The Queen's Rambles

Poor Elsa. She just can’t catch a break in the health department. Of course, things could be much worse. I know little babies who are going through terrible, terrible things right now.

We’ve had two good weeks with no sickness, but now she is back to being ill.

This time she probably has a cold piled on top of freakin’ Lyme Disease.

Can you believe my little baby has Lyme disease? I can’t. I know it is not terrible since we caught it early. I’ve just heard so many warnings about it for years and years that it is freaking me out. We caught it super early thanks to my paranoia. I guess it’s not paranoia if you turn out to be right, though. I almost didn’t take her to the doctor because I thought I was being crazy, but all my FB friends were adamant that I take her in. I also read quite a bit about it this afternoon and decided it was worth looking stupid if I was wrong because if I was right this was not something that would go away on it’s own.

We somehow have to get antibiotics down her throat three times a day for the next 14 days. I don’t imagine that will go well. I did ask for cherry flavored since she seems to tolerate that flavor, so hopefully they honored that. Who knows. I don’t think any of them speak English at the pharacy I went to. I am all for immigrants having good jobs, but when it comes to something like my baby’s health care I really do wish I could talk to someone and have mutual understanding.

We go back to the doctor on July 11 to see how it is going. From everything I’ve read, she will probably need antibiotics for six weeks, though the doctor didn’t mention that.

You know it’s never a good thing when the doctor says “Elsa, you were the most interesting person I’ve seen all day!”

Well, maybe it would be a good sign for YOU since your name is probably not Elsa.

I was looking forward to our playdate with Bethany and her girls today, but life threw us another curve ball.

Elsa started fussing and wiggling around midnight. Eventually she worked up to full scale crying and had a fever. Finally, around 4 am, she settled down for a couple of hours. Right around them my digestive system decided to do an auto-clean and I spent the next three hours in the bathroom. Every time I’d try to go back to bed, my colon would make it clear that the auto-clean feature wasn’t done working. Fantastic.

Thankfully my colon seems to be doing ok, now. It’s just my eyes and the rest of my body that need something (like 8 solid hours of sleep).

Elsa is not so fortunate. She is laying around, crying, wriggling, not looking at all happy. I need to find a local source for cherry flavored infant pain drops, or maybe just order some online. She’ll take them and they help, but it is clear something is wrong.

A few weeks ago I noticed she had a reddish scab thing on her collar-bone. She pinches herself all the time so I didn’t think anything of it. Later, Mike pointed out that it looked like a tick, but it never looked like a tick to me. It started to look like there was a big, black mole hanging off the middle of the scab. It was strange and I was going to take her to the doctor for it, but it disappeared before I had the chance.

That was over a week ago and the redness in the area is growing instead of decreasing. It is not a typical Lyme disease bull’s eye, but I looked at some pictures on google and there was one on a lady’s collar bone that looks almost exactly like what Elsa has.

I posted about it on FB and the response was overwhelming. I guess I needed that encouragement because I hate the doctor to think I’m an over-reacting idiot. As soon as I saw everyone telling me to get her checked out I called and made an appointment. I guess I’ll find out more tonight. Thankfully it is with the doctor I really like so maybe I won’t be so nervous. Why do I get so nervous around doctors?

Elsa has been in to the doctor for sick visits at least double the times Erik has been in for sick visits and he’s almost six years old. My poor baby girl.

In better news, Erik and I are getting along much better. I think transitioning to four hours at camp was tough for him. I also think my rage was fueled by strong emotions over Father’s Day. Even though my dad and I weren’t close, Father’s Day and all the millions of commercials leading up to the day were pretty hard to get through. I just kept thinking about my dad and how he should be sitting in his chair. I also keep picturing him in the hospital and wishing I would have done more and said more, though I don’t know what else I could have done or said. He would get really agitated when we tried to tell him we loved him because he knew he was dying and he didn’t want to die.

Updates on things no one cares about:

1) My dishwasher is fixed! I didn’t even know it was broken. It’s been filling up with mold for months, now. We would bleach it out, wash it, and so forth. I just thought I was a failure as a housewife, which makes no sense because what would I be able to do to make my dishwasher not be moldy? It is not exactly rocket science.

I googled and tried a bunch of home fixes, but nothing was ever working. Mike suggested we get a new dishwasher, but before we went that far I had him check our home warranty. Surprisingly, dishwashers were covered so we got a guy out here. I was shocked to discover I’m not a poor housekeeper. The heating element was out. That also explains why it took several hours to do a load of dishes. It is much faster now and there is no sign of mold. I wish I would have been smart enough to know that mold in the dishwasher is not normal a few months ago.

2) My baby no longer has constant diaper rash. I am no longer using cloth wipes so I suspect the wipes solution I was using had something that irritated her. Also, we are only cloth diapering part time these days. I am sick and tired of leaks when we go out, plus a lot of her summer clothes are woven instead of knit, so the pants don’t fit over her diaper butt. We’re using the disposables when we go out and for night time and cloth when we are home. It’s working out very well and I am a lot less frustrated.

Also, I am using some real detergent in the prewash and using cold water instead of hot to soak them in. It is making a huge difference. They are actually getting clean and don’t smell nearly as bad. Yay for solutions!

I had a totally crazy day today; one in which I felt like an actual grown-up, doing important grown-up things and going to important grown-up places. But we all know the “grown-up” part is an illusion or delusion or something. Does anyone ever really feel like they are more than a kid who has somehow found themselves in a grown-up’s body?

A few weeks ago our MOMS Club got an e-mail about a study at the National Institute of Health. This is not unusual. They are always doing studies and always need people to participate. I’d never done it before because the thought of arranging childcare and figuring out how to drive in Bethesda gives me hives. However, my friend did a study not long ago and said it was really fun and easy and yadda yadda I should do it boom.

For $100 I was willing to get over my anxiety, especially when I called and found out there were weekend and evening hours so the childcare wouldn’t have to be managed.

Today was the big day, so I solved the “driving in Bethesda” problem by taking the metro. The NIH has a metro stop right on campus, so I stepped off the train, went up the longest, nosiest escalator in recent memory (seriously, it sounded like the smoke monster from LOST), and stepped into the “Gateway” building. The security guard was the nicest security guard I’d ever encountered and gave me detailed directions about where I was going even though I already had a map and detailed directions from the study coordinator.

The NIH campus is huge and beautiful and made me feel like I had a purpose in life. I was even wearing slightly dressy clothes that I can’t wear around the kids. After a good 10 minute walk I found the building and headed to admissions.

This was not a medical study; it was a study about feeding children, childhood obesity and mother’s attitudes about food; but I still had to go through the admissions process and sign things that would apply to someone going through medical trials.

The woman at the admissions desk was a huge bitch. There was a doctor trying to get her to arrange for his patient to fly to Oklahoma this afternoon. Fine. I could see they were standing there having a conversation. My instructions said to “sign in and have a seat” but I couldn’t figure out which book I was supposed to sign. When another worker came and started looking at the books I went up and politely asked her if she knew which book I was supposed to sign. The other bitch yelled at me that she was busy and would take care of me shortly. So rude. I was not even talking to her.

So the guy she was helping finally went off and started talking on the phone, so I went back up to the desk because I figured she would be calling me. Before I even got up there she goes “Can’t you see I am trying to help these people? You need to sit down RIGHT NOW.”

See? Bitch.

Finally she called me up and was really rude some more, but thankfully she was able to hand me off to someone else (the other lady I asked to help me) and that lady was super nice.

Eventually I made my way to the study room and the fun began.

It had said it would be a virtual buffet in a virtual reality environment, but I wasn’t sure what that really meant. They weren’t joking about the virtual reality environment. I put on a helmet thing and had to have the glasses over my eyes just right so I could see a restaurant buffet. I had a clicker in my hand that was my “spoon” and I went through some training exercises about using it, then I went to another room and answered a bunch of questions about how I feel about my Erik’s weight, my weight, how people in general get fat and stuff like that. Then I watched a video about childhood obesity (which irked me because it said that you can’t see if a child is obese, it all depends on BMI numbers and I think that is bull shit. BMI is such a crock of crap.) then I went in and made up a plate of food for Erik’s lunch via virtual reality. They had a mix of healthy and crappy food and I picked a mix of stuff. We were supposed to do things that we would really put on his plate and that he would really eat, so I tried to be true to what we would really do at a restaurant.

Then it was back to the computer for more questions about the VR experience, how I felt about the buffet and some essay questions about Erik’s eating habits.

Then things got interesting.

I left the study room and went back down stairs. The building was beyond huge and I didn’t want to have to walk all the way around it, so I figured I would go out the side and cut a lot of time off my walk around the building.

Ha.

Hahahahahahaha.

So I go through this door that says exit and ended up in a courtyard. There were signs saying “Exit: Keep walking through courtyard, go through glass door, then exit building.”

So I did. Except for the exit building part. When I got through the other glass door, I saw the exit was an emergency exit only and alarms would sound if I tried to go through it. The door I just went through was locked. I was trapped in a hallway. In one direction there was a set of doors with signs that the room was locked and had behavioral inpatients that shouldn’t escape. There was a patio with a huge wrought iron fence all around it and a possible mental patient inside. I walked the other way and went through a set of doors. At this point I was completely lost and had no idea what to do except keep walking. I kept going to exit after exit, but every exit dead-ended at an alarmed door. I found statues, a theater, sun rooms, nooks, crannies, windows, and hallways galore. But no exit!

Finally, after about a half hour of wandering around, I found a person. She was a very kind person, thank god, and was also headed to the exit. We went in the complete opposite direction from where I was headed and eventually I was free! I was beginning to believe I would be spending the night camped out in a stairwell.

I took a long walk back to the Metro stop (thankfully I still had my campus map) and managed to get on the train about 30 seconds after hopping off the escalator from hell (it was still groaning and clanking like the smoke monster).

And then I came home.

Aren’t you glad they didn’t catch me and throw me into that wrought iron fenced patio?

When I got home I made cookies, because isn’t that what you do when you hear a lesson about how obesity is teh evil and you know you are obese?

Actually, making cookies is what you do when you know you are going to have an excellent adventure with Bethany and her girls. They are coming up for a playdate tomorrow! Also, Erik has Halloween day at camp tomorrow. I need to find him a costume, find swimsuits for everyone, and figure out what I’m going to make for lunch. Maybe just my usual chicken and spinach wraps for the grown-ups? That’s my new weekday lunch.

Guess that means I better get off this computer and go dig through some closets.

I realize this is probably a strange request, but I’m going to ask anyway (don’t worry, it doesn’t involve money, just ten minutes of your time). My hometown is very impoverished. There is almost nothing for the kids to do except get into trouble. One of the parks has a wading pool, but an Oregon law now forbids the use of wading pools that don’t circulate the water (or something like that. All I know is, the wading pool has to go). Instead of a wading pool, they want to put in a sprayground, but those suckers are expensive. There’s a grass roots campaign to get this done, but in an impoverished area like that people just don’t know how to make things happen. Not that I would know how to make things happen, but the judges, senators, major hotel chain owners, chief justices and so forth know how to make a plan come to fruition.

Anyway, they are trying to do a community cookbook and so far they have 38 recipes. You can’t have a cookbook with 38 recipes. Well. . . I guess you could, but it wouldn’t be much of one.

I know it is a community cookbook, but they are advertising the log-in details on Facebook so I don’t think they really care who contributes. If you could take a moment and post a recipe, I would really appreciate it. It’s for a very good cause. You can submit up to three recipes if you are gung-ho, but even one recipe would be fantastic.

Login details:
CLICK HERE
Login: fwps
Password: spraypark

The deadline for recipe submissions is June 25th.

Thanks so much for anyone who takes the time to give them a recipe or two.

Amazing! I’m a posting machine!

I just had to follow-up with that doom and gloom post. Today has been a much, much better day.

Two things made a huge difference.

1) Mike is a wonderful husband and father and took it upon himself to find a solution to my problem of Elsa napping vs. Erik being in my face all the time. Though he is not able to do this every day, or even most days, today he came home from work during lunch and put Elsa down for a nap while I picked Erik up from camp. When Mike puts her down he can get her to sleep in the bed. When I put her down she just wants to suck on my boob, which is not helpful. I guess I have to wean her.

2) I went to the gym. Elsa is finally snot free so the childcare will take her. I know I need those endorphins. I always feel better when I go, so I must remember to work that into my routine. Let’s all knock on wood that Elsa stays healthy.

I am seriously thinking that I need to see a doctor about taking some meds. I don’t like being in a rage all the time. I don’t think it’s normal and I think my reactions are disproportionate to what’s going on. I can not STAND outright defiance. I’ve never been able to stand it (which made teaching a horrible experience). I think it reminds me of my sister or something. I don’t know, but I need to get a handle on this rage. I’m scared to death of going on meds because I’ve heard so many horror stories about the side effects. I do not need more insomnia. I do not need to gain more weight. I do not need to lose my sex drive (or maybe I do, not like there is time for hanky-panky right now). Maybe I’ll keep exercising this week and see how I feel about things and go from there.

Example of my rage this afternoon: Remember the little boy at karate who asked me why I was so fat? Remember how I was patient with him even though it hurt my feelings?

He asked me that again today. Can you even believe that? I think the lady he is with might be a nanny and not a mother. Anyway, instead of being patient with him, I snapped “You are a very rude little boy!” and then I stomped off and stuck Elsa in her car seat and went grocery shopping.

I was sort of expecting the mom/nanny to make him apologize when we came back, but she looked right at me as if I didn’t exist. I hope it’s a nanny because that’s some piss-poor parenting.

If he asks again would it be wrong to ask him why he’s so ugly? He’s actually really cute, so it wouldn’t even be true. Of course I would never say that to a little kid, even if I was thinking it.

For something completely different: I started watching the pilot of “Falling Skies” yesterday. I was watching OnDemand and accidentally stopped it. Stupid Fios gives you the option of “resume play” but I have never once had it actually work. I was an hour into the show and Fios doesn’t let you fast forward through OnDemand shows so I was pretty much screwed. I found a listing for it that I will record, but not for a few days. I don’t know if I will continue watching or not. Alien invasion stories give me nightmares. This one is especially bad since the aliens kidnap children and put a big parasite on them to control them. I keep crying when I think of Erik enslaved by aliens.

Yeah, maybe I need some meds.

I was excited to watch “Outcasts” on BBC America, but then read that it was a cancelled series with a cliffhanger ending so I am not even going to subject myself to that pain (assuming I would have liked it). I don’t have as much time to watch TV now that Elsa is napping in the bed. I have work I can get done, so can’t really excuse sitting in a chair and vegetating for a couple of hours.

Oh! And thank you for the suggestions of wearing a hat to combat the buggies. I hate hats, but will see if I can find my visor. I should be wearing it in the sun anyway. If not, I have discovered that taking a thin coloring book and using it as a fan shoos the bugs away. They are so small that they can’t withstand the wind, though it is a pain to stand there fanning myself all the live long day.

Now, does anyone know what to do about Elsa’s hair? It gets gross looking (split ends/fly-away) in the back so I’ve been putting a little bit of adult conditioner on it after I shower her and just leaving it in. It looks a lot better. Do you think that’s ok or is that some kind of baby no-no. I have also used detangling spray, but a dab of the regular conditioner seems to work better.

And now I’m going to go eat fruit in cobbler form. I’m trying to ingest more fruits and veggies. I know cobbler form is not ideal, but who can resist blackberries, raspberries, strawberries and cinnamon in a gooey crust?

Yesterday was just a clusterf— of unhappiness. After Erik and I had a raging fight (isn’t he too young for that?) we made up, but I was still very unhappy with him and his behavior. Since I am a 37 year old adult and he is a 5 year old child, I decided not to hold a grudge (I’m sweet like that) and to try to put the anger and pain behind me. It was difficult and I found my eyes leaking in frustration and sadness many times throughout the day.

At one point I let him play his !#$%$@#@ video game (the root of all evil) and told him Elsa and I were going outside to the park. You can see the house from the park so it was not like I was abandoning him. I very specifically told him where we would be and invited him along, but there were no other kids out and he wasn’t interested.

Cue the drama.

About 30 minutes later I see Erik walking down the street with my neighbor/babysitter’s mom. She has not ever really taken an interest in him so this was weird, but I just thought he was coming to join us so I waved and went back to helping Elsa climb up the ladder, go down the slide times infinity.

Turns out Erik wasn’t listening to me (surprise surprise) or didn’t remember, so he freaked out when he needed help with his game and he couldn’t find me. He thought a troll ate me, so he came outside and happened to see this neighbor getting out of her car and told her that I disappeared and he needed help.

I am glad he knows how to seek help, but my god was that embarrassing. And scary for him, I know. He sincerely believed a troll had come into the house and taken the rest of the family away.

So I feel like a total crap mom for that. I knew I shouldn’t leave him, even though I told him where we were going. I didn’t expect him to emerge from his video game coma and I really needed to get away from him for awhile. At one point yesterday I was considering packing myself and Elsa up in the van and taking off to points unknown. I would have dropped Erik with a neighbor. No worries.

I feel so guilty for thinking all these things about him. I love him intensely but he is just a difficult child. He’s stubborn and demanding, always in my face. The last two mornings Elsa and I haven’t had a single bit of drama. I don’t think I’ve ever gone 4 hours alone with Erik without some sort of tantrum/meltdown/contest of wills. Different kids, I guess. Different personalities.

Today when I was picking him up from camp today the director came over and said “Erik’s so funny. All day long he just kept saying he was going to go home and play a video game.” There was a dad standing there who decided it was his job to get all judgey in my face.

I have had very few mommy drive-bys. I’ve had old ladies ask about the lack of shoes or socks. I’ve had old men make lame ass remarks. I’ve never had another in-the-trenches parent really remark on my parenting.

This guy was hard core. “My kid is only allowed to play video games for one hour A WEEK. A WEEK! There is no reason for a child to play a video game.” Blah blah blah. I don’t know why I even engaged, but I said something about how when it is hot out he needs to have something to do. We have heat advisories here telling us not to send our kids outside. His response: That’s when you get out the sprinklers.

Ugh. Just ugh.

Like I really needed to hear all that crap from some random guy who probably isn’t even home with his kids all day anyway.

I DO limit Erik’s video gaming time. Last week we had no screen time from after breakfast to after dinner. This week he has camp, so when he comes home it is fine with me if he plays for awhile. Doesn’t every one need to de-stress and just sit down and relax sometimes? The kid plays outside for hours at a time. He is not lacking physically activity. He is just especially obsessed this week because he used his money to buy Batman Lego.

Are our children not allowed to foster their own interests? I know video games are not ideal, but what is ideal? Battling with light sabers? Having BeyBlade battles? At least these Lego games require a lot of logical thinking and problem solving.

Anyway, guess I better go. I have a ton of stuff to do. I told my mom I would write any thank-you notes that need to be written and she just sent me the address list. She is having me send notes to everyone who signed the guest book, sent a card and/or visited at the hospital. I have never heard of getting a thank you note for sending a card or attending a funeral, but if that’s what she wants me to do that is what I will do. I know she really does want to thank people because she just couldn’t believe how many people showed up. I have my job cut out for me.

I’m getting somewhat used to the muggy, but I’ll never get used to the buggy. Ugh. There are little tiny black midges (or something, who knows, I’m not a bugologist) that fly right in your face all the flim-flam time. They seem to be particularly attracted to my eyeballs and my eyeballs seem to be particularly allergic to them. Every time one flies in my eye, my eye almost swells shut and turns red and itchy for hours.

It’s fun being me.

While Elsa was napping at home with Mike, I decided to be a good mother and take Erik out to a park. Before we could leave we had to call every child he’s ever met and see if they wanted to come along. As I expected none of them could make it. Or at least none of the ones I really called. There were a few that we haven’t seen in at least a year and I didn’t really call them. Erik was cottoning on to the fact that I wasn’t leaving a voice mail, so I had to leave a bunch of pretend voice mails. Kid is too smart for his own good.

We went to a very popular park on a not-so-awful-weather-wise Saturday afternoon, so of course he didn’t need to bring along a friend. He spent two solid hours playing with a little girl his age and her little brother. Did he ever find out their names? Of course not. Weirdo.

I am loving having an independent kid who can be set free at the park and doesn’t need me tagging along within 3 feet to make sure everything is ok. I sat on a bench and read my Kindle, occasionally pushing a saucer swing or babysitting a scooter. It is rare that we get moments like that these days. Normally I would be chasing Miss Menace, which would exhaust me and leave me ready to leave after 30 minutes. I wish she was one of those “sleep anywhere in a stroller babies” but I didn’t get that lucky with either of my kids.

We are headed to Vancouver for a very short trip in about a month. We really want to go see HP7pt2 with our book club friends, but need a sitter. I am hoping my social networking skillz will pay off. I know hotels will often have a list, but I’d much rather trust in someone I’ve known for years than a random hotel list. Not that I want a blogger to babysit, but maybe a blogger would know someone they could recommend. I’ve got a couple of messages out in the vast network so we shall see. Elsa isn’t so afraid of people anymore so I am willing to try out the sitter thing.

I was just looking at the hotel and it has a pool! Not that I will let a sitter take two small non-swimmers into a pool, but I might want to take a swim with the kids. It’s outdoors, so maybe I won’t want to go in with the kids. How hot does it get over there at the end of July?

Oh dear. Looks like Mike is going to go play soccer with Erik, so I’m on Menace duty.

With Erik home this week, things have been hectic. I’ve been to a MOMS Club event every single day, which is just nuts. But they were all fun! Well, the business meeting wasn’t fun, but since I’m the new president I couldn’t exactly skip it. I ran the first meeting and presented my overall plan for the year–mainly find new members. I see it like this: either the club gets new members who will participate or I’m done. I can just as easily e-mail my three friends that are willing to do things. I think the club provides invaluable support to mothers and I want to be a part of that, but I am going to cut my losses if we can’t get things moving in the right direction by next June.

Fun things: We went to a petting zoo on Monday and it wasn’t unbearably hot. I need to look at my photos because I have pictures of Erik riding the same pony he rode a couple of years ago. I love those pictures because he’s so happy in them. My mind did a complete roll around my brain when the guy in our old pony pics gave us a lecture on lemurs. I didn’t know him and I couldn’t place him, but he was so danged familiar. Doh! I see his picture all the time!

Today we went to a nature center about 30 minutes from the house. It was totally cool and I’ll be going back this summer for some free heat relief. They have a playroom with all kinds of old fashioned toys and pioneer type things; a big room with running water, caves, turtles and other stuff; a smaller playroom with snake and other wildlife in aquariums and a lot of modern toys; an aviary with rescued birds of prey; and who knows what else. I loved it. Erik loved it. Elsa loved it. Win-win-win.

They do birthday parties for $200 for up to 20 kids, you just have to provide the food and paper products. You know where Erik is having his birthday this year. I know that sounds expensive, but it is cheap for this area. I never want to be the party entertainment again. Been there, done that. Erik is way too social and I am way too tired. Plus, we can’t host at our house because this house is not set up for entertaining. We’ve done park parties, but those are always iffy with the weather.

Tomorrow we have a totally free day, so I am hoping we can slow down and breathe a little. I know I will be chomping at the bit to get out of here by 1 pm. My friend that I usually can count on for a last minute playdate went and had her baby the other day so that will be out. I want to go to the hospital and see her new daughter, but I don’t want to drag my two along. Erik would be fine, but Elsa is a true 14 month old menace. I love the sweet little thing, but she keeps me hoppin’.

I really need to get some structure in our days. There has been entirely too much screen time around here. I think we will say no screen time (TV or video games) after breakfast until Elsa’s naptime, then no TV until after dinner. It is impossible to get Elsa down for a nap when Erik is not 100% preoccupied. His priorities are not the same as mine. Imagine that.

I have changed out all the hand soap in the house, hoping that would help my hand rash. It seems to be working. Maybe? I don’t know. I am sure we are not actually allergic to humidity, but we are def. allergic to something here. I don’t know if it is environmental or something that is a key component of our diet here. I basically didn’t eat the entire time we were in Oregon due to stress and strep. You’d think I would have lost some weight. Maybe I have. My shorts are totally falling off. Perhaps now would be a good time to continue the no eating trend. It’s the season for fresh fruit. I should force myself to enjoy it.

I did try to make a strawberry cobbler yesterday, but it was a disgusting failure. I couldn’t remember Kisha’s super easy cobbler recipe. I know it is something easy like 1-1-1 with cups of stuff, but I don’t remember what the stuff is. So instead I looked up a recipe for strawberry cobbler and ended up with a gelatinous mess that didn’t taste much like strawberries and had biscuits baked on top. I don’t want biscuits baked on top. It was entirely wrong.

Then I went and ruined it even further by throwing raw rice on top of the whole thing.

Mike says I would be chopped if I was on Chopped. How sad that Chopped is the only show we watch as a couple. But yes, just adding a strange ingredient to the top of a done dish is a sure way to get chopped. Raw rice on top of cobbler is disgusting.

Why would I do such a thing? Because SOMEBODY (probably me) didn’t close the bag of rice all the way so I had rice from here to kingdom come. Probably a good three cups of rice was spread all across my kitchen and into my dining room. I guess it could have been worse (coconut oil in a glass jar), but it was not pretty and I was not a happy camper yesterday.

In fact, I was so grouchy that I was mean to the neighbor children.

Erik has some really cool toys, including this trike thing that’s on castors. Even though it looks like a hot wheels, it’s meant for older kids because it spins all around. The kids in the neighborhood love it and use my dear, precious son for his cool toys. Not like we are the only people in the neighborhood with cool toys, but whatever.

I honestly don’t encourage sharing with the older neighbor kids. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing, but why do I want our stuff all tore up? Sharing with guests? Absolutely. Sharing with older kids who are using you? Hells to the no.

So I let them take out this trike thing and this 7 year old boy was racing a girl on a scooter. She was not very good at riding a scooter and he kept cutting her off, causing her to fall. I got my grouch on and told him to stop cutting her off.

The little *#@$$% dared to give me lip.

Oh boy.

You are riding a really cool thing that I have ownership control over and you are going to back talk ME???? Really?

I don’t think so.

I told him he could either return the bike immediately or do what I said. He opened his mouth to talk and I told him to get off the bike. I didn’t yell, I just used my teacher voice. Which is probably even scarier than yelling. He shut his mouth and we didn’t have a problem the rest of the night. His mother is very permissive and thinks he walks on water while burping up gold bricks so he’s probably not used to that kind of talk. Luckily they are moving next weekend and he’ll be long gone.

Ok, best go to bed now after a full evening of rambling. Someone better send back-up tomorrow or there may be a full scale war in my living room. Erik has been on quite a defiant streak lately and it’s driving me nuts.

I talked to my mom and the funeral was really good, she said. The place was packed and several people got up and spoke. My cousin and her mom made a huge spread for the reception and my mom didn’t have to do a thing. My mom is sounding a little calmer now. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised she’s such a wreck since she was married to my dad for so long, but I am. She was always talking about how happy she’d be when he finally died (he really was a drunken jerk most of the time), so I guess she is probably feeling a lot of guilt now.

Thank you to all who have been lifting me up during this time with comments and cards. Also thank you to those who donated to the Klamath Humane Society in his name. That really means a lot to the family. My mom choked up when I told her.

In less bad news, today was beautiful. The unbearably hot weather broke, so we enjoyed a really nice day down at the Reston Zoo with our MOMS Club. Erik got to ride a pony, which always makes him happy. The kid is such a thrill seeker. He was getting mad at the girl for lifting him up because he wanted to mount all by himself. Not that he could.

Did I mention the carnival we went to in Klamath? My niece and nephew were too afraid to go on any scary rides, but my sister and Erik went on every single ride that they would allow him on. I was having a series of heart attacks and tried to forbid him from going on some of the rides (like the big drop thing), but he would just run up and go. I thought for sure he would get scared and that would be the end of that, but I was wrong. He’d get off the scary rides shouting “Again, again, again!” Who’s going to King’s Dominion with us? Mike and I don’t want to ride a bunch of vomit inducing rides.

Ok, back to Reston Zoo.

We had fun. The kids rolled around in the red dirt. I am hoping red dirt=iron filled dirt. Elsa kept grabbing handfuls of it and shoving it in her mouth. I was stupid and told Erik to wear his tennis shoes because I knew it would be dusty. I guess I have to wash them. Should have had him wear his crocs so I could just hose them off. No idea what I was thinking.

Thank you again for helping me with the obit, though in the end the point was rather moot because the newspaper changed it up some. I guess people are really impressed that I wrote it, which I find amusing because it was honestly not that big of a deal. I had all the facts. I just threw them together. My mom told me I should “start one of those blog things and write about the weird people you meet.” I’ve got a ten year head start on her.

I was also amused that my mom forgot to keep her wedding date a secret. In college I realized that they must have gotten married because she was pregnant with me. Why else would they elope to Reno during deer hunting season and never tell anyone they were married? Her parents found out because one of their friends saw it in the Reno paper when they were down there. The date was 6 months prior to my birth, so now I have confirmation. I think maybe she thought it would hurt my self-esteem or something so she would never tell me even though I have asked several times. Honestly, it just makes me happy to have a logical reason why she would ever marry him.

I’m really rambling around tonight, aren’t I?

I’m participating in a study about food choices, feeding your 4-5 year old, and obesity through the NIH. I have to go in sometime in the next couple of weeks and do a virtual reality experience. I don’t know how much like my idea of virtual reality it will be, but I’m already laughing. My first “virtual reality” experience and I will not be exploring Mars, having a sword fight, or doing anything that might constitute fun. Instead, I will spend my time making up plates of food for my kid from a virtual buffet. Such a mom thing to do, don’t you think? But I’ll get $100, so I can’t complain.

You know how frazzled I am? I didn’t even realize I had pictures from our trip on the camera until I took some quilt block pictures today. I didn’t take many pictures because it was just not a picture taking kind of trip and my kids looked like rug rats most the time, but there are a few if you want to click through that picture up there. That was taken on one of the days when it was in the high 50s so we weren’t wearing our coats. Oh, for the days of high 50s! Today was cooler here–our outdoor thermometer only got up to 102 in direct sunlight. Yesterday it got up to 112.

Today was the last day of preschool camp, so I’m on my own with Erik all next week. He has officially been grounded from going outside by himself so it will be a long, long week next week.

There were some strange little boys playing outside tonight and Erik glommed on to them as he’s wont to do. Kid does not have a shy bone in his body.

One of the kids had a bike and the other didn’t, so Erik took out one of his bikes for them to use (plus his scooter). I knew the kids were bold when one of them knocked on the door and told me to make Erik share his scooter. I guess I’m mean, but I don’t make Erik share his ride-on toys with kids. In fact, I prefer if he doesn’t share. The other kids just tear his things up (not that he is an angel, but the more kids who use things the more wore out the things get).

It was pretty hot so suddenly Erik ran in the house and these two boys followed him. I said “no way, absolutely not” and explained that they can’t come in because I don’t know their parents and their parents don’t know us or where they are.

I thought that was the end of it, but Erik decided he would go to their house to introduce himself to their mom. They don’t live on our street. They live behind us, so basically you have to go down a really steep hill and through a patch of woods to get to their house. If Erik were a couple of years older I wouldn’t care, but at the moment he is not allowed to go down there and he knows it.

Not only did he do that, but the kids took his extra bike and gave it to some other kid.

So Mike and I were chasing all over the neighborhood looking for Erik then looking for this bike.

Now Erik’s grounded.

I guess you can judge me for letting Erik play outside by himself, but we do live in a very safe neighborhood. There is only one entrance for cars. Our community backs into a guarded government campus so I don’t really fear anything from that direction. I am pretty sure the fences back there are monitored with security cameras. Basically the fear of strangers is nil.

But of course Erik is a child. He is only five and has some spectacularly bad judgment sometimes. Obviously I keep an eye on what’s going on out there and check on him quite often, but I guess it’s not enough. He is going to be totally crying next week because I’m not going outside if it’s hotter than the surface of the sun and he’s not going outside for 30 seconds without me.

Bah.

But I am going to hug him close and let him know I love him. I just read some really horrible news about a family that is going through hell after their baby girl had meningitis. You never know when life will be snatched away. It could happen to anyone. I need to remember that when I get so mad at the boy for being a boy.

But for now. . . bed. Elsa didn’t puke last night! We all got a good night’s sleep! I’m hoping the trend continues. If only that girl would eat something, especially something resembling a fruit or vegetable, I’m sure that would help her immune system. I can’t even get her to drink juice. I never, ever would have tried to get Erik to drink juice because I was so worried about his teeth (my sister had major problems with her teeth because she drank a ton of apple juice). With Elsa I’m willing to give her anything to get non-boobilicious nutrients in her little body.