The Queen's Rambles

I think I have a fever. I know I have a sore throat. I know my back is absolutely killing me. I think I’m going to have to give up on Zumba. Something about dancing on a hardwood floor for an hour makes my back scream in pain.

Fun times, they never end!

I hope I heal up by Tuesday. Mike will be out of town for several days, leaving me to single parent. I was literally crying at the thought this afternoon.

See above: Fever. I don’t normally cry like that.

I do appreciate the break that kindergarten is giving me, but guess what? I still have a very busy toddler at home. She’s mostly easy going and happy so it’s nothing like dealing with a toddler Erik, but I still do have to engage and interact and clean up mess after mess after mess. And pack her 28 pound body all around. Carrying her just about does me in.

She is a fun little dear, though. I finally bought her a shape sorter (never thought of it since Erik never touched his) and she is in looooooove with it. We played with it for probably a solid 30 minutes before she got tired of it. It’s so neat to see the lights go on in their eyes when they figure out something for the first time.

And Erik has figured out something big! I’ll have to get some pictures tomorrow. He is riding a two wheeler with no training wheels!

He said he hated his new bike because it was too big, so he was a very reluctant learner. Mike is a much nicer parent than I and patiently ran behind him for several nights.

One night I took a turn. I am not patient or kind. Or able to run fast for long distances. I could see Erik was quite capable of riding the bike so I let go.

And ride he did.

Until he saw me.

He didn’t crash, but he did stop riding and refused to try without someone holding on and running behind him.

Mike slowly worked with him a little more, and last night he finally became a confident rider.

He’ll probably be ready for ramps and wheelies and all that by tomorrow.

I’m just glad that he’s still fairly fearful and very willing to wear a helmet. I never made him wear a helmet with his scooter because it just didn’t seem necessary, but the bike is a whole ‘nother ball game. He’s the only one who wears a helmet, so I was hoping he wouldn’t decide he didn’t need it. So far he wants it on (along with knee pads and elbow pads) but we’ll see how long that lasts.

Kindergarten is fine, I guess. Erik won’t tell me anything about it.

The school counselor has been riding the bus with the kids every day and will continue to do so through the rest of the week. I was really surprised when a woman got out of a car on Monday and started talking to the kids and giving them stickers. All of us kindy parents boggled and started to look around in a panic, but then she explained who she was. I guess they have a staff member on each of the buses.

I hope she doesn’t have me marked as a neglectful parent. Today it was sorta chilly (maybe mid 60s) at the bus stop and she told Erik he needed a jacket. He told her that he wasn’t cold, then he pointed out that I wasn’t wearing a jacket, Elsa wasn’t wearing a jacket and several of the other parents weren’t wearing jackets. When she looked at me in my tank top and shorts and Elsa in her sleeveless tunic with leggings her eyes about bugged out of her head. I just said “We’re hot blooded” and left it at that. I hate when cold people think that hot people need a jacket. If he was going to be out for hours, maybe he would need a jacket. He was going to be outside for less than 10 minutes. He doesn’t have recess until 1 pm and by that time it was in the mid 80s.

I think I’m going to bed now. Just typing this out has exhausted me beyond reason. Won’t Mike be surprised when I never show up in the basement.

Up until 9 pm, I would have said our first two days of kindergarten were wonderful. Erik loved everything about it, as far as I can tell. Not that he tells me a darned thing. His mouth is always going, but he rarely tells me anything of importance. When I start asking questions he just starts copying me or saying “banana eyeball banana eyeball.” You can imagine how much I love that. If I’m really lucky he’ll throw in a “taco.”

Don’t ask me. I don’t even know.

He was so eager for the second day of kindergarten that he went to bed a half hour early just to make sure he woke up in time for the bus. I was hoping that would be a new trend, but tonight it all went to hell in a handbasket.

We did the usual bedtime routine. I gave him his kiss, hug and love yous and walked out of the room.

The hysterics started.

Full on hysterics.

At first I thought he was trying to be funny, but then I went in there and realized he was in a state of total meltdown.

After I finally got him settled down, we worked together to try to figure out what was wrong. Basically it was me asking him yes/no questions until he settled on one. Apparently he missed me. Awwwww, how sweet. But also how sad. My poor big baby boy.

I know he loves school, but it is such a long day away from home. I know it will get better. I am not even surprised. I was more surprised that he didn’t have a meltdown earlier. One of my neighbors had to physically drag her daughter to the bus stop this morning. She decided she didn’t need to go to school ever again.

I am so glad Erik is going to kindergarten and I know he will be successful, but I’m also feeling a lot of repressed stress about the whole thing. Last night I had a horrible nightmare that he was lost and when I finally thought I found him I turned him around to face me and it was a man. A man! I don’t need a psychiatrist to figure that one out.

So far I haven’t taken really good advantage of him being gone so long. Yesterday I went to the gym, a MOMS Club event, and then Elsa took a nap. Today was the gym and a marathon Elsa nap. I need to figure out how to put her down. Mike can do it, but I have always been a terrible sleeping-baby-putter-downer. She slept on me for three and a half (3 1/2) hours today! I was glad she was getting some sleep, but there was so much I could have done if she had been in a bed. Laundry! House cleaning! Computering!

Instead I watched a bunch of “Flashpoint” and “Torchwood.” I’m really loving “Flashpoint” so if you like police shows you might want to check it out. It shows what goes on behind the scenes of a hostage situation. Keith Mars (or Enrico Colantoni if you must) plays one of the main characters, so I was bound to like it.

Let me tell you about today’s BodyPump class. For those who don’t know, it’s a group weight lifting class. I love it. I never would have thought I could enjoy weight lifting, but they time everything to music so it goes a lot faster. It is all about endurance and repetition so men very rarely enjoy the class. In my experience men prefer to do really heavy weights and can’t handle doing five straight minutes of bicep curls or squats. They always have to show off and load up the weight, then they die before the song is even half-way through.

Well today we had two ginormous African-American men in the class. Seriously ginormous. I was wondering if they were with a local pro sports team, but why would pro athletes need to work out at the cheap gym?

They were pretty funny because they liked to talk and were trying to liven things up, but then they started moaning.

Oh. My. God. The moaning.

They wouldn’t stop.

Sometimes they would whoop instead of moan. Sometimes they would sing military chants. The noise never stopped.

At the end they told us that we were all a bunch of women (ummmm, we were) and we didn’t know how to work out because we didn’t make any noise.

I thought I was going to have to leave half-way through the workout because my ear drums felt like they were going to explode.

I have done a lot of reading about Sensory Processing Disorder and I don’t have it, but I would certainly say I have sensory sensitivities. It’s not a disorder because I have coping skills, but those men were twanging on my last nerve.

Elsa decided to take a little nap at 7 pm last night, which meant she didn’t go to real bed until almost midnight. Dumb, dumb parents. Why did we let her do that? Except, what are you supposed to do when she walks over, puts a boppy and a blanket on your lap and assumes the sleep position? And screams hysterically if you don’t let her sleep?

Remember all the fun times of Erik screaming hysterically when we tried to force him to sleep? Such different children.

I woke up at 6 this morning and finally got out of bed at 6:30. I’m just too excited and nervous about the first day of kindergarten! Erik is so excited that he’s buzzing. Literally. Buzzing noises won’t stop coming out of his mouth.

He was all dressed and ready to go, but I had to make him do a costume change. What do you want your kid to wear the first day of school? Something nice, right? He picked out his karate t-shirt, which is about 4 sizes too big. I don’t know how I managed to finesse him into a shirt with buttons, but with a lot of cajoling it worked. It will be the first and only day the child wears my idea of a nice shirt to school. Gotta give a mama something on the first day, right?

We’ve been ready to go to the bus for at least 20 minutes and we have another 40 minutes before the bus arrives. I suppose it won’t always be this easy, but it’s nice to get off to a slow start.

Thankfully they didn’t cancel school. There are about 8 schools in the district without power, but they just cancelled those specific schools instead of shutting down the whole district. I think Erik and I both would have gone insane if he couldn’t go to school today. I love the boy with everything I’ve got, but he can be so very intense. I think we’ve both been on each others last nerves the last week or so.

According to Erik, the hurricane didn’t to any damage to our place because of his double yolker. His teacher is going to be so confused if he starts trying to explain this to her. We made “hurricane cookies” because he was really sad about not being invited to a hurricane party next door. He cracked open the first egg and two yolks fell out. I told him he was lucky because double yolkers are really rare. He is now convinced his double yolker luck is what single handedly kept the hurricane from killing us all.

I told him double yolkers are from old hens, but he didn’t really get that part. He keeps saying that he is lucky because of his old pigeon double yolker.

I suppose kindergarten teachers must be confused all the time. They must learn to just nod and smile.

What else? I am very anxious to get my sewing machine back. The repairman said the bobbin case was severely damaged and he had to order a new one so it will take a couple of weeks.

Erik was annoying me by digging around in my chair yesterday. I just wanted to sit down, but he was convinced I was hiding something from him in the chair. Why? WHY? I have no freakin’ clue.

Guess what he found! A camera that’s been missing for several months! It had several pictures on it, but now I remember why I wasn’t sad when this camera went rogue. Nary a good picture on the whole thing. I really love my new camera (Sony Cybershot). If only the kids would keep their stinkin’ little greasy fingers off the lens.

Guess I better go double check everything. I have butterflies in my stomach!

We are probably overprepared for Irene, but better that than the alternative, right? Mike spent a lot of time bringing everything in from outside and tying other things down. I tried to help, but I was in charge of Elsa. She doesn’t care that we’re about to get slammed. She just wants to run down the street.

Poor Erik is feeling a little left out. Our new neighbors are about 10 years younger than us. They smoke. They drink. They seem like really nice people, but they are not likely to become our new best friends.

They ran into some other neighbors a little further down the street. The other neighbors are about 10 years younger than us. They smoke. They drink.

They are all likely to become best friends.

They all have kids in Erik’s age range and Erik loves to play with them. Fine enough.

Well, now they are planning a hurricane party for this evening and Erik wasn’t invited. His little heart is broken and he just doesn’t understand that it’s not about him.

I am pretty sure the neighbors were having sex while we were prepping for the storm. Erik knocked on the door to ask the kids to come play. They accidentally locked themselves out and were freaking out because they were scared. There’s nothing to be scared of yet, but they asked me to help them. They said it would probably be at least a half hour before anyone could answer the door because their mom was taking a nap and their dad was taking a shower and that always takes “forever.”

I waited outside with them and sure enough–it took at least a half hour before they came to the door to let them in.

At first I Was thinking “wow, that’s a long shower” then it suddenly dawned on me. Doh!

Ok, I guess I better go do something productive with my time. What, I don’t know. Pace and fret?

What a day! I was so worn out that I refused to go to Erik’s karate graduation. Elsa is just a menace and won’t sit still, so one of us would be outside chasing her. They have these graduations every two months so it is not like I’m missing a big accomplishment. I’m sure they must really test them at the higher levels, but at this point the belts are completely meaningless. There are good things about karate, but I would have to think really hard to come up with a list at this particular moment. I am pretty sick of the graduation racket our school has going on. It costs $55/graduation and if you don’t do it your kid feels like a big loser because everyone else gets a new belt and they don’t.

My friend needed a sitter for her son this morning because her school had their kindergarten open house at a really weird time and they were told not to bring any siblings. I don’t know what people are supposed to do. We had our open house last night and were told not to bring any children at all, but several families didn’t comply. I can totally understand some families not complying, because what are you going to do? I was less than understanding with the families that brought two or more adults (yes, some brought both parents and at least one grandparent) and multiple children who yelled and screamed the whole time. I’m not talking babies either. I suppose parents who can’t follow rules don’t expect their kids to follow rules. It was almost impossible to hear anything, thanks to the screams of the unruly children. There were some perfectly well behaved children in attendance as well. I’m not talking about them.

Anyway. Focus, Carrie, focus. Rough day. I babysat, then I went out and checked everything off my hurricane preparedness list. We still have to bring in all the yard items and figure out what to do with the trampoline (maybe tie it to the deck pillars?), but we have everything else ready to go. I hope to god I never have to eat the canned chicken or canned soup, but you never know. I bought plenty of fresh food that doesn’t need to be refrigerated (potatoes, bananas, oranges, etc) but I figured if I was going to make an emergency kit I might as well do it right. We might not have notice if there is a terrorist attack or something like that, so canned chicken it is. I might not be too picky when I’m hungry and the kids are starving.

The store was busier than usual, but not nearly the madhouse I had feared. I stupidly picked up one of the scanners* so I could do it myself, but I didn’t think about Elsa being totally obsessed with the fun beeping toy. She was screaming and climbing out of her seat (yes, she was strapped in, but those straps don’t do much for a very determined toddler) and insisting on getting down so she could chase Erik and get the scanner. Your basic hurricane grocery shopping nightmare, coupled with a five year old who has the incredible talent of standing exactly where you need to be. Fun times!

When I got home I was pretty cranky and decided I didn’t need to deal with all the neighborhood children, so I put a sign on the door telling them not to knock. I suppose I got a little snarky when I added “no bikes, no water, no bathrooms, no food, no Erik.” I couldn’t quite leave it like that, so I did add “Maybe Later” with a smiley.

After Elsa’s nap, it was off to kindergarten so Erik could meet his teacher and get used to the school. He really enjoyed the whole thing. I really enjoyed the picture of the school mascot attacking a space shuttle. Shouldn’t a school named Sally Ride have a mustang mascot?

They had a cute little scavenger hunt for the kindergartners. They had to find several important places in the classroom, then they had to go out into the school and find places like the library, gym, music room and so forth. Erik loved it. We were on a hunt!

He has one neighborhood boy in his class, but that’s it as far as people we know. I didn’t have an immediate connection with any of the other parents, but who knows. We’ll see what happens this year, I guess. One guy was super annoying. He was telling the teacher how his kid knows all the states and continents and oceans blah blah braggy pants. Then he was quizzing the kid and the kid was just standing there staring into space. I hate braggy pants parents. You don’t need to brag to your kid’s teacher. The teacher will figure out your child’s capabilities as soon as the school year gets rolling. Big time bragging only makes the teacher think that you’re going to be “that parent.” How do people not know this?

How about a picture of Elsa’s haircut before I go to bed? She’s started saying cheese whenever she sees the camera so I can’t get a decent picture. Heather posted a link to a lady who had ideas for making kids laugh naturally in pictures and they all sounded great, but so far not a single one of them has worked with my kids. Maybe I’m just not fun enough.

*Our local Giant stores have the best system ever. You can pick up a scan gun when you go into the store. As you shop, you scan each item and place it in your bag. Then when you get all done you go to any line (there are a few special ones just for this process, but you can also go to a regular line) and scan the little “finished” bar code. It pulls up your order and you pay. They have random checks where it will say “please wait for a cashier” and someone will come and do a spot check on your bag to make sure you really scanned everything. I love this system, but it is not worth it now that Elsa is a grabby toddler who can’t be tamed.

Up: It was parent night for kindergarten parents! I felt so strange sitting in those little kindergarten chairs, hearing about all the things the kids would be doing. I am really glad I have a lot of experience in a school setting so I don’t have to worry about some of the things the other parents are worried about. I know the teachers and staff want to be there and have systems in place to keep my kid safe from harm.

Down: There’s a giant, friggin’ hurricane headed our way! Is it really going to hit us? I am not very prepared. I need to go to the store tomorrow and buy us some non-perishable food. I do not like being hungry. But when am I going to have time to go to the store? I’m babysitting until noon, then have to be at Erik’s school again at 3:30. Elsa should nap in between. I think she will just have to be napless. Hurricane preparedness is more important than a baby nap. My only worry is the the shelves will be totally cleared off by the time we get to the store.

Up: Elsa got a haircut today! And it wasn’t even traumatic! Erik agreed to get his hair cut with no drama, thank dog. I made a comment to the stylist that I really should get Elsa’s hair cut, but I was too afraid. When she finished Erik’s hair, she asked if I wanted her to trim Elsa’s bangs. We didn’t sit her down or anything. I just stood there and held her while the lady went “snip, snip, snip.” It looks sooooooo much better. I guess cutting bangs is not nearly as traumatic as a full on clipper buzz.

Down: I didn’t get a picture of the haircutting process. Booooo! I didn’t have my camera with me, and even if I did who would have taken the pictures? I’m falling down on my documentarian job.

Up: I’ve resisted temptation and haven’t had any snacks or sweets today.

Down: I feel like the biggest, fattest, grossest human being on the planet. And I just. . . can’t. . . quit. . . eating. The grosser I feel, the more I want chocolate. I wish this baby would stop being sick all the time so I could get into a good workout routine. I knew if I ever stopped gymming it on a daily basis I would turn into a giant blob. I was already a giant blob. I can’t afford to be any bigger.

Up: Elsa didn’t puke on me in middle of the night. Big up, right there!

Down: Erik growled at Elsa this afternoon. It totally freaked her out. She started sobbing. Then she started coughing. Then she barfed all over me. I changed clothes, obviously, but that puke smell is pretty pervasive. I must have made an excellent first impression at the school–my hair was frizzed out, I smelled like puke. I’m a big blob. Ugh. You know it’s humid when my straight as a stick hair gets frizzed out.

Every night I read Erik a book and tell him a made up story. He is a strange child in that he refuses to listen to the same story twice. He won’t read the same book twice, either. He cries if he realizes that we’ve read all our library books. Don’t most kids like to read the same thing 29348484839339 times? He did when he was a toddler. I could probably still quote you all these little board books about school buses. But now it’s all about the new.

Most of the time my stories are really lame. I’ve gone through all the standard fairy tales that I can remember, so I’m left with my own imagination. Sometimes I pull from movie plots and make them kid friendly. Erik is going to be in for some major confusion the first time he watches Princess Bride or Forest Gump. Which, by the way, I hate. But Erik heard me say “Run, Forest, run” and wanted to know what that was all about. He really liked a story about a guy just running and running and running.

Every once in a while I come up with a story that’s really quite good. Last night was one of those nights. It was about a snotty princess who ate cupcakes all day. One day her baker was sick and she was really angry because she couldn’t have cupcakes. She went out on a walk and met a little girl who told her to suck it up and then the little girl went to the castle and taught her how to make her own cupcakes.

That’s at least as good as half the books I read to the child.

Problem: picture books for kids are really made by the pictures. The words are important, true, but it is all about the pictures. How cute would it be to have the princess in the story be a little girl who is obviously just wearing dress up clothes and her castle is just a regular ol’ house and all that? I can picture it, but no way can I draw it.

We read a book a few weeks ago called something about an Ordinary Day. The words were all very boring. Mary got up in the morning. Mary ate breakfast. Mary rode to school. The pictures, though, they were wonderful. I can’t remember the particulars, but the girl rode a dinosaur to school and flew around on a big bird. Stuff like that.

I also told Erik a series of stories about a big brown dog who wants to do good deeds, but everyone thinks he’s a wolf. He tries to tell these three little pigs that their houses aren’t safe, and even proves it by blowing two of them down, but they just run from him. He tried to help a little girl deliver cookies to her ailing grandmother and she just ran away.

I have ideas. I just have no time for execution or skills to make them come to life. I know many publishers provide an illustrator, but so much of the picture book is about the right picture that I’m not sure how you would even start to write a children’s book without drawing skills.

Yesterday I was a rabble rousing community organizer.

You probably don’t remember, but a few months ago I sent an e-mail to our HOA manager about our play area. The trash can had been removed and the rocking squirrel was broken. They immediately came out and replaced the trash can and put a big cone over the jagged piece of metal left by the rocking squirrel. One of the boys, Mr. Safety Patrol, was impressed when he found out I had e-mailed them and they came out and fixed it. He asked me to e-mail and ask if they could put in some swings and a twirly slide. I never did because it didn’t seem likely.

A couple of days ago they came out and replaced the rocking squirrel with a cute little pony.

Mr. Safety Patrol remembered what I said about the e-mail and asked what they said about swings. Ummmm. Whoops.

I ended up telling the kids that if they really wanted a new park they needed to get as many kids as possible to write letters and I would mail them in for them. I thought that would be the end of it, but Mr. Safety Patrol went and got a load of paper and a bunch of pens. I helped give them some direction about what to say and I now have 12 letters to send in. The letters are very varied. Everything from a 4 year old’s drawing of a perfect park to a really nicely written letter by a tweenager, along with a chart of brainstormed ideas. Have I ever mentioned that I love my neighborhood?

Elsa is feeling much better. I haven’t been puked on in over 24 hours. I even got a little sleep last night. Things are looking up! Except for the copious amounts of snot running out of my nose. That’s not so up.

Beck suggested I get Carbonite for all my back-up needs. I looked into it and am going to do it. Seems like it is well worth $59/year! I know technically I can and should just back up my own files like a fancy computer person, but let’s get real. That’s not going to happen.

Thankfully I had a fit of daughterly guilt in July and uploaded a ton of pics to Wal-Mart and had them sent to my mom’s local Wal-mart. She always gets a thrill when she gets a call from their photo department. I’ve not used their photobook services, but I guess I’m about to find out if they are as nice as Shutterfly books. I have all our Vancouver pics on Flickr, so I guess I need to figure out if I can make a book or easily download pics from there. Sadly, the picture of Elsa licking her chicken paprikash plate is lost forever.

I finished two things that were stressing me out big-time yesterday. I finally remembered “templates!” for the flyer I had to make, and that helped. I used to be pretty good at making stuff, but it requires a lot of time and fiddliness and I don’t have time or patience any more. In fact, yesterday my patience were worn so thin that when a girl knocked on my door I opened it and said “I’m closed” before not-quite slamming it shut. There are two girls in the neighborhood that have no boundaries. They’d already been in my house asking for food, but I kicked them out. I’d had enough, so I was done. They wanted to use my bathroom! Seriously? They live three houses down. They do not need to use my bathroom. I think I need to get a big sign for my door that says “I’m closed. Do not knock. You can’t borrow Erik’s bike, have food, use the bathroom, or get a drink*. Go find your own mommy, daddy, auntie, or babysitter.”

Some days I have patience. Some days I do not. I definitely do not have patience for wild hooligans who live three houses down and seem well fed. If only they were well mannered. . .

On the agenda for today: new library books, haircut for Erik (this will be almost impossible because he decided he wants “big hair” like his hero: see below), Airborne for me, and maybe a nice new shirt for the first day of school for Erik. Except he refuses to wear any shirts with buttons and if I let him pick a new shirt, it will just be another Star Wars/Transformers/Phineas and Ferb/Avengers t-shirt. And what’s so special about that, my friends?

*I only give food and water to the crack house kids. They claim the water in their sink is brown. I’d rather give them a cup of water than have them go home and drink a soda.

As predicted, we had a very long night indeed. I doubt I got two hours sleep, total. Poor Miss Elsa is absolutely miserable and there’s just not much we can do for her.

You’d think a sick baby and an exhausted mommy would be enough to make any day pretty crappy, but fate had more in store for us today.

I was happily sitting at my computer when I suddenly got a pop up window that said my hard drive was damaged and I would lose data, but I must reboot. I didn’t know what data I would lose, but I wasn’t working on anything important so I rebooted.

Every picture was gone off my computer.

Every.

Single.

Picture.

Even icons.

Do you know what a computer looks like without icons? Freaky.

I about wanted to puke. I have back-ups of the best pictures on Flickr and Shutterfly, but I haven’t done any backing up since shortly after Vancouver. I was hoping it was all a big mistake and the pictures were just hiding.

Before I could figure it out, Elsa started coughing really hard. Did I ever mention that Elsa has a really strong gag reflex?

I heard The Gurgle in her stomach. Sadly, I know The Gurgle well.

Less than 4 seconds later I was covered in puke from head to toe. It was in my mouth, my hair, my underwear.

I started stripping her and she puked again, right when the shirt was going over her head. She got it in her eyes, her hair. Every where.

So off we went for our second shower of the morning.

When we finally got settled and I checked my computer, the whole thing was covered in error windows. I thought I would have to send my computer in to Dell to get it repaired because it kept saying it was a hardware error.

So that was happening.

The puke happened.

The crying, cranky baby was happening.

I whined to FB that my day was bad and “what else could possibly go wrong?”

Not even 30 minutes later I thought my washing machine was coming unhooked from the wall. Then I thought we were being bombed or a truck was running through my house. Something was happening and my brain couldn’t even begin to process the noise and the movement. Was our A/C unit on fire? Did someone shoot my neighbor? Was a train loose?

It was terrifying in the moment, until I realized it was just a big ol’ earthquake shaking the shit out of my house.

When I got my wits about me, I grabbed Elsa (who was finally, FINALLY sleeping) and ran out the door to collect Erik from the park. She was dressed in a diaper. I had no shoes on. It was like something out of a bad movie.

I was yelling for him as I approached the little park and he thought it would be a great time to hide. Thankfully a guy from the low income house saw that he was under the play structure at the park and pointed him out to me. Apparently he hadn’t felt a thing, even though all the neighbors were out and the kids were all saying the fences in the neighborhood had been shaking. One kid even fell off his bike.

Overall, the earthquake wasn’t bad at all, except for that initial terror of “what the hell is happening?” It just made us nervous for the rest of the day and I didn’t want Erik playing outside in case of aftershocks.

Once Mike got home, I had a little chat with Dell tech support and some guy in India remotely fixed my computer.

How, you ask?

By completely wiping my system and setting it back to factory settings.

Obviously he did it with permission, but there wasn’t much choice. I am lamenting all the lost pictures.

There is one good thing. I was supposed to fix my e-mail accounts a couple of months ago when Kisha figured out why I was having problems. Thunderbird automatically synced my accounts so it doesn’t matter which computer I am on–my e-mail inboxes will look the same and I can access any message from either my laptop or my desktop. This is a problem because it stores the messages on the server.

I’ve been really good about deleting stuff, but it is still a pain to make sure I am not going over my data limit. I keep meaning to re-do everything and make it so the e-mails come off the server and are stored on my laptop. I guess it is a very good thing I didn’t get around to fixing it, since I have some pretty important e-mails that I can’t afford to lose.

Well.

Pretty important in my little world. I don’t have the cure for cancer tucked away in a secret e-mail file.

I am so stressed out right now that I can barely think straight. We are doing an open house for my MOMS Club and I have a ton of stuff I need to take care of but I can’t seem to get started. Before I left for Oregon I was getting into a list making mode. First time in my life that I ever used lists and crossed things off. And you know? It made me so much more productive.

Tomorrow I shall revive the lists. I am overwhelmed and the lists help break things down into manageable steps. Erik has five hours of camp tomorrow, so if Elsa is feeling a bit better I should be able to knock some things off the list. I really need to make some fliers for this open house but my desktop publishing skills are abysmal. Bah. I need to write a press release for a local kid newsletter. I need to figure out what, exactly, we need to bring to this open house and have all the files printed and prepared. My stomach hurts just thinking about it.

And with that, I shall leave you. Time to hit the hay. I am functioning on very little brain power tonight, but with all the craziness of the day I am wishing I had a sleeping pill handy. Why do I not have a stash of sleeping pills any more? I think it is high time I visited the pharmacy and loaded up on barbiturates. Not that OTC sleeping pills are actually barbiturates. Are they?

Maybe I should just re-watch the movie I watched this afternoon: Dear Lemon Lima. Very bizarre stuff. I can’t do slow moving movies with plots that make no sense. I bet a lot of people liked it, though. It was pretty quirky in a sort of Napoleon Dynamite way, only depressing.

Speaking of Netflix movies, what the heck happened to Kristen Bell? She did such a fabulous job in “Veronica Mars” that I was sure she was destined for great things. She could play any one! She could do anything! Yet every movie I’ve seen her in makes me want to cringe. I watched You Again yesterday. It was ok, but had a lot of cringe worthy moments. I tried to watch that movie where she was in Italy, but I couldn’t do it. Why, Kristen, why? Is she just picking the wrong parts? Do movie studios not take her seriously because she’s young and blonde? I don’t know. I miss Veronica.

I have been deeply unhappy with our carpet for quite awhile. Basically since we moved in. Of course it gets worse and worse over time and I make declarations about tearing it out barehanded, but I am not that foolish. I am not a home repair whiz.

I finally remembered that when the carpet gets unbearable you can rent a steam cleaner and make it a little better. Duh!

So that’s what we did today. We opted out of the county fair, and spent the afternoon moving furniture and lifting buckets of water. Our living room looks much better, but we haven’t tackled the dining room yet. I have a feeling the dining room will need to be done at least twice.

Our new neighbors have been keeping Erik entertained for hours upon hours. They seem like really nice people, though my eyes about boggled out of my head when the guy told me they are 27. They got married right out of high school and had baby number shortly after. He’s looking forward to his 40s.

My 40s are staring me in the face and they are not looking to be child free. I hope by the time my 40s roll around I won’t be doing any more diaper changes. We certainly aren’t planning on any more kids and I think Elsa is neurotypical so should be able to be trained before the age of 4.

I started watching “Torchwood” from the beginning on Netflix and enjoyed the first two episodes. I don’t really see how it is the same series as the “Torchwood: Miracle Day” but whatever. They have a couple of the same people and that seems to be it. I can enjoy it and be highly skeptical about everyone’s motivations, right?

Thank you all for your comments on the kosher keeping dinner guests. I did not realize it was so involved. Yikes! I don’t get it, but I guess I’m not Jewish so I’m not meant to get it. I should not have been worried. They are not kosher keeping, but the wife is vegetarian. I’ve suggested we meet in the middle and have a fun little tourist day in downtown DC instead of them trying to come out here without a car. Hopefully that will work out a little better.

I’m really frustrated right now because I want to put Microsoft Publisher on my laptop. I legitimately own it and I even bought a back-up CD so I wouldn’t get burned by a bad computer, but now I don’t have the product key. My e-mail problems (resolved, thank you Kisha!) mean that the e-mail with the product key was deleted. Supposedly I can log in to my account and it will have the product key. Only problem: what e-mail address was I logged in with? Neither of mine, that’s for sure. I was on Mike’s computer, so perhaps he has a Microsoft account. I’ll check with him later, but he is currently dealing with a sleepy Elsa. I have a few things I really need to get done and the desktop chair kills my back like nothing else. I would be a lot more productive if my laptop had the program I actually need.

But at least Mike found the charger for the camera! Now I can take pictures of my sweet, sweet children. Well. They look sweet anyway. They mostly act sweet. Somedays, though. I tell ya. Parenthood is hard. Duh.

I can’t believe Erik starts school in 9 days. I don’t anticipate crying. I might get a little misty eyed at some point, but I don’t know when that point will be. So far I’ve celebrated all his growing up points. I think I was the only mom doing a happy dance on the first day of preschool.

Somedays I do look at Elsa and think little bittersweet thoughts about never having a toddler again, but then she climbs on the table and gets into trouble or puts a roll of TP in the toilet and I realize I don’t want to go through another toddlerhood.

She had her first full blown temper tantrum today. She has always shown that she has a quick temper, though she is generally pretty mellow. Today was just the first time she’s laid on the floor and did the whole flailing thing. I just laughed and walked away.

I’ve been reading the official MOMS Club manual to make sure I understand everything and I want to scratch my eyes out. It listed five reasons that we aren’t allowed to have daytime activities. The third reason? Mothers should never be encouraged to go outside after dark because they might get raped. Seriously. What is this, 1902? Sure, rape happens. I am not trying to minimize that, but women should not lock themselves away in fear. So ridiculous.

Ok, I better go fix Erik some dinner and warm up some delicious tortilla soup for myself. I love the tortilla soup leftovers when I remember to add bay leaves. Yumyumyum.

If you know me, you know my six months discombobulation theory. Basically, Erik goes insane a couple of months before his birthday and his half birthday.

Guess what happened on August 13?

Insanity.

Oh, the wailing!

Oh, the gnashing of teeth!

Oh, the mass consumption of Advil (for me).

He started crying at the park today. Crying. Real tears. Because he was “scared of the other kids. They might talk to [him].”

Discombobulation, he has it. If you’ve ever met him, you probably don’t even believe that he uttered the statement that he was scared of the other kids.

I’ve been white knuckling my way through the days, trying not to be a terrible mommy and shake him until he can get a grip. Seriously, who needs to wail like a fire engine for a full hour because of a popped balloon? I can be patient with that for about five minutes, but then I’m done. I hold out a little longer, but finally I had to tell him he could be sad and cry, but he had to do it in his room.

Did I mention we have new neighbors? Actually, we have new neighbors on both sides of us. One set moved in a few weeks ago and we haven’t seen much of them. The others just moved in two days ago and we’ve already seen a lot of the kids. They have a 9 year old girl and a 6 year old boy and they’ve fit right in to the neighborhood. The girl is sad that there aren’t more girls, but the boy is loving having a band of friends to run around with. I’m loving having a friend right across the . . . not even sure what to call it. We are in an end unit townhouse with a side facing entrance. We face their front door. There is a patch of dirt and tree separating us. Having a friend a little closer keeps Erik a little closer.

I have an extremely cranky baby this afternoon. She was sleeping so well until Erik came up and started pestering me about helping him with his video game. We have issues. I can’t wait until Erik goes to school so Elsa will be able to get uninterrupted naps. I am going to train her to go down in the crib, but I can’t do it with Erik here because he freaks out if she is crying, which makes matters about 10000000x worse.

I was at a MOMS Club event yesterday and Elsa wanted to be nursed. One of the other moms was totally horrified and asked me how old she was. When I said 16 months, she rushed to her bag and pulled out a bottle of Mavala, this nasty anti-thumbsucking fingernail polish and instructed me to put it on my nipples.

Ok.

First of all, I am not going to stop nursing because someone I barely know thinks I should quit nursing.

Not that I want to nurse forever. I am sort of weaning her.

Second of all.

Oh. My. God.

Fingernail polish on my nipples????

So not going to happen.

So I put a tiny bit on my thumb just to see how it felt on the skin and to appease this lady. She’s a nice lady, just very young and not very politically correct. I like her, despite the mommy drive by.

I forgot all about the stuff until lunch time. I couldn’t even eat my sandwich. It is HORRIBLE. Beyond horrible. Just disgusting. GROSSGROSSGROSS. It would totally put an end to thumbsucking, but it might make your kid hate you.

It’s still on there today and is causing me problems. I’m surprised at how much my eating depends on my thumb.

I think it is time to stop nursing, just to save myself some embarrassment. Elsa has taken to walking around with her shirt lifted up, yelling out “boobie boobie boobie.” She really likes B words.