able to drag my fat ass out of bed at 5:30 am. I’m already sleep deprived. My sweet sleep time is between 5-8 when the kids are deeply asleep.

So now I get to deal with little kids wanting to know why I am fat. It hit me pretty hard. Even though I KNOW I am fat. I have never denied it. It’s just hard to hear from someone so innocent, you know? I guess part of the reason I am sometimes at peace with being fat (or at least at peace enough not to do anything about it) is because I’ve always viewed myself as invisible. I know this sounds kind of nuts, but I always feel like people can’t really see me. I’m not noticeable. I blend in. I’m. . . nothing. Who cares if I’m fat? As long as I’m clean, wear half-way decent clothes and put some effort into my hair, who will even notice I exist, let alone care enough about me to make snarky remarks about my fat?

Thinking about people looking at me and noticing me and caring about my appearance makes it a lot harder to be vivacious. Not that I’ve been vivacious lately. I think I lost all my vivaciousness about 18 months ago. Maybe I’ll find it again when I’m not so tired, fat and back hurty.

Why can’t I just run to a plastic surgeon and have lipo? I saw a few minutes of Real Housewives of Somewhere the other day and one of those skinny little bitches was having her pooch removed. Her pooch was probably not even 2 pounds worth of fat. It was absurd. At least we now know how all those rich skinny women stay impossibly thing. When am I going to win the lottery?

It was Mike’s birthday today, so I slaved away on a special Swedish cake last night. Why do I wait until the last minute? I always forget that it needs to sit over night to achieve optimal moist goodness, then I am slaving over the stove at 9 pm, trying to get the pudding and fruit gel to thicken. At least this year I remembered that I wrote the recipes down in English so I didn’t have to re-translate the pudding recipe and re-create the fruit gel recipe. The fruit gel is not really a part of the Swedish recipe, but it makes it more moist.

All that to say: cake, good. Mike, good. I got him a Color Nook. Probably way too extravagent, but our local library supports the Nook format and the color screen was way too cool to pass up. I think it will really help Erik with his reading.

Erik!

Reading!

Yay!!!!!

He is not reading a lot or well, but he is reading. It feels magical to me, but I know it is the result of a lot of hard work on the part of his pre-K teacher.

At the moment he will read me a couple of pages of sound-out words and then say he’s tired and ask me to read the rest. I don’t blame him a bit. It is very tiring to sound out every word and for some reason he doesn’t really have the confidence in himself to try to read a word without sounding it out. It will all come, though.

I found a whole stash of excellent boy books at B&N that are right up his alley. I hate to talk about boy books vs girl books. I wanted to keep things as ungendered as possible when he was little so he would learn that things are for everyone, not just boys and girls. And so he would be comfortable if he decided he liked pink or whatever. Turns out, he is very clearly a stereotypical boy and he is not interested in Target’s selection of leveled readers. Fancy Nancy, Oliva, and little fuzzy animals don’t interest him. B&N had a section with a bunch of Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and other boyish level 1 books, so that’s what I bought. It’s great to be idealistic, but sometimes reality gets in the way.

We went to a house warming party today and some crazy lady asked Mike if he was American. She was asking what Elsa’s name was and didn’t understand “Elsa” so after Mike spelled it she gave him this look and said “Are you American?”

I was standing behind Mike, talking to another guest that I sort of know. The other guest and I just about choked, we were laughing so hard. It was just so rude! And improper!

Then the crazy lady told Mike she had met the queen of Sweden when she [crazy lady] was at a Nobel Prize party.

When our hosts heard us talking about it later they immediately identified the crazy lady and said she was completely nuts.

Dang. Here comes Erik. Time for me to take him to bed. I guess that means this disjointed entry is over.

Also, Erik has named his private part “Squirty.” Someone please send help.