The Queen's Rambles

I’m sure you’re probably tired of seeing this all over your social media, but I can’t believe it’s snowing! When I was a kid it was usual to go trick-or-treating in the snow, but I haven’t lived in the mountains of Oregon for years. Hopefully this does not portend things to come this winter.

In better news, I went to a really wonderful girls’ craft night last night. There were only four of us and we all got along great. There was no petty arguing, no passive/aggressive bullshit, no bitchiness. Just genuine laughter, encouragement and conversation. Much needed after spending a day volunteering at Erik’s school.

My craft area is such a mess that I couldn’t pull together all the necessary components for a project, so I spent 3 1/2 hours pulling paper off the backs of my paper pieced Harry Potter blocks. It was probably the best decision I could have made. It was great for keeping my hands busy but left my brain free to concentrate on the conversation. All that time, and I didn’t even finish half of them. I knew I should be pulling the paper as I went, but it is so boring that I blocked it out of my mind. I need another craft night just to finish the job. A quilt filled with printer paper backing doesn’t sound soft and cozy.

One of the ladies just got a Silhouette cutting machine and said I can come over and use it. We’re going to figure out how to import fonts so I can cut out freezer paper stencils for book titles. I’ll use the stencils to paint titles on all the books on Harry Potter’s bookshelf.

We really need to start a monthly craft night. It was very therapeutic and I came home in a great mood. I need more me time that is solely focused on things I enjoy. My current me time is spent with a baby on my lap watching old TV shows. Not exactly what most people mean by “me time.”

I spent almost the whole of Friday at Erik’s school. I helped close out the book fair, which was pretty tiring. There was a rush of kids who had big baggies full of change. They didn’t know how much they had, many of them were not capable of making piles of dollars (and they were fifth graders!), they didn’t understand the concept of sales tax and they wanted to spend every single penny. “Can I buy this $4.99 fancy thing! Look! I have 12 dimes!” They’d come up with a pile of books worth $20 and be shocked when they were told their $5 bill wouldn’t cut it.

We also had a lot of parents coming in to return a particularly cheap quality diary that cost their daughters $10.99. One dad was so cute. He kept saying he was so proud of his daughter for wanting to buy 10 books. Ten! She must love to read. He wrote a check for all the books and then she came home with this diary, a stuffed cat and a bunch of other crap. No books. He was very sad. He said he would spend any amount of money she wanted on books, but he couldn’t spend that much money on crap.

I was able to rush home for some lunch, but then it was right back to school.

We don’t have school on Monday, so we had the Halloween parade and party on Friday.

We helped the kids put on their costumes, which was easier than I thought it would be. The majority of them had costumes that slipped right over their clothes. There was one little boy that I felt totally sorry for. It almost makes me cry just thinking about. He had a really old, ratty, smelly costume that didn’t fit properly. It looked more Elsa’s size than a kindergartener size. I was able to get it on him, but the feet stopped at his knees. I snapped up the back, but then I saw that it was supposed to snap in the crotch (for diaper changes, perhaps?). I told the teacher I wasn’t snapping up his crotch and she agreed with me. I don’t need to be on the evening news for Halloween abuse.

Erik made an excellent Colin Creevy, even though he was supposed to be Harry Potter. I got him cheapo “nerd glasses” instead of the more expensive Harry Potter glasses and I never found any black hair spray. He was quite happy with his costume, so that’s the important thing. Maybe I can color his hair with a marker on Monday.

In theory, I liked the way our class party was handled. We all sent in $4 and someone bought all the supplies. Perfect!

I have no idea who that someone was, but whoever s/he was boggled my mind. They served an ice cream cake (total yum idea, but the kids refused to eat it), a coffee cake from Panera (what 5 year old wants coffee cake? None in Erik’s class) and a little bag of M&Ms. It was a bizarre selection for a kindergarten Halloween party. Why not go to the local bakery or grocery store and buy some themed cookies and cupcakes. I did think the ice cream cake was a good idea, but they are so expensive and none of the kids would even try it so it turned out to be a waste. I couldn’t believe Erik turned his nose up at ice cream.

One mom was a freak and went around and ate the ice cream cake that was left on kids’ plates. It just about made me gag. I like ice cream cake, but not enough to eat after a random kid. I won’t even eat after my own children.

Sometimes I don’t even know why I bother trying to get professional pictures done. There are usually a few really great ones, but is it really worth the two hours of pure hell?

Ok, yes. It is. But good god, let me tell you about the hell of tonight.

Since Erik is in school full time, we had to pick an evening hour to get the best deal (weekends are more expensive and crowded). I did everything I could to prepare the kids for a good evening–fed them, made sure Elsa had a good nap, had water for them. Still, portraits bring out the absolute worst in my children.

Usually Erik is surly and refuses to smile. Elsa screams bloody murder. A fun time is not had by anyone.

This time Elsa was super happy and running all around laughing. Erik was also happy, but he was in super-hyper-extreme mode and kept trying to show off for the photographer by jumping around and trying to plan the photo poses and push Elsa out of the pictures.

It was going pretty ok until some other customers came in and the photographer had to go take are of them. Why they can’t hire a receptionist and a photographer I don’t know, but in the 20 minutes (or possibly three hundred years) that the photog was gone, my son went completely bat shit crazy. He was running in circles, getting into everything, jumping, hopping, and refusing to sit still. We talked to him, threatened him, held him. Did everything short of beating him. He still didn’t get it and would NOT behave. If we didn’t need him for the photo I would have had my mom take him out to the car. He’s lucky he has his six year well child check tomorrow. I could have easily beat him within an inch of his life when we got out of there*. As it was, he lost all fun privileges for the evening and won’t be getting a gold stripe or a sword at karate tomorrow.

Elsa had a very specific idea of where she wanted to sit and it didn’t mesh well with the reality of the situation. She was running around like a crazy person, and refused to sit still when we posed her. That’s behavior I would expect from an 18 month old, but was frustrating. And then we’d get her in a good situation and the photog would start her little “make baby happy tricks’, but Erik would jump in or make a weird face or yell or try to defend his sister against the tickle lady. It was frustrating beyond belief.

The only good thing was that Mike was there. Usually I deal with this alone or with my mom. I need Mike. He’s calm and can help control the kids, though tonight I thought he was going to lose it on Erik. Then we’d really be up a creek without a paddle. When Mike looks ready to blow, you know it’s bad.

To top it off, I spent way too long blowing out my hair this morning. I am proud that I am finally able to blow it out and get good results. Only took me 37 years to learn how to do my hair. But apparently I haven’t learned to check the weather. It rained and my poor hair went totally flat. I couldn’t find the right make-up since I don’t normally wear any. I couldn’t find any decent pants that fit. The last time I bought dress pants was a year before Erik was born. As you can imagine, it was depressing to try those on. Yikes. Why haven’t I given them away on freecycle? Just when I think I am accepting my body, I go and do a dumb move like trying on clothes that fit seven years ago.

But seriously, what would change if I was a few sizes smaller? I’d have a better wardrobe. That’s the only thing that would change. Why do we have such an aversion to fat on people above the age of 2? Everyone loves a fat baby. When does the fat go from cute to disgusting? Why do I look at myself in the mirror and loath myself just because I have more volume than other people?

Anyway, I need to go to bed early tonight. I’m completely done for. But first, I have to go stalk the pintrest board that Heather made for me. Of course I was immediately drawn to the most expensive wall system on there. It doesn’t seem to be in production anymore. Booo! I think I’m going for clear ones with fancy scrapbook paper taped into them to make them to my taste. Thank you, Heather! I had no idea I wasn’t the first brilliant person to think of hanging all my crap on the wall. Kind of like the time I thought I invented a totally cool warm, sock pull on thing that couldn’t be pulled off by Elsa. Someone pointed out they’re called “tights” and have been in production for hundreds of years. I is so smart.

*For new readers, I have never beat the child. Don’t worry about his safety.

Life’s just been rolling along here at Chez Possum. The school is having a book fair this week, so I’ve volunteered over there a couple of times. It is certainly interesting to see everything from a parent’s perspective instead of a teacher’s perspective. I would have been a much, much better teacher if I would have had a kid of my own. Because every 22 year old needs a baby!

Not that there is anything wrong with a 22 year old having a baby, but I was unattached and very naiive. I didn’t need a baby. I don’t know how teachers have time to teach and have a baby. I was usually working till 11 pm every night my first couple of years.

I guess I’m now in charge of grading math facts tests for Erik’s class once a week. It’s quite a system and I don’t really understand it, but I figure I’ll get the hang of it. I wish they did Accelerated Math instead, but they’ve never heard of that. I wonder if they do Accelerated Reading? I hate AR. I understand the point and think it could be useful if used carefully, but I’ve only ever seen it abused. I don’t know how you can make kids like reading, but forcing them to only pick books from a certain list sucks. The best way I know to get kids to read is to put high interest books in front of their faces. And maybe read the first chapter out loud. And do voices. I like to do voices. I’m a dork.

[Aside: how are Pop-Tarts considered appropriate breakfast food? Inspired by a commercial.]

I am so glad Erik lucked out and got a great kindergarten teacher. I don’t know how she does it, but she has the calmest, quietest kindergarten class I’ve ever seen. At first I thought I was just a really sucky substitute teacher and this was normal classroom behavior, but then I hung around and saw all the other classes at the book fair. I don’t know her secret, but she needs to share it with the other teachers. Especially the fifth grade teachers. The fifth graders were exhausting. They came in like a wave of chaos, scrambled up all the books, and left without a backwards glance.

One of the kindergarten teachers wouldn’t even let the kids write their names on their wishlist papers. I was pretty shocked by her attitude–“They can’t do it, I’m not going to let them do it.”

Whaaaaaa? What happened to high expectations?

She was not a special needs teacher. I know a couple of the kids in her class.

Erik’s teacher not only expected her kids to write their names down, she expected them to do their best to copy down the names of the books. I think I would have to have a freakin’ conniption fit if Erik was in the other lady’s class. He’s been able to write his name since he was 3 years old. That was the expectation at his preschool, not some kind of helicopter parent move on my part.

Elsa continues to delight. I wish I could fold up our days together and pull them out in 20 years or whenever I need a pick-me-up in the future. If she’d been my first, I would probably be working on baby 3 or 4 right now.

Or not. I enjoy sleep. I will have sleep again someday. Right?

Not that she doesn’t get in toddler trouble. I still don’t know how she got an egg out of the fridge, cracked it into my junk drawer, and left the almost perfect shell on the counter.

I want to record all the cute things she does, but it’s not really interesting to read or write about. How can I capture the tilt of her head and the sparkle in her eye? Guess that’s what a video camera is for, eh? I’m not so good with the video camera.

The biggest, most exciting news of my life is that I’ve finally figured out what to do with my dining room. I am so sick and tired of all the clutter. The amount of paperwork that Erik brings home is staggering. Plus, of course, we have bills, coupons, yadda yadda yadda. It all ends up on my dining room table and I never know where to put it. My dining room already has a shoe dresser from IKEA, a buffet table thing that’s supposed to hold craft supplies, a kid’s table and a big recycling bin. My mom keeps telling me to put a desk in there too, but where? There’s no more room!

I put my brain to the problem and decided I need some wall pockets aka wall files. Problem? All the ones I can find look way too office like. I don’t need my dining room to remind me of a depressing office door. I just started looking so I’m sure I’ll come up with something. I’m not allowed to buy anything until Nov. 1 anyway if we want to keep the month in the black.

How did it get so late? Guess I’ll go to bed.

This picture cracks me up. The look on his face! The camo! The purple beads! It all combines for hilarity, at least in my mommy heart. You can see the finished jack-o-lantern on flickr, if you are so inclined.

My mom bought him a whole camo wardrobe since he says it’s his favorite color. Someone hold me. I need reassurances.

Someone tell me that he is not going to turn into a drunken deer hunter who has a spit bottle in his front seat and a rifle in his gun rack. Some camo people are clean cut military men, out saving the world. Not that I like the idea of my son toting a gun in middle of a war. It would be better than the drunken alternative, though. I think.

Better thoughts. . .

When we went to the pumpkin patch, the farmer told the kids we could roast the seeds and eat them. Erik was all over that, but didn’t like my recipe (salty). He and grandma wanted something with cinnamon and sugar, so I found a recipe and told them how to make them.

Too bad they burned them to a crisp. No tasty pumpkin seeds for us, unless you like the taste of charcoal in your mouth.

Who cares about burnt pumpkin seeds, when you get alone time with your husband.

Mike and I went on a date last night! Wonders never cease!

Mike’s been wanting to try a Moroccan restaurant down in one of the big, fancy retail areas, so that’s just what we did.

It was an incredibly surreal experience. The tables were all squished together, so you couldn’t help but overhear everything your neighbors said. I guess it must be a very “cozy” family experience because it seemed like a lot of the people were regulars and they just started talking to us, like we were all one big happy family. To be fair, I’ve sat farther away from people at my own personal dinner table so it did feel awkward not to be friendly with these people who were 12 inches away, but it was still strange.

The owner was a really nice guy who was extremely upset because Yelp had his restaurant listed as closed. I’d be upset too. The table next to us was giving him advice, but he didn’t really seem to understand. I hope he gets it worked out soon. I liked him, so I really wanted to like his restaurant. Really, really badly. But. . . Well. . No.

Overall the food was hit or miss. We were having an adventure so we ordered The Royal Feast. We thought it would be sample sized bits of everything, but it was HUGE portions of tons of different foods so we were totally stuffed by the end of the evening. It was a very good way to find out what we liked and what we didn’t like. Basically, I think I like Moroccan food, but I think I would like it a lot better somewhere else. Mike said the lamb was amazing, but I couldn’t try it. My brain wouldn’t let me. Lamb. Baby sheep. Baaaaaaaaaaa.

They had this really weird chicken pie thing that was like baklava, only with chicken in the middle. I’ve never had chicken covered with cinnamon and sugar before. At first I hated it, but by the end I kind of liked it. They had some really good chicken kebobs, some really bad beef kebabs, hummus with various meats, and tea that looked like urine.

We were there for two hours. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a long meal in my life.

We had a pretty bad seat because the live entertainment sat right next to us and brought their friends. They were probably in their 70s, but I’m not really sure about that. The man was having a birthday, so we had to listen to everyone go on and on about that and take a ton of pictures and get up and down and up and down and up and down to congratulate him. This wouldn’t have mattered, but we were so close together that we kept having fat old lady butts land on our table. The music was pretty good, and he was a fun entertainer, but it was pretty weird when the old lady got up and started belly dancing. She didn’t have a costume on or anything and didn’t even take her purse off. She was good at it, but it was just weird.

Then she sat down AGAIN and brushed her butt up on our table and my face AGAIN.

Later, people brought him some balloons, but they let go and the balloons flew up to the top of the restaurant and no one could reach them. It was a whole ordeal to get them down with a broomstick and tape and luck. The restaurant exploded with applause when the balloons were saved.

Did I mention there were three young couples (I’m including ourselves in this category) and then a bunch of 70-80 year olds? Not that I have anything against old people, but it was definitely not the hippest place on earth. But when have I ever been hip? And these weren’t the fancy old ladies that you often see around here. As you know, we live near the DC area so a lot of the people around here are very well heeled. These people had on what amounted to clown clothes. I’ve never seen the likes of it in this little shopping area we were at. It is usually a little rich for our blood, but not at this place.

Overall it was an interesting adventure, but I doubt we’ll go back to that particular restaurant. Next weekend I want Mike to take me someplace nice in downtown DC (Maybe Co Co Sala, a restaurant and chocolate boutique). My mom goes back on November 5th, so we need to take advantage of free babysitting while we have the chance.

Today was all about productivity. Mike scared the crap out of my mom by calling an all hands meeting and then listing out the chores that needed to be done. For some reason she finds Mike scary, which is completely bizarre. Mike is the most mild mannered, patient, kind man that you’re likely to meet. I think that’s what scares her. She’s used to loud, aggressive, violent, drunk men. Mike is an unknown. She’s scared of what will happen if he blows. Does she think he’s going to spank her?

You’d think he had threatened her with a beating, the way she hopped to the job she was given. I cleaned out the fridge, she vacuumed the whole house and he cleaned up all the dining room clutter. The dining room is our clutter magnet and I can’t stand it. I need an office. How do you create an office in a townhouse that you can’t add on to? I guess I need to put a storage shed on the deck and call it my office. I’m not sure that would meet HOA standards.

Something’s gotta give, though. I can’t believe the amount of paperwork that we get from kindergarten. I try to take care of it the moment Erik hits the door. I pull out his folders, read everything and take care of it immediately (assuming I have cash on hand. You need a lot of dollar bills on hand when you have a kindergartner. They always need money for something), but things still pile up.

I usually love to have my mom come visit because she cleans and organizes my whole house. I can never find anything when she leaves, but it’s refreshing to have the house deep cleaned and everything put away somewhere. This time she has been so depressed that she’s just been napping and eating popcorn (and getting it everywhere). Not that I expect my mom to be my free housekeeper, but it is very disconcerting to see her acting so different from her normal self. She was telling me that she feels totally alone in the world because she can’t burden myself or my sister with her problems. It wouldn’t be fair to us because we have our own lives to live. Now she doesn’t have a husband, mother or best friend. They’ve all died in the past three years.

It makes me so sad for her and so angry on her behalf. She is such a great woman that she deserved a life of love, happiness and harmony. She chose to stay with an abusive alcoholic. I have no idea why. Now she can’t move on.

She’s only 62, but she is not interested in developing any further romance or relationships in her life. I think she could still have a lot of fun in life, but only if she is open to it. I don’t know if that will ever happen, or if she will just bury herself in my sister’s troubles and continue to let chaos reign supreme. I just want my mommy to be happy, but I know I can’t create happiness for her.

Btw, I don’t really know why my sister is in counseling but I believe it is court ordered. Something to do with a gun, maybe? I think they must have figured out that I blab all their business all over the internet and decided to shut down the info train. Wise move on their part, but it makes my internet blabbing much less entertaining. She’s been sober since July and is really in to her new church. I personally hate the idea of a person needing church to behave in a moral way. The god of the Bible is anything but moral (can we say genocide, anyone?), but if it gives her something to focus on and keeps her out of trouble, I guess that’s good. This church seems a lot more innocuous than the place she was going before. The other church had a control freak charlatan for a preacher, which is never good in any situation. At least this new church seems to want to do good and doesn’t seem scammy, even if I personally don’t agree with their message.

Ok, I better scurry up to bed. Back to the grind tomorrow. Ugh.

I can’t believe how fast October is flying. I keep thinking we have a couple of weeks until Halloween, but I realized we have one week! One! And a few days.

In the past I have made the mistake of going Halloween shopping the weekend before and not having any options. I keep dragging my feet about getting Erik’s costume because I fear he will change his mind, but thank goodness I decided to get it done this weekend. I literally got the last Harry Potter robe at Target. Thankfully it fits him. They didn’t have any accessories, but I did pick up a pair of “nerd glasses” that should work, a ladies scarf that is close enough to be called Gryfinndor and a generic kid’s witch hat. I had him put it all one and he really did look like a young wizard, even though he had a camo shirt on underneath.

I bought Elsa’s costume weeks and weeks ago. She’s so little she doesn’t get an opinion. She’s going to be some generic fairy princess thing-a-majig from Costco.

I did a major shopping trip at Macy’s yesterday! I like to do our Christmas photos in October because the studio is less insane, so I finally scheduled us for next Wednesday evening. We decided we would have the whole family in the portrait, which will be a first for us. I hate having my picture taken.

Last year Grain_Damaged sent a beautiful, velvety Christmas dress for Elsa. It fits perfectly this year, so I used that as a starting point for our portrait plan. It’s burgundy, so I decided to go with a gray and burgundy theme. I found a grey and burgundy sweater for Erik, which will go perfect under his Gryffindor robes as well. I bought two different sweaters for Mike to choose from–a plain gray or a burgundy with gray stripe. I think we’ll use the second for the picture. I bought myself one of those flowy over sweaters that are so popular this year. Anyone know what they are called? I’ll probably wear a black tank underneath it. I need to go with a dark color.

So happy to have that done! Now I just have to get my brows waxed, get the kids haircuts and hope that everyone behaves. Erik is notorious for acting the fool during picture sessions and Elsa freaks out around strangers (and most friends) so it could turn into a nightmare. It usually is. Maybe it will be better with Mike there. He has a wonderful calming effect on all of us.

In other news, I don’t know what to do about Elsa and the potty situation. For those who are new, I cloth diapered her for the longest time. I was doing it for three reasons: 1) Financial, 2) Environmental and 3) Comfort for the baby.

Reason number three went out the window when I finally realized that her constant diaper rash cleared up as soon as we used disposables on a trip. I started using them when we’d go out and at night and it made such a difference on her poor little butt skin.

Now when I try to put a cloth diaper on her she started telling me “no no no no no no no no no” and takes it off. She climbs off the changing tables, telling me “dipo dipo dipo” and brings me a disposable.

So obviously she prefers disposable.

Hot damn.

Disposables are expensive. I think there’s been a 50% increase in price since Erik was a baby. I wanted to get the new Huggies slip-ons but they were $20 for 50 diapers.

My mom claimed she would potty train Elsa while she was here since she potty trained me when I was 15 months.

Guess how well that has worked?

Not at all.

Elsa has a bladder the size of an elephant and only pees every four or five hours. She’s dry all night. Good signs for potty training, yes, but it is almost impossible to catch her and get her onto the potty when she is peeing so rarely.

And now it’s time to go carve a jack-o-lantern. Whoo-hoo! Pumpkin guts!

After a rainy weekend, things cleared up and we were able to have two days of sunny farm fun before the rain began again.

On Monday I joined Erik’s kindergarten field trip. I was really surprised that hardly any parents volunteered, and most of the volunteers were construction worker dads. Not the dynamic I expected, but it was really nice to see them working with the kids. Plus, the kids listened to them better than they listened to the moms. Sucks, but true.

I was wondering why they planned a field trip at Summers Farm, a place at least 30 minutes away, when they have a very similar place about five minutes away from the school. After the trip, I totally understand.

This place was excellent. They had everything really well organized and they had lots of large group friendly activities.

More pics at flickr if you are so inclined.

The jumping pillow was the most popular station, by far. I’ve never heard of such a thing, but it was pretty dang awesome. I want one for my backyard! Can you just imagine turning a little townhouse backyard into a giant whoopie cushion?

They also had a big corn pit (similar to a ball pit), tons of big slides, little kid mazes, a giant corn maze that we didn’t actually go through, a hay ride to the pumpkin patch, and some other things that we had to skip even though we were there for 2 1/2 hours.

The only thing missing? Decent pumpkins.

We’ve had a ton of rain this year and it’s pretty much destroyed the pumpkin crops around here. The kids really wanted all orange pumpkins, but they were almost all green and rotting. I was in charge of one little boy who was bound and determined to get the perfect pumpkin and every time he found one that had a bit of green or any other blemish he would open his jaws, throw back his head and start howling. I think his jaws were on hinges.

I thought chaperoning a kindergarten class would be a nightmare, but there was almost zero stress. The kids all stayed with the big group and the farm was arranged in such a way that there was a natural flow and no one was running wild. I was in charge of five boys–Erik, a neighbor kid, a kid I know from social outings and two strangers. Knowing 3 of the 5 was very helpful. I got in a little trouble when it warmed up and the two strangers took their coats off and changed their looks, but I just had to re-calibrate my brain and we were good to go. I’m so glad my mom was here so I was able to go and help out and watch Erik have fun with his classmates.

The next day Elsa and I went to the local pumpkin patch with our MOMS Club. It is a neat place, but after seeing Summers Farm, I wasn’t as impressed as I used to be. They have a ton of scarecrow type characters all around that are fun for the grownups or older kids to look at, but it’s not quite the same as a jumping pillow. Of course they do have some things for the kids to do, but it is not as well laid out and not as big or fun.

And Elsa?

Not impressed.

I got this picture by sticking my camera under her face and pointing up. She spent the whole hay ride looking down with this look of “what the hell? Why are you making me sit on this nasty stuff?” on her face.

Then we arrived at the pumpkin field and it didn’t get any better.

She stepped right on a rotten pumpkin, breaking through the shell in a giant squish and getting rotten pumpkin guts all over her foot. The pictures I took from the day crack me up because it’s like a series on disgust. She has the exact same look on her face in every single picture.

The tour came with two apples each, and that made her happy. She protected the apple with her life and gave anyone who came near a death glare. They were not going to get her apple.

She liked the apple so much that I went into their farm market and bought a whole bag of them. Did you know a bag of apples is called a peck? I suppose it is a bag of a certain size, but I had no idea it was a peck. Erik is quite the reader these days and read that it was a peck so wanted to know what a peck was. I tried to explain that it was a measurement and the bag was a peck. Round and round we went and neither of us know what a peck is, but he is sure that I am hiding the information from him. Maybe I should have googled it. Doh! Just now thought of that. Usually he just tells me “Uh, mommy, just go look it up on your computer.”

What on earth did we do before the days of instant information access? No wonder my brain gets so confused all the time and I can’t remember anything. My brain is full and I won’t stop filling it up with useless information.

I also bought a frozen apple walnut pie because I’ve heard the pies out there are fantastic. I was very skeptical, but it was really good. Yum yum yum. Not to be braggy, but I could make a pie just as good as this pie, but why would I want to? Pies are a ton of work. Buying a frozen pie that’s as good as homemade is a major win in my book.

Two very good pieces of news:

1) Kisha was once again my web jedi hero and saved the FFF, my fantasy book discussion site that I’ve had for years and years and years! I still need to figure out how it was compromised and get my laptop cleaned up, but the site is not a totally destroyed digital wasteland anymore.

2) I haven’t had a single bit of pain from my tooth extraction. It feels weird to have a big gaping hole in my gum, but there’s been no pain involved. I just wonder how I’m going to keep the hole clean. It could get pretty gross up in there. Does gum tissue fill in over time after a tooth extraction?

And now it’s time for bed. Whoo-hoo! Mike is still out of town, so I get to go sleep by myself with the baby. It always feels so strange to have him gone. The rhythm of his breathing is gone and I miss him. I am not a fan of these bimonthly trips to Arizona. I just looked up bimonthly and it can mean once every two months or twice a month. How’s that for confusing? In this case I mean once every two months. Way too often, but the other bimonthly would be much worse.

I’m in a piss poor mood because I am having major, major website troubles and I am way in over my head. Some fucking hacker broke into my sites and put a piece of malicious code on all the static html pages. I can see it. I don’t know how to fix it. I used to understand how to work ftp and all that, but for the past several years I’ve just used the webFTP on my host’s site. They did away with that and now I don’t have a fucking freaking clue how to upload files. I finally got Firefox FTP to work, but then I started getting Codec errors. I think it’s a scam though because every time I click the link to resolve the errors I end up at a site selling software.

I’m ready to get a machete and take out some vigilante justice on any and all hackers. They think they are just sitting around in a room having fun or possibly making money. It’s just a game to them. They don’t realize some stressed out, over worked, dumbass mother is about to have a nervous breakdown because she’s totally helpless when a piece of shit hacker ruins her digital property. My website has been up for 12 years, maybe 13? I’ve always relied on the kindness of internet friends, but all my internet friends are now grownups with responsibilities. None of us have time to sit around fiddling with hinky dinky website stuff.

I need to go have a stiff drink. Are you allowed to drink alcohol after a wisdom tooth extraction? Even that didn’t go as planned! I was going to chill out with my iPod while the doctor worked on me for an hour. Instead, he numbed me up, yanked out the tooth and sent me on my way. I was literally home 20 minutes after I pulled out of my driveway. Can’t complain about that too much, actually. How sad is it when you are looking forward to your oral surgery as your relaxation time?

He told me that if a dentist ever tries to tell me to get the bottom wisdom teeth removed that they should call him and he’ll give them an earful. Apparently they are sitting on a nerve and removing them could destroy my whole face. Wouldn’t that be fun? I really liked this guy in the five minutes I got to know him. I’m all for not having a destroyed face.

All my hard work seemed to pay off! The cake looked fabulous, as only a cake that looks like a pile of vermin infested dirt can. It was pretty dry without a filling, but no one seemed to care. The wow factor was enough to win over a bunch of 5 year olds.

Almost everything went very smoothly. These types of parties are always hard to plan because of the RSVP situation. Will one or both parents stick around? Will the families who didn’t RSVP show up? Will extra siblings be on hand? I planned for 20 kids and 20 adults, but we ended up with 15 kids and 8 adults. I was relieved because it gave us a lot more space to move around, but it did mean we had way too much food left over.

I had everything planned to precision and have become much, much better at dealing with getting everything ready. I do checklists. I package the food up in small containers and then put it in the larger serving platters when we get there. I put items in the order I will use them. I label things.

Since I used to be a total introvert with no desire to ever host a party, those things were not learned in my younger years. I am also learning to communicate my plans to my helpers. This doesn’t come easily either. Even after 8 years of marriage, I still think Mike should read my mind and know what I am planning. I know it doesn’t work like that. I know are brains are so different that we might as well be from different planets. But I’m learning.

If any of you are near Montgomery County, MD I can highly recommend Meadowside Nature Center as a party venue. The program was really well done and the kids were highly engaged. The program lasted over an hour, which was an hour that I didn’t have to stress about entertaining the children. I’m all for not stressing.

Almost every single kid petted the snake, which surprised me. The kids all ran away from the turtle, which also surprised me. The turtle was chasing after them, so I guess that’s why they ran.

We learned how to tell male and female turtles apart based on the shape of their bellies. Almost all the moms let out an audible gasp when the naturist told the kids that the male turtle climbs on top of the female turtle’s back to mate, then demonstrated with a live male turtle and a plastic female turtle. My eyes just about popped out of my head, but the naturist carried on and it was soon forgotten by the children.

The only glitch was caused by the birthday boy. He took the candles out of the supply box and brought them to me so he could whine that the pack had 8 instead of 6. I was right in middle of packaging the fruit, so brushed him off and put it out of my mind. So do you think the candles made it to the party? Of course not. Luckily I had bought a sparkler 6, and he was ok with that. We were also very lucky that the room did not have overhead sprinklers. That sucker gave off a ton of smoke and I was convinced we were going to be soaked by the time it burned out. Thankfully the sparkler was enough for him. I did not want to deal with a crying fit from the birthday boy. Maybe he is finally maturing.

In addition to seeing all the animals, it was a beautiful day so we got to go on a little hike and hunt down turtles. There were also a few snakes. I hope everyone did a good tick check when they got home. I am pretty sure that’s where Elsa picked up her Lyme disease tick this summer.

When we got back from the hike, we got the kids started on the craft (all supplies provided by the nature center) and finished up the party. I elected to opt out of serving pizza since it was the middle of the day. I don’t know why every party has to have pizza regardless of the time. It makes no sense to my regimented little mind. Instead, we set out plates of fruit for the kids and they gobbled it up while they painted their snakes.

I had a whole bag of the choc o rocks left over from the cake, so I spread them out on the tables like confetti. I also had some plastic spiders, frogs and snakes that I spread around, so it looked pretty cool. My mom sat at one end of the table and ate all the rocks. No one could tell they were chocolate, so she scared more than one person. One mom dive bombed Elsa to pull a rock out of her mouth. It’s unbelievable how real those choc o rocks look. I went around and showed the kids that you could eat them so they wouldn’t go to waste. A few jaws dropped as I demonstrated, but they quickly decided that was the most awesome thing ever. They taste a lot like sixlets–just very fake, overly sweet chocolate.

As soon as the cake was served and eaten, several of the moms and my mom took the kids to a different area of the nature center (a cave! Real turtles in an indoor pond! A canoe! A little pioneer house!) while a few of the dads helped me clean up. It worked out really, really well. It’s so nice to have friends who help with things like that. I really do love my life here. We’ve been here six years and it has become a great community for us.

Only one really odd thing happened. I put little flashlights in the goody bags (can you believe flashlights were cheaper than ring pops?) because I knew the caves were really dark. One boy came back to get his flashlight from his bag and his dad told him he didn’t need a flashlight. I wasn’t thinking about undermining someone’s parenting. I told him “Oh, all the kids have a flashlight in their goody bags`” and the guy got annoyed with me. I guess maybe he was trying to get the kid over a fear of the dark?

I’m like a different person today. No stress! No planning! No barking orders! No boxes of Oriental Trading junk in my living room!

Now I have to prepare for next week: chaperoning the kindergarten pumpkin patch field trip, going to another pumpkin patch with MOMS Club and Elsa and getting a wisdom tooth extracted (I won’t be knocked out, thank goodness). And that’s just Monday and Tuesday.

Mike’s going to be out of town Tuesday-Friday, so I’m really glad my mom is here to help out. I need to kidnap her forever, but I know she would never agree to leave my sister’s children long term. They need her a lot more than we need her, though at the moment my sister and her husband are sober, drug free and in counseling. That doesn’t usually last long.

Welcome to my new friends! I would post a small introduction, but I’m too tired. I love October, but it also kicks my butt. Just so you know, we live in the DC area and my mom is visiting us for five weeks. This is generally a good thing. I have a kindergartner and an 18 month old. I am happily married to Mike, the Swedish Stud.

Erik, my newly minted six year old, has a birthday party tomorrow. He is a social butterfly and has ideas. He’s not content to just have a party. He has to dictate the decor, the cake, the games, the guest list. Everything! Of course, it’s his party and I’m happy to make it special for him. I just didn’t know little boys were supposed to care so much.

He wanted a dirt cake, and after creating and discarding several plans I ended up making a shit load of cake from scratch. Why? WHY? WHY?????

Cake from mixes generally gives me a tummy ache and I have a great recipe for one bowl yellow cake, so I thought it wouldn’t be a problem.

The first double batch was fine, but by the time I hit the stirring portion of my second double batch I was getting a little worn.

I made the frosting, crushed chocolate graham crackers, hunted down choc o rocks at the Amish Market.

I’ve never heard of them before, but I’ve seen them there several times. They taste horrible, but they look exactly like fancy little rocks. I couldn’t find them and was starting to panic, but at the last second I found two bags shoved way in the back next to the candy cigarettes. Why do the Amish sell our children candy cigarettes?

Anyway, the cake is done. It’s crawling with gummy worms, spider rings, plastic snakes and plastic frogs. I’ll take a picture tomorrow. I had to seriously let go of my perfectionist tendancies. A pile of dirt isn’t supposed to look pretty, right?

I took the whole thing to the basement, but it was too big to fit in the fridge door. Good thing I nixed the plan of filling it with custard. It weighed more than Elsa, I think. Could a cake really weigh almost 30 pounds?

In the midst of all this cake crazy, I had to get myself together and go volunteer at the school.

They were having a school carnival, so I did what any mommy would do and volunteered for an hour shift.

Little did I know that very few parents are actually involved with the PTA. I don’t blame them, either. It was my first PTA experience and I could be totally wrong, but those women seemed like gossipy bitches. Ugh. I want to keep my involvement to a minimum. I’ve got enough on my plate with the MOMS Club, an organization I really enjoy with people I like to hang out with. I don’t need to saddle myself with a bitch posse. I’ll volunteer for specific events like this, but that’s it.

I’m a former teacher, so I volunteered for the hardest station: Bingo!

Honestly, it would have been really easy but I had a middle school girl helping me out. I wanted to cause this girl bodily harm, but I’m an adult and I don’t assault children but if any ever girl deserved a swift kick in the pants it was this girl.

She wanted to be in charge and let me know right away that she thought she was the better woman for the job. Yeah. Because an 11 year old is so much more qualified for running 16 kids through a bingo game than an experienced teacher.

Her job was really simple: collect tickets and hand out prizes. She didn’t want to do this job. She wanted to call the numbers and when I wouldn’t let her, she would talk right over me after I called the numbers and repeat them in a whiny voice. I have a very loud voice that carries well and I know how to use it in a crowded situation. I was trying to make it fun and make everything very clear, but it was rough with her trying to butt in and control things.

The kicker was when a little boy called bingo and she chastised him for talking. She announced that you aren’t supposed to just shout out bingo–you are supposed to raise your hand instead. Myself, a grandma, and two moms set her straight on that. She disappeared after that little incident and some boy appeared in her place. I thought I was home free, but then she showed up again and stood right where I needed to be to call the numbers. I asked her nicely to step aside a couple of times, but I finally was a little short with her and told her she needed to go stand by the door.

My mom thought I was nuts for volunteering to do anything at the carnival, but I honestly thought it was fun. I’m bossy by nature and like to goof around with kids who are having fun. If I don’t have to nag them to do work, we’re golden together. If I would have had a better volunteer I wouldn’t have felt stressed out at all.

My mom took Erik around while I was working and she was wiped afterwards, poor thing. Being a grandma is hard work. Plus, she’s still depressed over the loss of my dad so she’s not functioning at full capacity so I think the whole thing was a little much for her.

Erik had a blast. I think it was basically the equivalent of Disneyland for him. His poor little mind will be blown if we ever take him to a real amusement park.

And that was that. I have a few things left to prepare for the party, but overall I think everything is ready to go and tomorrow shouldn’t be too stressful. The main problem is that I have a very specific agenda and plan for getting things done. Even when I share the agenda no one seems to think my agenda needs to be followed. It’s enough to make my head explode. Don’t they know that I’m all knowing and all seeing? If I can’t be the boss of the world, I can be the boss of the damned fruit tray, right?

I can’t believe my little baby is six years old!

It was like this was yesterday:

Zero

I must admit, today was much better than that day six years ago. There was a lot less crying, there was no bleeding. I didn’t have a bad reaction to drugs.

I’ve been looking all through my Flickr stream to find pics for this post. I can’t believe how fast the years have gone by. A total cliche, I know, but true. Of course, when I’m in the thick of it, it feels like things will never end. What’s that old saying? The days crawl by, while the years fly?

One

Two

Three (with Evie, Kisha’s daughter)

Four

Five

His birthday was everything a child’s birthday should be. He got cupcakes at school, a trip to Chuck E. Cheese and he got to stay up late. He was one very, very happy boy. He was so excited that he literally could not stop jumping up and down. I wish I was a better photographer and could have captured his pure joy. Looking through the flickr stream shows me that I really need to take a photography class. Every picture is blurry.

I’m just glad that today went well. I got to Safeway and the cupcakes weren’t ready because the decorator was out. The panic started growing in my chest because Erik knew these cupcakes were coming, but they finally got them done and they were fine. I think the baker frosted them. Wasn’t like I needed anything complex.

When I was at Safeway yesterday I noticed they had Halloween themed sugar cookies on sale for $2.99. I decided to make my life easier and buy two packs to donate to the cake walk at Erik’s school tomorrow night (they encourage store bought instead of homemade anyway). They rang up as $3.99, so I said something and the lady gave me one pack for free because of their price scan guarantee. I don’t know the exact details of the guarantee, but when I went back today I decided to buy another pack because they were still $2.99 and the school needs more donations.

Again, they rang up as $3.99. They must be making a killing on these cookies.

I told the cashier and she told me I was wrong. Finally, with a great put upon sigh she asked if I’d like her to do a price check.

Gee, ya think?

Instead of calling, like a normal cashier, she went all the way back to the bakery. There was a table with the cookies right by the registers, so I don’t know why she had to traipse all over the store.

After ten years she finally came back and told me they weren’t ringing up because the sale was expired but since they didn’t have the signs down they would give them to me for $2.99. She seemed to think she was doing me some huge favor. Is it my fault someone was too lazy to take down the signs? She acted like she’d never heard of the price guarantee. I should have gone back and got ten packs and insisted on getting them all free.

I took the cupcakes over to the school and thought I was going to have to punch the school secretary in the face. We have to ring a buzzer and smile for a camera before we are let in the school. I suppose we don’t have to smile, but they check us over before we go in.

The secretary acted like I was there to cause a ruckus or kill the children or maim the teachers. I just wanted to drop off green frosted cupcakes! Is that so wrong?! I had already made arrangements with the teacher, so I don’t know what this lady’s bleeping problem was. Grrrrr.

The day went much more smoothly after that. I have all the favors prepared for Erik’s party. I have food. I have drinks. I just need to make the cake tomorrow. I have a new plan to ease my panic. Instead of a giant-giant cake, I’m going to take Bethany’s suggestion and do a cake supplemented with cupcakes. I have all day tomorrow to take care of it so I shouldn’t be under too much stress. Party planning is not my forte. These things do not come easily to me. I always feel like the socially awkward teenager who doesn’t know how to be gracious or inviting. I don’t know what’s expected. I’ve been to enough of these parties that I should have it figured out by now, but the sad neglected/rejected teen comes out to play when I have to host anything major. I seriously hope Elsa is not such a social butterfly and doesn’t want to invite everyone she’s ever met to her parties. We had to institute a rule: you can only invite people if you know their names. We had a 20 kid limit, so that helped keep the guest list under control.

We all went to Chuck E. Cheese tonight for a lovely family dinner. Erik believes that you can only go to Chuck E. Cheese if someone is having a birthday and we haven’t disabused him of that notion. I hope we can keep that scam up for several more years.

Surprisingly it was pretty empty in there tonight. Possibly because we are under a tornado watch and having severe thunderstorms. I didn’t know about the tornado watch when we left. Doh!

When we got home, Elsa got into my mom’s drawer, opened her pill box and took a Paxil. I guess that’s one way to get a mellow baby.

I called poison control about 30 seconds after it happened and they said it is going to be fine. They gave me some warning signs to look for, but said it was a really low dose and well tolerated in children. My mom’s pill box has been moved and she feels terrible. No one ever thought Elsa could get into a childproof box like that, but she’s very smart, very strong and very stubborn.