The Queen's Rambles

I’m so glad to have Mike back home. I started crying when he said they want him to fly out to NM once a month for a few days. Literally crying. I know we are lucky he has good paying job, but sometimes I hate it. They’re working the poor man to the bone, but what can you do? Just grin and bear it so you can pay your mortgage and feed your kids and have gas for your car.

I’m exhausted tonight. Elsa has a horrible night last night, which meant I had no sleep. The days of sleeping till 9 while Erik entertained himself with the TV are long gone. He has to be on the bus at 8:10. I should go to bed right this very second, but I want to write an entry since it’s been a few days. I had time yesterday, but after reading all the 9/11 posts I couldn’t bear to write anything. Nothing I said would have been worth reading.

I think I’ve reached a major decision about Erik’s schooling. I am not going to fight about homework. I’m going to make him sit in his chair with his homework in front of him. First I’ll try to help him get it done in a reasonable manner. If being calm and friendly doesn’t work, I’ll have him sit in his chair with all his work in front of him. I’ll turn the kitchen timer on for 10 minutes and he can choose to sit and do nothing or do his work. Then it will be over and he can be in trouble at school for not getting his work done. I’m really not willing to turn my home into a battle zone over homework for a kindergartener.

It’s not as if the homework is hard. This weekend he was supposed to find a shoebox and decorate it to use as a book box for all the books he creates at school. They are taking the boxes into school tomorrow to share them with the class. I assume the main objective is not really the decorating, but the public speaking component. He’s never enjoyed arts and crafts, so the whole thing was a nightmare. I wanted him to do something with the box so he wouldn’t be embarrassed when he has to talk about it tomorrow. I went to the store and bought all kinds of stickers and such that he could use. Of course I wanted him to come to the store with me so he could pick things out, but he was totally not into that idea. When we sat down to do it I tried to help come up with some ideas, but I wasn’t going to decorate it for him. I was getting all stressed out about it until I had the timer idea. Now I just have to let go. Letting go is a lot easier said than done. I want my precious baby to succeed, but I’ve got to let him learn consequences as well.

I’ve been reading The Hunger Games in every spare second I can find. I’m on the last book in the trilogy, so will be done shortly. It’s so nice to find a book that is un-put-down-able. The first movie comes out a few days before my birthday, so I know what I want for my birthday. Maybe my mom will be here and Mike can take me to the movies. It’s really time to find an evening sitter, isn’t it? By the time we pay $15/hour for a sitter, we might as well stay home so I haven’t bothered to look too hard.

My mom will be here the whole month of October. Free babysitting! I have so many plans! Unfortunately, I think the main thing I need to get done will put a crimp in all my plans–wisdom teeth removal. Ugh. I promised my dentist I would get it taken care of this year. They are starting to bother me so I guess it’s time. I better call tomorrow and try to make an appointment. It’s hard to get excited about a painful procedure that will cost thousands.

Well now, isn’t just the most exciting post you’ve read all day? I can barely keep my eyes open. Guess I better get to bed so I have a better day tomorrow. I got Erik down by 8:45 so maybe, just maybe, he’ll wake up on his own tomorrow. I do not want a repeat of today. I had to physically drag him out of bed. The boy is closing in on 50 pounds. I do weight training and am pretty strong, but I was just a weeeeeeee bit out of breath after dealing with his morning reluctance. At least he’s figured out that eating more breakfast is a good thing. I never will understand last week’s logic of “I’m hungry, so I’m not going to eat.” Five year olds are weird.

Tonight was not horrible.

I suppose there are worse ways to start an entry, eh?

Should I tell you about the turd on the floor? That always makes for a great day.

Really, this wasn’t bad at all.

I was cleaning my house (you know Mike’s been gone too long when I am voluntarily cleaning the pigsty), when I noticed Elsa looked really strange. It took a second, but then I realized she was missing a diaper. Btw, cloth diaper people who tell you that cloth diapers are superior because babies can’t undo snaps? Yeah. Not so true. Takes her about .04 seconds to rip off a snapped on diaper. Anyway, she was gibbering about something very important, so I followed her and looked to see what had her so excited.

Yup.

Giant turd on the floor.

At least it was a turd and I could pick it up cleanly. Could have been much, much worse.

She cried when I flushed it. I hope she’s not going to be one of those babies that claims her poop as her own and won’t release it into the sewer system.

Let’s talk about something less poop-tastic. I had a brilliant thought this morning–take the kids to the gym for an hour and a half in the evening. Usually we have karate or I don’t feel like getting sweaty at the end of the day, but today we were free as little birds. The humidity is frightful so it really didn’t matter if I was sweaty or not. I already looked like hell. I think pregnancy has changed my hair. I finally understand why people get all “oh noez! I haz the fuzzy hair!” when it’s humid out. My normally stick-straight hair was wild and wooly. Not curly, just . . . hmmmm. . big . . . and weird.

Anyway, Erik is settling into kindergarten I think. The rain finally let up so the kids could play outside for awhile. I got some endorphins and alone time. Yes indeed, the night could have been worse.

I started reading The Hunger Games at the gym. Why haven’t I read this before? I didn’t even know what it was. I’ve seen people on my FL talk about it and I always thought it was a video game. Video game talk goes right over my head. As I tell Erik, as he’s crying for me to help him kill the boss “I am not a little boy! I don’t play video games.”

So far I’m really liking it, even if the plot does make me sick to my stomach. Think far future dystopian society with government decreed child murder as entertainment. Not for the faint of heart, but I can’t put it down.

Mike’s plane should be landing right now. Maybe I’ll go read while I wait for him.

You guys are probably wondering if I’m still alive.

I am.

Barely.

I have no idea how single parents do it. I love my kids with every fiber of my being, but if I had to do this alone full time I think I might have to drop them at the fire station. That safe haven law applies to five year olds, right?

Mike left around 5 am Tuesday and told me he would be back Friday night. I talked to him tonight–his plane lands at 11 pm. He still claims he’ll be home Friday night. I suppose 11:59 pm still counts on a technical level, but for my purposes he won’t be home until Saturday.

Tonight was beyond awful. I started my period on Tuesday. Excellent timing. I am the worst mother in the world when I’m on my period, so my poor kids have not been getting the best mommy. Erik is still having a tough time with the kindergarten transition so we’re just having a jolly old time screaming and yelling at each other. Tonight I completely lost it and was jumping up and down, yelling “I’m tired! Why can’t you understand I’m tired!” over and over again.

That Mother of the Year Award is on its way right now. It was traumatic. Yet the child still was naughty and refused to cooperate.

Plus Elsa was super, super tired tonight. She didn’t get much of a nap today b/c my perfectly planned day fell apart when she fell asleep in the car. Bah!

If I would have known she was going to be awake, I would have ran some errands during her regular naptime. Instead, we ended up going out after Erik got home, so I had super grouchy Elsa, super grouchy Mommy and super grouchy Erik to deal with. At least I did give him a snack first.

The whole afternoon was such a nightmare. It was an absolute deluge out there. We were all soaked to the core, but life still happens, you know? Can’t put off essential errands just because a river is pouring out of the sky. I’ve seen rain. I’ve lived on the Oregon coast. But I seriously don’t know if I’ve ever seen as much rain as I saw today.

Can I bitch any more?

Sure!

My back is hurting more than it’s hurt in months. It all comes down to the amount of time I spend packing around my giant baby. With no Mike in the picture, my back becomes so compressed that I want to scream in agony. Whoo-hoo!

At least the bed will be a little less crowded tonight. The last two nights Erik has been sleeping with us. He insists on having a giant body pillow next to him so he won’t roll off the bed, so between him, his pillow and Miss Sideways Sleeper, I end up with ten centimeters to call my own. Tonight he said my bad was really uncomfortable and he just wanted his own bed. Never thought I’d live to see the day that happened! It’s true! Non-sleepy babies do grow up into perfectly sleepy big boys! It gives me hope. Maybe I won’t have big, mean, toddler toes up my nose for the rest of my life.

How about some positives:

*Erik didn’t have a fit about kindergarten yesterday or today! (Much.)

*We blew off karate tonight and Erik didn’t even notice! There was just no way I could face it with a super cranky baby and a rainstorm that made Noah’s little flood incident look like scattered showers. I was scared Erik would freak, but he didn’t say a word.

*When I became president of MOMS Club in June I said my goal was to recruit new members. My goal is starting to happen. I’ve been working my ass off getting the word out (and so have a couple of other people) and things are finally starting to happen. We had two people sign up yesterday and I have six people who want to sign up. They were supposed to go to our open house tomorrow, but that’s been rescheduled (see above: Noah’s scattered rain showers). I know it doesn’t sound like much, but our club has been slowly dying for two years. We desperately need new members if we want the club to continue. I could live without it, but I think it is such a valuable resource for new moms that we owe it to the community to make an effort to keep it afloat. Our chapter was started back in the ’80s. That’s a long history; we don’t need to let it die by attrition. There are always new moms, if they can just find us.

*I’ve discovered that eating a breakfast I enjoy is probably saving me a lot of calories. I ate fresh fruit and yogurt all summer. It was ok, but not wonderful. I was always hungry and would find myself inhaling sugar all day long because I was never satisfied.

I’ve started having potatoes (I bake a potato, then shred it and brown it in a non-stick pan, so no fat) with poached eggs and it has made a HUGE difference. I am no longer hungry all day long. I don’t find myself craving sugar all day. I am not constantly raiding the freezer or other sugar stash. It may be more calories to start with, but it ends up being a lot less calories.

Plus, they are whole foods. I know exactly what I’m eating. Frankly, I have no idea what the hell yogurt even is. Everyone says it’s healthy, but I am not so sure. Probably if I was eating plain yogurt it would be ok, but that stuff is nasty. I eat flavored yogurt, so I know it’s highly sugared. I tried to ignore that fact since “yogurt is healthy” but it doesn’t compute. I just read an article the other day about how most breakfast foods aren’t healthy and I have to agree. But then again, do people really believe that most contemporary breakfast foods are healthy? Is there a soul in the universe who thinks Fruit Loops, donuts, Pop-Tarts, pancakes with syrup and things like that are good for you? I just wish I could get Erik to eat some potatoes and eggs. Elsa gobbles them up.

Ok, time for bed. I need some sleep if I am going to survive tomorrow. Maybe I’ll take a sleeping pill. I don’t want to re-live the screaming, yelling tantrum I threw tonight. My poor, poor Erik. He just loves his mommy and wants to have fun. Mommy is not in the mood for teasing and games after a full day of non-stop parenting. I want to slap myself.

Elsa continues to grow and grow and grow. What happened to my baby? That’s a little girl looking at me!

Erik must like kindergarten better than he is letting on. He roared down the stairs at 8:34 am on Saturday, screaming like a mad man because he was pissed that I’d let him miss the bus. I’ll take that as a good sign.

We’ve had a crazy weekend. We went to the zoo on Saturday. We had a horrible thunderstorm in our city, but the friends we were meeting said it was clear blue skies down in DC and the forecast said there wasn’t a chance of rain down there, so off we went.

Of course the moment we arrived we got rained on. And of course we couldn’t find parking, so had to park way way way way way up a street away from the zoo, then walk down a giant hill and then up the giant zoo hill.

All in the rain.

Even after it stopped raining it was still wet outside. The humidity levels here have reached an all new level of hell, though it’s particularly hot out.

We saw some animals, had some fun, did some zooey-zoo like things. You know the drill. They have people misters, so we watched Erik absolutely soak himself while we ate lunch. I was thinking “huh, he’s not going to want to be all wet” but my mommy brain didn’t kick in and tell him to get out of the water.

Of course five minutes later he was in front of me, freezing, crying, begging for dry clothes.

Do I carry dry clothes for an almost six year old? No.

I stripped off his shirt and dried him off with my sweaty BodyPump towel and then went to find him a shirt. The first stand we found only sold girl shirts. Purple, hearts, jewels. Erik was not going for that, so we ended up walking allllll the way down the hill* to a souvenir shop that had boy shirts. And allllll the way down that hill we had people turning to stare at the shirtless boy. He didn’t like people looking at him, so he wanted me to put my hands on his moob area to cover his nips. Wonderful sight to see, I’m sure.

That was pretty much our zoo excitement.

I spent yesterday trying to get a shit load of stuff done. Mike is going out of town tomorrow through Friday night so I am going to be even more frantic and exhausted than usual. I had to finish a bunch of MOMS Club stuff, then print out a bunch of pics for Erik’s school and I don’t even know what else. It felt like I was hunched over a computer all day.

Normally I order prints from Wal-Mart if I need them quickly, but the local Wal-Mart does terrible one-hour prints. I don’t know how it can vary so much from store to store, but this store seriously sucks. Too much red, strange lines, just awful. I had the bright idea of checking with Ritz Cameras and I’m so glad I did! As a new customer I got 25 free prints and the quality was much better. Plus their store is a lot closer than Wal-Mart and a lot more pleasant. Win win win and win.

I have a seven photo frame of candid Erik baby pictures and I have plans to make a matching one for Elsa. I used a few of my free prints to get that project started, but I think I need to plan a little better. I need 3 portrait and 4 landscape pictures, but I ordered all portrait. Doh!

All my long time readers will be interested in this tid-bit of news: Remember Annica from Sweden? The one and only Swede crazy enough to talk to the American?

If you’re a long time reader I know you remember her because who could forget? The stories are just too crazy.

She called and I was happy to hear from her, though her English and my Swedish have both deteriorated so badly that we could barely communicate. She has a two month old baby boy named Torsten! The first thing she said, before she even told me about him, was “Can you get pregnant when you’re nursing?”

When I told her you could, she refused to believe me. In typical Annica fashion she told me about all the great sex she’d had and then told me that in Sweden you can’t get pregnant when you are nursing. I don’t know if that applies to just Swedes or to anyone living in Sweden. Take note, my Ameri-Swede friends. Your biology my differ when you cross the border.

She wanted to talk to Mike, so I turned over the phone. He started turning red and I found out later that she told him all about a wonderful hotel in Lund where she had lots of great sex, then she explained how her new baby had been conceived. I don’t think it was any more complicated than insert Tab A into Slot B. She’d been on birth control pills for years because she has female issues. Her older girls are the result of fertility treatments. The doctors wanted her off the pill because she’d been on them too long. Apparently she got pregnant two weeks after going off the pill.

That’s about all I know. We couldn’t even exchange e-mail addresses until Mike helped us because neither of us could accurately translate vowels. I realize that sounds crazy, but our I is their E or maybe our E is their A or maybe our O is their dotted up letter. I just don’t know! And neither did she.

I did a major Costco run on Friday and about fainted at my total. But it wasn’t like I was buying a bunch of junk. I got new PJs for Elsa, a winter coat for Erik, a Christmas present, a couple of sets of Bob Books, a year’s supply of dental floss and tons of food that we will actually use.

I have been hearing about these Bob Books for years, but wasn’t that interested after seeing the price for the set. They were definitely a better deal at Costco, so I picked up two sets. I think I’m going back to get the rest of them. It would be nice to have a complete set for Elsa in a few years.

I started with Set 2 for Erik and he can totally read them independently, which gives him an enormous sense of pride. They are much more like the learn to read books I remember when I was a kid “The bus went up the hill. The bus went down the hill. Stop the bus! Stop the bus!” I hate the Step Into Reading series because they are so dependent on sight words. Erik has struggled with them, so it was a relief to find something that was more on par with my memories and that immediately made Erik feel successful.

I’ve been semi-frustrated with his reading style, but his kindergarten teacher sent home a list of stages of reading development and his style is described very accurately as “Stage 3” so I guess he’s totally normal. Unless it’s a word he’s very confident with he just looks at the first letter and tries to guess based on context. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t. I am going to stop worrying about it now that I see it is normal. I will still encourage him to look at the whole word, but I will not let my chest get tight and my voice get brittle.

Ok, guess I am going to go find something fun to do in my last few hours of freedom. If it wasn’t pouring out I might go to the mall. Doesn’t that sound like a thrill on a holiday?

*The DC zoo is built on a very big hill. We always take the hill into consideration when planning our zoo trip, but when you are thwarted by lack of parking and a naked boy in need of a shirt, you might end up walking up and down that bad boy until you collapse of hill exhaustion.

We survived the first week of school, barely. I don’t know how parents with less social kids handle the discombobulation of the first week. It was bad enough to go through a few nuclear meltdowns at unpredictable times. At least I didn’t have to put a crying boy on the bus, though dragging him out of bed this morning was no easy task. It’s a good thing I’ve started BodyPump again. When I say “dragging” I mean it literally.

Tonight he told me he liked kindergarten, but he doesn’t think he needs to go anymore. His main complaints are that he’s there too long and he’s hungry and the snack and lunch are too late. He usually eats two whole grain waffles for breakfast so I’m going to try my best to add some sausage or other high protein item to the table. I think that would help immensely, but he is not one to readily agree to changes in his breakfast routine.

At the beginning of the week he learned that the cafeteria serves grilled cheese sandwiches every day so he begged to buy a lunch. I was not prepared for that at all. I have always just assumed I would pack him a lunch so I would be able to provide him healthy food. I’ve worked at many schools and the food is mostly beyond awful. I don’t understand how the system works. They say they want our kids to be healthy, but they feed them utter crap and then weigh them and heckle them for their BMI?

Anyway, I looked over our school district’s menu and policy and it seems like they are trying to do the right thing. They offer a lot of whole grain choices and a lot of fresh fruits and veggies so I gave in and let him buy lunch. After seeing what he was actually eating out of his packed lunch, it didn’t seem to terrible. A grilled cheese isn’t any worse than three pretzels and a cookie.

That lasted two days, until he realized that the food was disgusting and people who brought in a lunch got to be first in line. He has also been eating everything I packed, so that’s a win.

A lady with kids at another school told a bunch of us first time kindergarten moms that we should send a pair of safety scissors in our kids’ lunch boxes so they could easily open packages. I thought that sounded like a brilliant idea, so I did it.

Well then.

Guess not all schools in the district allow that.

Our school counselor has been riding the bus each morning this week, so as soon as she arrived for bus duty she pulled me aside and told me that Erik had brought scissors to lunch and he must never do that again. I explained why they were in there. She kept focusing on Erik’s behavior, even though Erik had zip-zero-nada to do with it.

Nothing like trying to get your kid expelled for weapons during the first week of his school career!

It was not that serious, but it was still rattled my nerves. If they are allowed–required even!–to have safety scissors in class, what’s the big freakin’ deal? Especially if another school in the district allows it.

Anyway.

We had a pretty rotten night last night. I was sick. Elsa wouldn’t sleep. It was just your standard No Parenting Joy. I am so tired I could probably fall asleep right in this chair. I tried to take a nap with her later in the morning, but she was having none of it. As soon as I laid her in the bed she started kicking me in the stomach.

I did successfully put her down for a nap later in the afternoon! She fell asleep 30 minutes before the bus was due to arrive, so I tried my luck and hoped that her extreme tiredness would work in my favor.

It did and she slept in the bed for an hour! Luckily the baby monitor has range clear to the bus stop and she doesn’t get out of bed. She just lays there and scratches the sheets.

I managed to unload the dishwasher, put away most of my Costco purchases, vacuum and do some laundry! Isn’t my life exciting? She was none to pleased when she woke up.

My goal this month is to get her to fall asleep in the bed. I tried so hard yesterday, but as soon as she hits the bed she thinks it’s playtime. I finally took her downstairs at the point of no return (I have to have her down for real by 1:30 to keep our lives sane) and she fell asleep less than 5 seconds after she piled her Boppy and blankie on my lap.

Totally unrelated paragraph ahead.

I’ve almost decided I should start using gmail for all my needs instead of dealing with my other accounts. Problem? Several different Carries think they own the carriep@gmail.com e-mail address and have all their spam sent to me. They’ve ordered pizza with my e-mail, they’ve ordered hotel rooms, seafood buffet groupons, insurance quotes. Ugh. I totally forgot I even had a gmail account until a few months ago when someone tried to change the password and I was notified. There were a few personal e-mails in the mix as well, but they were rare enough that I don’t think the person really thinks carriep is their main e-mail address. First I thought it was just one person, but now I see at least three different last names. So far there’s Carrie Gale, Carrie Porter and Carrie Peterson. Dear Carrie, if you just googled yourself and found this entry, do another Carrie a favor and stop using my e-mail to sign up for things! Pretty please!