The Queen's Rambles

Oh man, people. I am down with a cold. An ugly, rotten, streaming, full sinus, snotty cold. You know how that goes, right?

I woke up with a tickle in my throat yesterday, but it didn’t seem too bad. There was no school because of Rosh Hashanah, so we had plans to meet up with Bethany and her girls. Original plans were to meet at a nice, big park that’s about half way between us, but it was a wet, yucky day. I talked to Bethany and let her know I was not feeling 100%, but she was also having a scratchy throat so decided to risk it. I hope she doesn’t get what I’ve got!

We walked over the the Amish Market, which was perfect for the big kids. Erik and Annalie got to run to their heart’s content and look at leaves and just be outside and enjoy the fresh air. It was raining a bit on the walk back, but it felt quite refreshing to have some cool drops as we walked home. The big ol’ hill that our community sits on fools you. You don’t realize how steep it is, until you get home and realize that you’re totally sweating.

I have been going to the Amish market for so long that I am not sure if it is as cool as I think it is. I know when I first discovered it, I went all the time and thought it was awesome. But now it’s old hat. I love the food, especially the fried chicken. I am forever spoiled by their fried chicken. There is no point of ever eating non-Amish fried chicken again. But then I take people there for touristy reasons (it is the only unique, interesting place in all of Germantown) and am not sure if it is everything I am remembering it to be.

But cake! Candies! Chicken! Amish people on cell phones!

I am used to Elsa being the youngest in the crowd, but Elliora is even smaller so I got to see Elsa be a big girl. Unfortunately she is in that toddler stage of taking things away and just basically being a bully. Elliora was very good about the whole situation and didn’t freak out, so I think it was fine. By the end of the visit I think they were even making friends of each other. Elsa was definitely warming up to Bethany and Elliora, which is a huge compliment. She’s not really a people person.

And the big kids! Well, they just disappeared and played and seemed to get along like gangbusters. Who knows what they were really doing. They went to the basement and the park.

Bethany took some really wonderful pictures. I’ll have to get her to e-mail them to me. I was feeling pretty crappy, so didn’t pull the camera out for more than a couple of blurry shots. I wish I knew what I did with my lens cleaning kit. It’s hard to get sharp pictures when you have kid fingerprints all over your lens.

I woke up totally sick today. Elsa is sick. Erik had a horrible cough this morning so I kept him home from school. I assumed he would get worse and worse, but he’s gotten better and better. By noon I was ready to go drop him off at the school. He kept thinking the bus would come back for him and was pretty upset that he was missing school, so I view that as a good thing. For all his fussing and complaining, he must like it.

I had to drag the whole sick family to the oral surgeon for a consult. It’s hard to get an appointment, so I didn’t want to put it off since I need to do the surgery while my mom is here. They are in the same place as our ped, so I knew there was a chance we would see the anti-choice people out and about. Thank goodness these were people of the normal variety. They had signs that said “Pray to end abortion” and that was it. While I don’t agree with their message (want to end abortion? Work to end unplanned pregnancy), I was not angry or offended to see their signs. Maybe it was a different group, or maybe they are getting the idea that they are just pissing people off, even the people who agree with them. I was just glad they didn’t have the graphic, disgusting signs that they often wave around. Sometimes they even drive a big semi trailer around the area with huge, disgusting signs on the sides.

Anyway, I was planning on fighting the surgeon and telling him he didn’t need to take out my left wisdom teeth, but he beat me to the punch. He is only concerned about one tooth, which is the tooth that is causing me pain and problems. It popped half-way through when I was nursing Erik and has just been annoying ever since. I can’t brush it very well, so it is getting full of decay. I was very, very happy when he said he can take it out with just a Novocaine and that I’ll be as good as new the next day. He said it will hurt way less than my two root canals, so I’m feeling much, much better about this whole situation. When I thought I was going under, I had planned on having my mom drop me off and then calling her when it was done, but the rule is the driver has to stay for the whole surgery. I’m sure my mom would have loved trying to entertain Elsa in their teeny little office for who knows how long. Now I can just drive myself, so it will be much simpler.

I won a Mother of the Year award this afternoon. Elsa went down for a nap as soon as we got home. She woke up an hour later, screaming hysterically in obvious pain. I thought her cold was getting worse, so hunted high and low for some infant pain relief. Found it, forced it on her, sort of got her back to sleep. She refused to lay down, though. She wanted to stand on me, which is not that comfortable. She’s really tall, so if she stands on me her head is above my head, which is not ideal for snuggling.

Over and over again, she would wake up screaming and hysterical.

I was ready to go to the ER because she is just not a screamer, but then I looked in her diaper.

My poor, poor baby had a major poopy diaper. This pitiful little girl gets a terrible diaper rash if I don’t change a poop diaper within five minutes, so you can only imagine what it looked like after an hour and a half (possibly more). Let’s just say open sores, and leave it at that.

Usually she tells me when she’s poopy, or I notice her grunting or the horrible stench. With a cold, the horrible stench was blocked. I feel so bad for her. I couldn’t wipe her without causing hysterics-inducing pain. I tried to rinse her off in the shower, and that caused red faced, screeching, stomping pain as well. Eventually we just worked through the pain (in my mommy heart and her butt), got her cleaned up, buttered her up with aquaphor and she was able to settle back down into a nap.

New topic:

The other night Erik wanted to bake a cake for his grandma’s birthday. I’d been promising him for weeks that we could bake a cake, so I gave in and we baked a cake. He wanted one vanilla layer, one chocolate layer and then frosting that was black and white like an eyeball.

I found recipes for two cakes (the vanilla one is completely awesome HERE) and we ended up with two layers.

Then I pulled a stupid move and tried to take the yellow cake out of the pan before it was cooled enough, making a huge mess of the whole thing. People on FB told me I could fix it with frosting, but it was too late because we had already eaten the middle part that fell out. It was sooooo good. I am a terrible cake baker and I can’t decorate for crap, so it never occurred to me to try to save it.

I had the left over yellow cake sitting on the kitchen counter, nicely covered. I was thinking I might try to make some cake balls out of it. I think you need crumbled up cake and buttercream frosting for cake balls.

I was frantically cleaning the house for Bethany’s visit since people don’t need to know the squalor we live in. Just when I thought it was good enough, I walked into the kitchen. Elsa had taken Erik’s stool, pulled herself up to the counter and was double fisting bites of the yellow cake. There was cake EVERYWHERE. Have I mentioned we are fighting an ant war in this house? And losing fairly badly? Cake everywhere doesn’t help.

Grandma birthday cake fail! Whoo-hoo! It was too early to bake a cake for grandma anyway, since she won’t get here till tomorrow. I am trying to course correct today.

I baked two layers of the vanilla cake today and bought supplies to make some icing. I don’t know how we are going to make the cake look like an eyeball. I guess I’ll make a buttercream icing and a chocolate icing and somehow make it all work. I was thinking of crumbling up the left overs of the chocolate cake (Erik had to test it out, and so did I) and mix it with pudding and put it in the middle for a surprise filling. Isn’t that what dirt cakes are made of? I need to find out how to make a dirt cake. I think that’s what I’m doing for Erik’s birthday this year. I even bought gummy worms for it at the Amish market. Or maybe I will try to make a custard to fill the cake with. My very favorite cake from childhood is a pink champagne cake that a local supermarket makes. It is filled with a delightful custard and iced with a pink buttercream. I have tried re-creating it for years, but always fail.

I should be in bed right now, but I feel like I haven’t written in ages. Elsa has changed her poop schedule from a nice 11 am turd, to an awful 11 pm turd. Problem being, she won’t go to sleep until she poops. So instead of her going down at 9 and us having some quiet time, we have a little over-tired ball of energy zinging back and forth, climbing up on all the furniture, biting our arms and just generally living up to her Miss Menace nick name.

Thus, no writing.

We had quite an adventure tonight.

I was making Texas style chicken (slice tomatoes, lay in bottom of pan, sprinkle with chopped jalapenos and grated colby jack cheese. Cover with chicken tender. Sprinkle with ranch dressing powder. Bake until done. So good, so easy) and didn’t think to throw away the jalapeno seeds immediately. Erik loves to plant bell pepper seeds, which we often have laying on the counter while I’m cooking.

He grabbed a jalapeno seed and was walking all over the house with it. I didn’t think anything of it until the screams started.

If you’ve ever messed with a jalepeno and then touched your eye you know how bad it hurts. Imagine being 5 years old and not knowing how to handle that type of pain. He wanted to rub his eye, but I knew that would make it worse. I was grabbing his hands and he was screaming bloody murder. I tried to get him to the sink to rinse his eye out, but he wasn’t tall enough. I took my boob out of my shirt and started squirting milk into his eye because I knew the enzymes in dairy will help flush out the capsaicin. That didn’t really work, so I ordered Mike to take him up to the shower and try to flush his eye.

He was up there, screaming bloody murder and flushing his eye didn’t help. I did a quick google search and saw that it said to put milk in the eye. I guess I just needed confirmation from an outside source. With the horrific screams of pain it was hard to think straight.

I grabbed a glass of milk and went into the bathroom. He screamed even louder when he saw I had milk. He hates milk. He begged me not to pour the milk in his eye, but I did it anyone and there was instant pain relief. If you ever get jalapeno in your eye, flush with milk for pain relief. It was amazing.

Of course, it wasn’t simply a matter of pouring the milk in the eye and having him cured forever. We were in the shower for what felt like an hour but maybe it was only 30 minutes or so. I had to keep pouring milk in every few seconds until the pain finally subsided. The whole right side of his face was swollen up and red. It was so sad to see.

He has always hated milk, but the milk kept going into his mouth and he was drinking it.

After it was all over he decided he wanted to try a glass of milk. Then another. And another.

The boy drank three cups of milk!

He says he loves milk and it’s his favorite thing in the world.

Who knew? I guess I need to do extreme food therapy with other things he needs to eat.

Other than that, we’ve had a good day. Elsa and I went over to visit a good friend and had fun. She has a 3 month old that looks exactly like Elvis. Or at least, has Elvis hair. He laughed and laughed when I tickled his belly and told him he was Elvis.

Then the mom said it was time for his nap, took him to a room, came back five minutes later and the deal was done. How do moms do that? I’m so jealous!

Erik has been coming home a lot happier. I think he’s back to his old self. He’s gotten in a tiny bit of trouble yesterday and today (nothing the teacher told me about, just in trouble for being loud and not listening). Obviously I don’t want him to be a trouble maker, but I know him. He’s probably going to get in trouble sometimes. I think it is a good if a child can handle getting in trouble without a total meltdown. I was a perfectionist and still have horrible memories about the two times I was reprimanded in school. In fourth grade my teacher told me that my homework had food on it and I needed to be more careful and in 10th grade my English teacher asked me to quit talking.

I about died of complete mortification in each of those instances and didn’t go to school for three days after the fourth grade incident.

That’s not normal. A kid needs to know when they are in real trouble and when the teacher is just calling them out on something small that they need to improve.

My perfectionist behavior was pretty classic Child of Alcoholic behavior, so it’s not exactly a surprise. I am so glad I am more relaxed these days. I am still wound up tight, but since meeting Mike I am not ready to fling into the atmosphere over every teeny tiny thing. He’s wonderful at keeping me steady and keeping things in perspective.

So Erik. Trouble in school. Me happy about it because it probably means he is enjoying it a lot more and feeling like school is a comfortable place. I guess that’s all I’ve got to report on the boy.

Do we need a girl report? She’s the most hilarious kid I know. Right now she likes to tilt her head and really look at me in the eyes. You’d have to be here to see it, but it’s the sweetest thing.

She’s also talking a lot. I was startled when she said “I wan shoez” the other day. Sentences? Really? She’s 17 months. I was so happy when Erik did the sign for “bird” at 18 months because it was finally some communication.

She also refuses to wear a diaper, so I bought her some training pants and a new potty (we have Erik’s, but we have three floors so just one potty wasn’t cutting it).

So far we’ve had zero success and a lot of wet messes. I know I said I was going to have my mom potty train her, but if she refuses to wear a diaper I figured I might as well start the process. We are going to need new flooring after this is all said and done. I know she gets the point. She grabs herself and says “potty” but by then it is too late.

Ok, enough chit chat. I need to get to bed. Staying up late is no good when I have to get up and get Erik ready for the bus in the mornings. No more long lie-ins with the baby while he fixes himself a breakfast and gorges on video games.

I’m still reeling from Tuesday. I subscribe to Pigs view of Tuesday: it’s the worst day of the week. Ever since she put her theory forward, I’ve noticed Tuesdays always suck. It’s now Thursday evening and I’m still not over my Tuesday.

Originally I had a dental appointment scheduled for 9:45 and then BodyPump at 10:30. I had e-mailed a friend to see if she would be available for a playdate and she was only available on Tuesday. I love this friend and didn’t want to miss a chance to see her, so I promptly decided that I didn’t need to go to BodyPump. Seriously. That’s how much I love this friend. If I skip BodyPump for you, you know you’re on my A list.

I totally forgot about the dental appointment. My brain is mush.

I step out of the shower at 9:36 and suddenly realize “OH SHIT! DENTIST!” I flung clothes on myself and Elsa. Didn’t even bother to button her or put shoes on her. My hair was sopping wet. Her hair was sopping wet. I was wearing a sports bra, for dog’s sake! I may not be high fashion or fancy or even mildly put together, but I don’t leave the house with wet hair and inappropriate boob lifters.

I was only five minutes late for the appointment. I felt like an idiot with my dripping hair and boobs, but what can you do? Other than take some sort of memory enhancing drug?

I was just there for a panoramic x-ray so I can set up my wisdom teeth extraction, so being late wasn’t a big deal, except in my own mind.

People, this extraction is going to hurt. I’ve seen the x-rays. I don’t know how the oral surgeon is going to get the teeth out, other than with a lot of pure, vicious force. The bottom two are sideways. I guess he’ll have to cut through my bones. MY BONES!

I am so not looking forward to this, but the ones on my right side simply must come out. They are becoming bothersome. I never notice the ones on the left so I hope the surgeon will say they can stay. A girl can dream, right?

Anyway, I got home and found out my friend couldn’t come over after all because she needed a nap. She has a 3 month old that doesn’t believe in sleep. I don’t hold it against her. We ended up hanging out later in the day so it was all good.

I decided it would be the perfect time to go to Costco since I really wanted to get the rest of the Bob Books. I looked for them on Amazon and realized the Costco versions were a hell of a good deal, so wanted to grab them all before they were gone. Erik adores them and wants to read them 24/7. He’s becoming such a good reader! It almost brings a tear to my eye to hear him read “Mark and Carl hopped in the car!”

I get there, it’s raining, I run in and plunk Elsa in a cart. Her shoe falls off. Her leg gets caught. I am trying to give the lady my card. Pennies are falling out of my wallet.

No card. NO FREAKIN’ CARD! I can’t get in.

I had gotten there early enough that I had a primo parking space. Literally in the first row. That never happens. NEVER. And now I didn’t have my card? What the hell? Why wasn’t it in my wallet?

I came home, found the card in the coupon bin—WHY? WHY?????—and went back. I really wanted those books.

Of course I didn’t get a primo parking spot. I was out in the hinterlands in the rain.

As expected, Costco was miserable. I spent a lot of money, but got a lot of things I needed. Erik has been begging me for some green pants and they actually had some ugly green boy pants, so I spent way too long looking through every single pair. Guess what? Not a single size 6 in the lot. I almost bought him a pair of camo pants, because camo is his favorite color. I couldn’t do it, though. My hatred for camo won out over love for my son’s color preference. I am going to start crying the first time I see him dressed in camo.

Two good things happened at Costco.

1) Elsa was happy the whole time. This is not unusual. I don’t have any trouble taking her shopping. Erik would have been screaming the whole time, but she’s content to just sit there and look around, waving to people and saying “bye! bye! bye!”.

2) When I went to put my cart away, the cart in front of mine had a big tub of blueberries sitting in the child seat. I looked around to see if I could find the owner, but there was no one. I suppose I should have returned them to the store, but Elsa was already buckled into the van, we were miles from the entrance and it was pouring down rain. That’s no excuse for being a thief, but I was a thief anyway. I stole those blueberries. I’m not proud of it, but now we have blueberries coming out our ears.

I don’t even like blueberries, but I thought I could make Mike a blueberry cobbler or muffins or pie. Is there such a thing as blueberry pie? Turns out, there aren’t enough left for baking. Elsa is crazy about them and has been snarfing them down the way I snarf down peanut butter cups.

I’ve been giving her extra iron to try to make things a little more solid in the diaper department, and that seems to be working. Only problem? Combine the blueberry coloring and the iron and you have the blackest turd you’ve ever seen. I don’t believe any object in the entire known universe is as black as these turds she’s been having. You could fly to Jupiter and still not find such a black object. I think they’re the color of Satan himself. Unless he’s really red. But he doesn’t exist, so the point is moot.

When I finally got home, Elsa wouldn’t nap. Then I got a call from a MOMS Club person that had a complaint for me. Why was I working so hard on recruiting new members, when I wasn’t working hard to retain the members we already have? I am still bothered by that comment. I don’t know how I can work any harder to keep them.

Ok. That’s a lie. I guess I do know.

I can start calling absentee members and making them really uncomfortable by asking why they aren’t coming to events. I suppose 1 or 2 people might appreciate a call, but I think it would just annoy/embarrass/bother the rest of the people. I know I wouldn’t want to get a call like that, unless I was really lonely and depressed.

I send out weekly e-mails begging people to attend events. I feel like every single newsletter I send out is just article after article of me begging people to participate. I am friendly and upbeat. I tell people they are welcome.

Sorry, folks. You joined a club. If you want to participate, please do! But we are not going to call you up and extend an engraved invitation to you personally for every event. At some point you have to take charge of your own destiny and go to a place that you’ve been invited to go, even if no one is calling you to personally invite you.

At least Tuesday is over, right?

I can’t believe I blew off BodyPump today, too. I had a reason. I think. I can’t remember, now. Where are those memory enhancing drugs?

I know I went to the mall and was trying to buy shoes for Elsa. She has such wide feet that I thought I better take her to Stride Rite to get her measured.

Sure enough–6 1/2 Extra Wide.

They didn’t have any extra wides in stock, of course. They gave me a coupon for free shipping from their site, so I was happy about that, thinking they would have all the shoes in extra wide. Then I came home, went to their site, and saw that they have a pretty crappy selection of extra wide shoes. Of course. Why should babies be treated any better than adults? Why should we of the wide feet have any options? My poor baby girl will have to live with the same crappy shoe selection I’ve had to live with all my life. That’s one reason I can never be a fashionista. I will never have the shoes for it.

I ended up buying a totally different brand of shoes off Endless.com, so I hope they fit her. Then I did a little search for women’s shoes and found a pair of super cute boots in my size. I bought them! I have very little faith they will actually fit, but that’s the great thing about these internet shoe sites: free shipping and return shipping. Any time I find a shoe that is halfway cute and in my size I order it. Guess how many of those I actually keep? Maybe 15%. It’s nice to have a low risk way to take some risks. Just think of life pre-internet, when my only shoe shopping option was the 11W rack at Payless Shoes in Podunk-ville. Let’s never go back to those dark days.

Remember my Swedish friend, Annica? When I lived in Sweden we hung out all the time. She had two little girls. I had no children and knew nothing about parenting. Of course I thought I knew everything. Ha. Hahahahahaha. Funny how that goes.

Anyway, she always referred to their vaginas as their treasures. At the time I didn’t know why she needed to refer to them at all. Not like they could see them. Why did they even know they had a vagina?

Yes, I was quite deluded.

Elsa has figured out how to take her diaper off. I remember when Erik reached this stage and we had to move to pull-ups and rompers that snapped in the crotch. I am not sure what to do with Elsa.

I always find her with a finger up her vagina. And that’s if I’m lucky. She also tries to shove things up there.

Last night I was joking around (in my head, no one else knew it was a joke or even knew what I was talking about) and told her to get her finger out of her treasure.

Erik heard me and perked right up. He loves a good treasure.

Hmmm. This is becoming problematic.

He asked me what the treasure was, and I explained that boys have a wiener and girls have a different part called a vagina. He wanted to know what the part was for, and I explained it was a hole that babies could come out of. That rocked his world since he knows that he and Elsa exited through a hole the doctors cut in my stomach.

I realize some people will think I’m an idiot for not just calling it a penis and a vagina. Whatever. I don’t like those words.

This morning when he got up he immediately told me that he was going to tell his teacher that my treasure has a lot of hair on it.

Dandy.

Life with a kindergartner is a never ending embarrassment, I suppose.

Of course I was bothered by Erik’s story last night. I had no idea how much of it was true or what was going on. I used to be a teacher. I know school kids are liars. Sometimes they mean to be, sometimes they just have big imaginations. I just know that I shouldn’t believe half of what he tells me and I hope his teacher will extend me the courtesy when he starts telling stories about home.

I e-mailed her this morning to ask what was going on. I told her the story exactly as Erik told me. I let her know that I didn’t believe for an instant that she was reading a story about a bunch of white men shooting black people. I named the specific child that he said started all this. I asked if she could shed some light on the situation or offer any words of wisdom.

She got right back to me. She was completely baffled. Of course they didn’t read a book like that. There isn’t even a child named Bernard enrolled in the whole school. They do not tolerate any kind of bullying, especially racial bullying.

I know he is getting these ideas from somewhere. Maybe the bus or playground? His mind has warped them and changed them and I have no idea what’s going on.

The school counselor was out today but Erik has an appointment with her tomorrow. She will try to suss out what’s going on–if there was some kernel of reality or if he is having some other sort of issue. I hope she gets more out of him than I get out of him. Today he told me he played with a boy named “Hilarious” all day. Hilarious was apparently his twin.

I have a headache just thinking about these issues. I’m glad I can turn them over to a professional.

I am completely at a loss. I don’t know what to do or say. I need a good parenting book that deals with race.

Erik says he doesn’t like school because some of the kids in his class won’t play with him because he’s not “brownish” enough.

I thought we were having a good day. Despite claiming to need to puke last night, which was clearly a ploy to avoid school today (yes, I was impressed with his thinking ahead skills. I could practically see the wheels turning in his little brain last night) he didn’t say anything negative about going to school this morning. He didn’t have a meltdown when he got home. He didn’t even have a meltdown at bed time. A real victory!

I’ve been asking probing questions to get a sense of what goes on at school. As I’ve mentioned before, I generally have no luck.

“What was your favorite part of the day?”

“Your head!”

“What do you like best about your teacher?

“Banana!”

And so it goes.

Tonight he suddenly opened up and said he wanted to play with the kids, but he isn’t brownish enough to play with them. He then detailed the varying degrees of brown in several of the children’s pedigrees. Some of them just have brown hair. Most of them have brown skin. Some of them have one white parent and one brown parent. Erik seems to be the only blond in the bunch.

I tried to tell him that skin color doesn’t matter–you should be friendly to everyone and have fun with everyone. The problem, of course, is that he already knows that. He plays with kids of various colors every single day. This isn’t about him needing to be more open, so what can I do?

I don’t know how to make him feel better about being left out because he’s blond. I told him the other kids are not good friends if they only care about how brown a person is, but that didn’t make him feel any better.

I am so clueless.

I didn’t expect this to happen to soon. I knew we would have to deal with race issues. We live in an extremely diverse area and have friends and neighbors from all sorts of cultures. I thought that would make things easy for a few years.

When I was subbing in Alexandria before Erik was born I noticed that there was not a lot of color separation in the primary grades. They didn’t seem to be as aware of color differences. Sadly, as the kids got older they started separating into groups according to race. Some groups would mix more than others. Some particular types of kids (nerds) would mix better than others. But in general, if I walked into a middle school or high school I would find groups separated by race. I thought I had more time to figure all this out. He’s only in kindergarten. This isn’t supposed to be happening yet.

He even told me that our president is half black and half white, which means if he wants to live in America he needs to be “more brownish.”

This is so beyond me.

I am going to e-mail the teacher tomorrow to see if she can shed any light on this problem. If she’s a good teacher she already knows it is happening. She probably has to deal with this every year, given our diverse population. I’m told the school breaks down into 30% African-American, 25% white, 25% Asian and 20% Hispanic. The faculty and staff should be a lot more experienced with race issues than I am.

This is totally not the post I was planning on writing tonight. I am not fond of such seriousness. Now I have knots in my stomach and don’t know what to do about it.

We had a really nice weekend. It was such a surprise to have a weekend with no drama, no yelling, no tantrums–from me or Erik!

Let’s not talk about Elsa’s tantrums. She’s 17 months. Her tantrums are hilarious. She’s trying out the full blow “lay on the floor and flail” thing. Then she looks surprised when she hits her head.

Erik was relieved it was the weekend and is already complaining that weekends are too short. Poor, poor boy. And so it begins, right? Unless he wins the lottery or invents something super fantastic that people want to pay oodles of money for, he has the rest of his life to lament the shortness of the weekends.

Do I know how to do depressing thoughts, or what?

The weather has cooled down significantly, meaning it is very pleasant to be outside. We accidentally ended up cleaning out the whole van, right down to a complete vacuuming. You should have seen the string of power surge cords we had running from the porch to the parking lot.

My old stroller was a piece of crap and every time I pulled it out and man handled it until it popped opened, I would get angry and upset. When Mike was gone for a week I was not the happiest person on earth so when I saw a stroller come up on of those deal a day sites I ordered it. Shopping and chocolate were the order of the day during his absence. I don’t think he approved, but I didn’t approve of a week of single parenting.

Back to the stroller. I should have done more research, but anything has to be better than the broken down piece of crap I was using. This new one is a Guzzi and Gugu or something like that. It doesn’t have a parent cup holder or a kid snack tray, but other than that it seems cool. And it’s pink! And it has a much better sun shade. The old stroller’s sun shade was so narrow that it was pointless. This one actually covers the baby.

It arrived this weekend, so I wanted to make sure there was a good place for it in the van. Part of the problem with the old stroller was that things would get piled on top of it when I was feeling lazy and they finally bent the frame of the shade. That wasn’t the only issue, of course, but it was enough of an issue to make me re-think the whole layout of the van. We can’t pile things on top of my shiny new stroller!

Erik has been sitting in the back row because he thought it was cool, Elsa likes to pinch him and I can’t stand having a five year old tell me how to drive. When he’s in the back I can turn up the radio really loud and ignore his yells of “GO GO GO FASTER FASTER!!!! Don’t stop! That’s not a red light! It’s only yellow! Why aren’t you turning! You can turn on right, you know!” A backseat driver is bad enough, but a backseat driver who wants you to turn directly into the path of an oncoming car wears me out.

Now I have him in the middle, but I moved the seats around so he’s not right next to Elsa so maybe she won’t pinch him. We put the back seats down and have a lot more room for the stroller and groceries and everything. If I can just keep Erik from driving me nuts with his constant commentary it should work out nicely.

Again, I have to note the differences between Elsa and Erik. He is a funny guy, but he doesn’t mean to be funny. He’ll have every one in the room laughing, but not know why. He’s very serious. He doesn’t smile as often as I would like. He has very important things to tell you and you damn well better listen or he’ll get sullen.

Elsa, on the other hand, is so happy. She smiles all the time. She can’t talk much, but she seems to have a strong desire to make you laugh on purpose. She laughs and giggles and rolls around on the floor for no apparent reason other than the sheer joy of feeling life from another direction. It’s so nice to have a happy baby. I didn’t know you could have a child that you weren’t always trying to entertain and keep from screaming bloody murder. It’s just so different. How many times will I say that on this blog? My parenting philosophy doesn’t have to be “whatever makes the baby stop screaming.”

Not to say she never causes trouble.

It was a beautiful day out so I opened the windows to get a breeze going. Elsa was working very industriously on a project, but I didn’t really pay attention to what she was doing. She’s quite independent and doesn’t have to be glued to my leg 24/7.

At one point I looked over and saw she was trying to shove a new pack of toilet paper out the window. I rescued the toilet paper and looked down into the rhododendrons.

Apparently I had been completely spaced out for quite a while or she was very sneaky. She’d manage to toss a pair of shoes, a stuffed dog, her favorite book, her water bottle and a big plastic bag out the window. So much for fresh air.

Speaking of fresh air, thank you for all the cleaning suggestions for my moldy diaper bag. I put the bag out again today and it is smelling much better. I will try rubbing alcohol tomorrow. I was looking up the bag to see if I could find care instructions, but there wasn’t anything online. I wonder why they didn’t think to have a zip-out liner since it is clearly not a bag that can be put in the wash. The outside is made of laminated fabric, so it is really like plastic. The handles, the bottom and the pocket flaps are made out of “green” leather, so I guess it is not real leather but it doesn’t look like it should be run through the wash. I have great hopes that rubbing alcohol might do the trick.

Ok, guess I better head to bed and leave you with a totally disjointed post. We are entering the fourth week of school. I am hoping Erik is starting to adjust, but his comment about the weekend sort of scares me. I want to continue on the path to familial harmony, not spend all week fighting and huffing and puffing and having everyone feel bad.

Also, how bad do you think my oral surgery will hurt? I also want to get a couple of moles removed while my mom is here, but I suppose it is a bad idea to do too much cutting at once. I have two on my face that Elsa keeps trying to rip off with her bare hands. It would be nice to have them shaved off so she won’t keep making my face bleed.

When I was in 10th grade I had the world’s worst social studies teacher. Except for my 11th grade social studies teacher. Hmmmm. I’m sensing a pattern. My second semester 11th grade social studies teacher broke the pattern and was pretty much the best teacher in the entire world so don’t worry, dear social studies teachers. I have nothing against you. I’m only against coaches who pretend to be teachers.

Anyway. Tenth grade. The teacher was a total dumbass who was only there to coach basketball. If we’d all sing “Friday, Friday is my favorite day,” on a Friday we could have a party. Every Friday. Every. Single. Friday.

We’d bring snacks from home and do nothing–not even pretend to crack the book or talk about the world in general.

Not much different from any other day in the class, actually. His favorite thing was to give us a test and make sure we knew the answers were on the overhead projector, then leave the room. He would also randomly walk around and send people to the office. That was the only time I was ever sent to the office and I was beyond terrified. Once the twelve of us arrived, the secretary immediately said “Mr. Larsen’s at it again? Go to the library.” He also told kids that if they wanted to avoid Saturday school they could go to his church for Sunday school. I don’t know how he didn’t get sued over that.

That’s a very round about way to say: Friday, Friday is my favorite day!

Actually Saturday is my favorite day, but Friday is pretty awesome as well.

We finally had our MOMS Club open house today. It was rained out last week and I was afraid it would be rained out this week, but it was fine. Chilly, but fine. I need to buy Elsa a fall jacket!

We’ve had a total of 5 new members pay dues and 4 others who say they are going to join! Before those 9, we had 28 members so I’d say my hard work is paying off. I just hope none of them are drama llamas. They don’t seem to be, but you never know.

Have any of you ever read the Llama Llama Red Pajama series of books? I always laugh when the mama llama tells the little llama not to be a drama llama. Which came first, the kid’s book or the internet term?

Mike’s work picnic was also cancelled last Friday because of the rain, so tonight they had a bowling party at this strange little posh bowling alley. It had couches and fancy cocktails and such, but the food was pretty horrible even though it was supposed to have been prepared by chefs. I think they were using the term chef to mean “guy who knows how to turn on an oven” as opposed to “world class trained person who can create a memorizing experience of a meal.”

Erik had a blast and even had the second highest kid score. I do believe he had a higher score than his daddy. Impressive! Except he had the bumpers up, so that kind of negates the score, but don’t tell him. The bowling alley was so posh that you could select to have the bumpers up or down for each player and it would lift and lower them throughout the game. No one believed me when I said I wanted bumpers. I think I had the lowest adult score.

Mike’s company has grown tremendously in the past few months so it was a completely different crowd from the last time I saw any of his work mates. They weren’t nearly as geeky as the old guard, which can only be a good thing. You know when I’m the coolest, most un-geeky person at a party that there’s some serious geekitude happening. Mike’s first Christmas party with this company was the only event I’ve ever attended where I felt cool. The age of the room was also older, which was nice. It used to be Mike, his bosses and a bunch of really young people. There were still a lot of young people, but there were some people our age as well. There were even people with spouses and kids. Amazing!

That first geeky Christmas party? There were young men who brought their mothers as dates. Having a wife made Mike some kind of rare and fantastic creature. He was probably one of the few people who got to have sex more than three times in their whole life.

Let’s not talk about Mike’s work party any more.

Instead, let’s talk about my poor nose. I made a bad, bad mistake a few weeks ago. Something got left in the diaper bag. I don’t know what. I just know the whole car reeked of mold the other day.

The diaper bag was the source of the odor. A small container full of black mold had dripped all over the bottom of the bag. It was so old that there was no way to identify the original contents.

I washed everything that could be washed–changing pad, clothes, weight lifting gloves, etc–and threw away all the disposable items.

Several of the washed items still smell like mold even though they’ve been bleached.

The biggest problem is the diaper bag. It’s beautiful. Gorgeous. Wonderful. Way too expensive.

And non-washable.

Stupidstupidstupidstupid me. Why would I buy a non-washable diaper bag?

The outside can be easily wiped down, but there is no way to wash the inner lining. I can’t just throw it in the wash. I’ll totally ruin all the leather accents.

I poured a bunch of baking soda in the bag and that helped some. I tried to sun it to kill the mold, but it has been too cloudy and rainy. It’s currently sitting by the back door so I can take it out again tomorrow, but the stupid thing is making my allergies go crazy.

I don’t know what I’m going to do if I can’t kill the mold in the sun. Maybe dip just the liner in a vinegar solution somehow? My poor, poor diaper bag.

First, I just want to make it clear that I don’t have a problem with Erik’s teacher. She seems nice enough. She has 12 years experience. So far she has not sent any busy work home–just arts and crafts stuff that Erik hates. I have a problem with the district’s expectations that kindergartners should do homework. As the year progresses we’ll see if I revise my opinion. The homework is actually created by the whole kindergarten team or the district, I’m not sure which. I am just mentally preparing myself for my “no busy work” policy. It might turn out to be a total non-issue. I will be very diplomatic with the teacher. I will let her know that Erik won’t be rewarded for choosing not to do homework. He won’t be able to get a gold stripe in karate if he doesn’t do homework–that’s about the most motivating thing I can think of for him.

Today was much, much better. There wasn’t any drama or crying when it was time to get on the bus. When he got home he immediately asked for a second lunch, instead of whining the he didn’t want to eat. Elsa took a nap on her proper schedule, which made my life much easier to predict.

Then it was time for karate and all hell broke loose.

Mike managed to make it home in time to take Erik to karate, which is always his goal but rarely happens. I mentioned to Mike that Erik could stay for Leadership, a half hour extra that involves weapons and self-confidence training. Erik moved up to a new level at the beginning of the month (yet another change for my baby, contributing to his discombobulation). I couldn’t figure out when he was supposed to go to Leadership (which we’ve paid for!) so I talked to the owner on Tuesday and got it all figured out. The owner has noticed Erik’s apprehension and said we could do it however Erik would like to do it–either go into the upper level leadership, or drop back to the old leadership class with the 4 and 5 year olds.

Erik completely freaked out when I told him about the leadership class, even though we told him he didn’t have to go. He shut down and couldn’t hear a word we were saying.

Mike dragged him out to the car and I took Elsa to the library. When I came home they were already back. Erik went into hysterics in the car so there was no way they could go to karate. Mike and Erik had a talk about it and figured out that he didn’t understand that he was going to the regular class and didn’t have to go to the leadership class.

I was really glad Mike was there to deal with the whole thing. Now he sees why I look haggard and ugly and beaten down every day. I feel so old and tired and just. . . not youthful or fun. Who is this woman I have become?

As soon as I walked in Erik saw the bag of books and declared that he didn’t like any of them.

He didn’t even see a single book.

No one can blame me for being old and haggard and tired and enraged.

I decided I could do one of two things: disappear forever or have a screaming fit.

So I disappeared.

I went up the stairs, locked the door, laid in the bed and cried. I didn’t think to bring any form of entertainment, but there was no way I was going back out there into the snake pit. The only book in the entire room was an old “Wheel of Time.” I’m not sure which one, but Mike mentioned the circus in one of his forum posts. Crying or the bed vs. Valan Luca and the girls’ flashing white thighs. There was no choice. Crying for the win!

I think I needed those moments of silence. I was much calmer when I finally came downstairs and tried to talk to Erik about what was going on in his little brain. I didn’t turn into a raving lunatic at all tonight, even when Erik responded to every question with “your head.”

How about something more interesting?

I finished The Hunger Games trilogy yesterday. I really liked the first book. I couldn’t put down the second book. The third book was a major disappointment. I kept waiting for it to mean something. For a major theme to emerge. Something. But no. It was just a lot of running around without any deeper implications. Even worse, the main character never showed any growth. So would I recommend the series? I don’t know. If you like a fast paced series with lots of action, you can’t go wrong. If you like something closer to literature, skip it. The movie should be interesting.

In other entertainment, I’ve been trapped under a baby for hours every day so I’m diving deep into the Netflix streaming pool. I may have to break and get the streaming + DVD package in a few weeks. I’m currently entrenched in FlashPoint and Reaper. How did I miss these shows? Both are right up my alley, even if Reaper is a little cheesy. I’ve also started Samantha Who?, but don’t know if I’ll continue with it. Any reccs? My “putting the baby in the bed” project is not going well at all. I gave up today since the results have been so frustrating. The second her head hits the pillow she’s wide awake and raring to go for at least an hour.

Lastly, I think I need to remove Project Runway from my DVR schedule. As someone much more clever than I said, it didn’t only jump the shark. It jumped the whole aquarium.

We’re having quite a thunder storm tonight, complete with blinking lights and crying children. Whoo-hoo! Who knows if I’ll have internet by the time I finish writing this. Maybe I’ll have to post in the morning. We shall see.

What a horrible, rotten, no good day. Basically describes my life right now. Of course there are good things. Very good things. I have a husband who loves me, beautiful children, a house with a non-leaking roof, food in the cupboards.

But good lord, when will Erik get adjusted to kindy? I walk on egg shells every morning, hoping to keep things calm and happy. He doesn’t want to go, no matter what. He doesn’t want to get dressed. He doesn’t want to eat. He just wants to sit and cry or scream. I don’t know which is worse. The crying, because it hurts my heart or the screaming because it enrages me.

Then he’s a mess when he gets home. He’s already wet his pants at school twice. He says he has no friends. What happened to Mr. Social? Mr. Friendly? What the hell is going on?

Of course, the first thing I do is try to get some food in his belly. That always improves his mood if he’ll eat. Half the time he just starts wailing inconsolably. I alternate between compassion and anger and guilt. If I was a better mother I might be able to calm him down before I want to pinch his head off.

Heaven forbid we have to go out and do any errands after school. I try to do the errands before he gets home, but that’s not always possible when his sister decides to take a four hour nap.

I would say I’m about ready to homeschool, but I know there’s no way I could handle being his teacher all day long. He doesn’t listen to me. He doesn’t answer my questions. When I try to get him to talk I can count on one of three responses: 1) He just repeats everything I say. 2) He says “on your head.” Or 3) He says “taco banana taco.”

Imagine trying to have a conversation when those are the only three things your conversation partner will say to you.

I’m about ready to stick a banana up his nose.

I knew the first week would be tough, but I thought it would get better. Are all new kindergartners having this much trouble, or is it just him? It breaks my heart to see him so unhappy, but it also drives me into a rage when he comes home and won’t cooperate and I just want him to listen and do what I ask for once in his life and he won’t. I eventually come completely unhinged. Having a toddler in the picture doesn’t help. She’s a good baby, but sometimes she can be clingy, as toddlers are. Sometimes she bites, hits, throws things, pulls hair. Sometimes she just wants her brother’s attention (you should see her joy spasms when the bus pulls up) and he refuses to give it to her. How do people with three or four or five or ten children function? We have a lady at karate with 9 kids and she always seems so calm and in control.

I feel like I am going completely insane. I’m ready to walk out of here and straight into a mental institution.

It has to get better, right? RIGHT????

Next topic:

I’ve clarified my thinking on the homework issue.

1) I am going to write a letter to the teacher to let her know my thoughts/plan. I will tell her to let me know if Erik is having trouble with a concept or needs to practice a certain skill. I will let her know that busy work will not rule our home life.

2) If Erik needs help with a concept or needs additional practice with a certain skill, I will make sure we complete the homework.

3) I am not going to let busy work create even more drama in our lives. The school has him 6 hours a day. They don’t need to send any more busy work home.

4) I will give him help if he wants/needs it and encourage him to do his homework.

5) If he is resistant and it is busy work, I will set the timer for ten minutes. He will only be allowed to sit and do homework during that time, unless he finishes it (correctly) before the timer goes off. When the timer goes off, we’re both done.

6) If there are consequences at school for not doing homework Erik will have to face those consequences. I am not going to be the busy work enforcer and I will let his teacher know that.

Tonight’s homework was to write his name in “kindergarten style” five times. He was happy to do it and it was a skill he needed to work on. I’m glad we didn’t have to have a battle tonight and I didn’t need to test my resolve. Not getting stressed out over homework sounds really good in theory. I don’t know if I am going to be able to be so nonchalant about it when it comes down to the real deal and he won’t do whatever it is he is supposed to do. I was a straight A student who never questioned authority. I am sorting out my thoughts about homework now to try to avoid a complete meltdown (on my part) later.

I feel really bad about all the homework I gave out when I was a teacher. I should have thought more clearly about my objectives and only gave out homework that really mattered. I had no clue how stressful kids’ lives could be. Homework was never a problem for me, so it didn’t occur to me that people actually had a good reason to hate it. Even when I was working, I was always able to get my homework done. It helped that one of my co-workers was a math major at the local university. Math was my demon.

New topic:

How about I leave you with a lovely little tidbit that will have you laughing all night. My sister wants to go on a mission trip to Fiji. She’s apparently found God and God is telling her that he needs her in Fiji. He’s also telling her that I’m supposed to fund this trip. Does God not know I’m an atheist?

And no, she doesn’t know why God needs her in Fiji or what she would be doing there. She’ll just let God tell her that when she gets there.

Also, I’m supposed to buy her a complete set of cloth diapers for her new baby.

Go ahead and looked confused. Our expressions will match.

She’s not pregnant, but she is preparing for her next baby. If there really is a God, there is no way she’ll become pregnant again. I’m an atheist, though, so I know biology is the important thing here.

If there really was a God she wouldn’t have any children at all since she can’t take care of them.

But can you imagine telling someone they are going to buy you a complete cloth diaper stash? Even if you were pregnant?

Honestly, if she does get pregnant and has a girl and Elsa is potty trained I’d be willing to give her my stash. I hate selling my diapers and would be happy to see someone use them. I’d really prefer to give them to an LJ friend, though. One that I know would treat them correctly* and really use them. Not sure if the friend will find out the sex of her baby or if Elsa will be potty trained in time to pass them on, though. I do have several gender neutral diapers that would be useful. Let’s all cross our fingers that potty training will happen sooner rather than later.

*I can’t imagine my sister would have the patience to wash them correctly or buy the right kind of detergent. Often time she doesn’t even wash her own clothes. They constantly buy new socks and underwear because she doesn’t want to do laundry, so she’s going to wash cloth diapers?