Once again, I am very frustrated with Erik’s teacher. We are in e-mail contact at least once a week, sometimes more. She complains that he won’t do his work. He won’t sit still. He won’t go to the bathroom unless she forces him. He will do his work, but he will purposely do every single question wrong and think it’s hilarious.
Yes, it is damned frustrating. I know that. He does those same behaviors at home and it drives me crazy. However, I am his mother and I have a heart bursting with motherly love. Even when he drives me crazy I think he is the most brilliant, beautiful, funny, perfect boy to ever live. He may be a stubborn little boy, but the very traits that make him difficult as a child will serve him well as an adult. I hope.
That’s not really his kindergarten teacher’s concern. To her, he’s just one of her hundreds of students that she’ll see in a lifetime. Nothing special, no one worth fighting for. He doesn’t even have an IEP or 504, so why should she put in her best effort? Not that she’s said that, but that’s just how I’m feeling as a mother.
So I give suggestions. What else can I do? I don’t have some kind of magic hand that can invisibly reach across the town and slap down into his classroom and make him hold still and do his work. He’s in her control during those hours. She needs to figure out a way to motivate him and deal with this behaviors. I KNOW things that will work, but she is not willing to implement my suggestions. Still, I will support her at home by talking positively about school, letting him know we expect him to be a hard working learner, doing nightly homework, reading, and doing whatever else we can to turn him into a responsible student and adult. There’s only so much we can do, though, when he is not in our presence.
Her latest complaint is about his constant movement. I know exactly what she means. He does not stop moving, ever. He does it when he needs to go to the bathroom, but he also does it when he is simply existing. He’s a six year old boy.
How am I supposed to make him stop wiggling when I’m not there?
I suggested she let him use an active seating device. I’ve worked in schools that have kids sit on balance balls (I’ve been reading and am wondering if I should start sitting on one to make my back feel better). I also read that a seating disk works just as well. It lets the wiggles out in a way that is not so annoying for those around the child.
I offered to buy one of these things, even though it seems like something a school should be able to provide.
Guess what? The school has them. She could choose to let him use one. She doesn’t want to. She just wants him to be still and to go to the bathroom when he’s feeling wiggly.
If she doesn’t want to try to create solutions for the problems, why is she telling me about the problems? I have no idea if this active seating idea would work, but if they have the disks at the school what possible harm could come from putting one on his chair for a few days?
It’s just incredibly frustrating.
I think she’ll be a better teacher once her children enter school. She has a 3 year old and is about to go out on mat leave with her second baby. Maybe then she’ll understand that parents know things.
I know that teachers get to know their students well, but I am with my child more than she is. I’ve been with him since the day he was born. I KNOW this kid. She has a lot of experience as a teacher and I understand that she may have ideas that I would never come up with. I am not a kindergarten teacher after all. It’s just frustrating that she doesn’t seem to be doing anything to try to help him enjoy school. She just expects him to fall in line because logically his life would be easier if he would fall in line. Six year olds are not logical!
At least Erik was happy today. We had a really pleasant afternoon and evening, which is so very lovely. I treasure every moment of happiness. When all is right in Erik’s world he’s a wonderful companion. I hate to see that spark smothered by a bad school experience.
I am looking forward to this teacher’s mat leave. I don’t know if the sub will be any better, but at least it will be a change.
How about that silly little Elsa? She’s one funny little girl. It’s hard to remember how concerned I was about her lack of eating now that she will stuff anything into her mouth. I had a bunch of celery left over from making potato soup last week. Mike asked what we should do with it, so I decided to horrify his little Swedish self and make peanut butter filled celery sticks. The Swedes don’t really care for peanut butter.
Erik, of course, wouldn’t try it. Elsa shocked me and ate every single drop of peanut butter and a good bit of the celery. She also ate almost all my butter chicken this afternoon, which was no mean feat because it was much spicier than normal. I’ve read that children don’t develop capsaicin receptors until age 3 so maybe that’s how she’s able to handle the heat. She’s a bossy little thing when it comes to food. “Momma blow! Now bite!” No matter the temperature of the food I have to blow on it before she eats it. At least she generally feeds herself. No spoon feeding for her. It makes a mess, of course, but not as much as you’d expect. She basically cleans out her oatmeal bowl each morning.
This afternoon she decided she was done with disposable diapers and insisted on being put in a cloth diaper. I was ambivalent about this. Yay! Back to saving money! Boo! I don’t want to go back to leaks and laundry!
She wore a cloth diaper all through her nap, about 3 hours. I immediately took her up to change it when she woke up.
Oh my poor, poor sweet baby. There is just something about cloth that is horrible for her skin. I forgot about all those months of fighting monstrous diaper rash, but 3 hours in cloth and it was back with a vengeance. And one of the major selling points of cloth: no more diaper rash!
Also, she is ginormous and even though I picked out the biggest diaper in my stash it barely fit her. She had huge red marks on her thighs that lasted hours. It is safe to say the diapers are going to be put out of sight and removed from the house ASAP. There will be no going back.
And lastly, I am just so fucking tired of this war on women. How have these assholes made it so far when they are attacking half the population? I knew they wanted employers to be able to opt-out of birth control coverage on their health care plans. I had no idea they wanted to be able to opt out of covering amnios based on moral grounds. An amnio is a test! It saves lives! Yes, some women may use the information to decide to have an abortion, but it does not CAUSE the abortion. It is a tool.
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February 20, 2012 at 8:05 pm
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>>I’m ready to go out and do something! Anything! Have some fun! But I don’t want to deal with driving and parking and people and walking and people and crowds and people. So basically I want to go to a store that has a parking spot reserved for me, that has only items I adore and that doesn’t have any more than 10 people in the whole store. I need to re-set my expectations.
Instead, we went to Costco.
They have a backyard playset that I was hoping we could get. The price is right and I thought it might fit in the backyard if we just put up the playhouse tower and slide (leaving off the swing set portion).
Keep in mind I have no spatial awareness. I just have dreams.
Mike has spatial awareness and pointed out it would never work in our tiny, sloped backyard. Dream killer!
It would be so lovely to have a playset in the backyard. Elsa doesn’t really like other children, but she loves playing on the slide. When we go to the playground she gets screamy if the other kids dare touch “her” slide. If any toddlers dare infringe upon her territory I have to remove her from the area or she’ll kick and push them.
>>I was interrupted and am back to writing several hours later. Elsa popped up with her boots on and jacket in hand, so we took her outside for a walk. I think that’s all I needed to get rid of this antsy feeling. Mike tried to relive his youth by walking across a very precariously placed log, but then gave up at the last minute. I was glad because I didn’t know how I was going to carry him and Elsa back down the hill while I called 911.
>>Erik is still obsessed with hedgehogs. You probably saw the picture on FB:
These were super easy (click through for directions) to make and they made him smile. I like to make him smile. He can be really happy when school is not in session, but on school days he is the crankiest child to ever walk the earth, so it was nice to start the weekend with happiness.
>>There’s a lady on my FB page that is grossing me out. She’s potty training her son this weekend and giving constant updates about the whole process. I don’t mind a “we’re potty training!” or “Yay! Success in the potty training department!” kind of post. I do mind hourly updates that include full descriptions of the output. Especially output of a child that is larger than Erik (the boy is autistic). Gag me with a spoon. Seriously, give your readers and your child some dignity. Also, I do not need to see pictures of piles of wet underwear. No. Just no.
>> Mike says I need to start nagging him. I don’t want to be a nag. I’ve heard negative language about nagging wives all my life. I want to tell Mike something and then have that something taken care of.
Here in the real world that doesn’t happen. He needs to nag me to get things done. I need to nag him to get things done. I have a major tendency to bottle things up and get totally pissed when my expectations aren’t met, but I am doing that awful thing of just expecting people to read my mind and know what I want. I hate it when I talk to people and they have a problem but refuse to communicate with the person who can solve that problem. Now I’ve become one of those people.
I think instead of becoming a nag, maybe I’ll become a list maker. Nagging in written form is more my style.
>>I had sleep! Glorious, glorious sleep! Three nights in a row I got a full nights sleep. For whatever reason Elsa didn’t wake up and nurse all night long from Thur-Sat. I thought my life was about to get back on track. Sleep deprivation ruins lives. It really does. Or at least it makes me depressed, cranky and fat. Everything makes me fat.
Of course I had to go and mention this to Mike, so last night she was back to nursing all night long.
We have her toddler bed set up. Now we just have to man up and get her in there. I am not good at sticking to my guns in the face of a crying toddler who just wants her mommy.
Speaking of crying children, why is it that Elsa, aged 1, can clearly tell me if the bathwater is too hot or too cold so I can fix the problem, but her six year old brother just stands there and screams and refuses to tell me the problem? WHY??????
Did I mention that I bought him a plush hedgehog? It is so fun to see him talking to Hedgie and having an imagination. He is a wonderful boy, he really is. But he does not exactly like to play pretend and make stuff up. I was trying to get in on the act, but he cut me cold when he told me “Um, mom, you KNOW Hedgie is just a toy and I am just making my voice sound funny but it is really me talking. Toys can’t talk *eye roll*.” One day he’ll be a very successful lawyer or engineer.
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February 16, 2012 at 10:37 am
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As you know if you’ve been reading for awhile, we have a late term abortion provider doing work in our little town. My understanding is that he works in Nebraska during the week, then flies out here on the weekends when he has an abortion to perform (which is pretty rare since legally you can only get a late term abortion for some very specific reasons that are all heart breaking). But the protestors are there every morning. Some of them are perfectly acceptable to me, quietly holding up “Pray to end abortion” signs and other messages that I disagree with but that are perfectly within the realm of reasonable discourse. Then we have the nasty people who don’t care one whit about the living children in our town. They parade around with the most disgusting, graphic signs you can imagine. This is in front of a large business park with at least two pediatrician offices facing the street where these guys protest. Thankfully the business park has put up some big privacy fences, but that doesn’t help when you drive by.
So why are they having a complete fucking hissy fit about all employers covering birth control? WHY? Someone explain to me how it makes the least iota of sense. If you want to end abortion, you PROVIDE BIRTH CONTROL. How hard is that to understand? These people need to take their protest signs to the specific churches that refuse to recognize that birth control and accurate sex education ends abortion.
I mean, obviously no one can explain it to me and I don’t expect you to. I can not and will never understand it. I know it all comes down to deeply rooted hatred of women and slut shaming. I know they are so deeply lost in their own rhetoric that they can’t possibly think of logical cause and effect. It just pisses me off so hard. The Bible doesn’t say anything about birth control. The verse they use about spilling seed is about a guy who wouldn’t impregnate his dead brother’s wife.
Grrrrr. Anger. I have many, many Catholic friends. I’m not on a “hey, what birth control do you use” basis with all of them, but the ones that are willing to have the conversation say they use birth control and just repent each time. MAKES NO SENSE.
Of course, I come from a holiness evangelical background, so I was not raised with the idea of instant forgiveness. Yes, God would forgive you and forgive you absolutely, but you damn well better be sorry and if you kept doing something you weren’t really sorry. The God I grew up with did not grant forgiveness to people who asked unless they really meant it. And, of course, God would know the intent of your heart.
Thankfully the church I was a part of never demonized birth control. I just can’t wrap my head about the concept of birth control being bad.
Ok. Deep breaths. I know my words are just twisting in the wind. They won’t change anyone’s mind. But it’s my blog and sometimes I have to rant. Especially since there is a Catholic hospital being built less than two miles from my house. They will be a major employer in this area and they will be legally allowed to shit on women (their female employees who will not have birth control coverage as part of their health care plan).
How about my sister, if I’m going to rant.
I have been reading about narcissistic personality disorder and she is a clear cut case of it. Totally selfish, no empathy, makes everything about her.
For those new to the blog, she’s 35 years old, has 3 children, has type 1 diabetes that she doesn’t take care of, is married to a 45 year old guy with a bunch of children, and sponges off my mom. They are currently living with my mom. Neither she nor her husband believe in working. I guess that’s great for them since my mom is the biggest enabler on the planet. She was trained well by my grandma, who I am 100% certain also had narcissistic personality disorder.
She wants another baby, even though she can not and will not take care of the children she has (aged 7, 6 and 3). I have called CPS many times, but unless the kids are living in a meth lab or have bruises there is nothing CPS will do. My hometown is a snake pit of alcoholism and drug use.
My sister is an idiot on facebook. She constantly makes inappropriate posts and comments (I’ve removed her from my feed because I can’t stand it) and she friends anyone she might possibly know. She found a girl with her last name in our hometown and immediately friended the girl because they must be faaaaaamily. Yeah. My sister has an incredibly common last name. There are at least three people on my FB friends list with this same last name, and none of them are her family.
So this girl is 20 years old and just gave birth to her third baby. My sister says this is God’s answer to her prayers for a new baby and this baby is really her baby.
If this 20 year old girl was at all normal she’d be calling the police and reporting my sister for stalking and kidnapping. Instead, she’s handed her baby over to my sister. She gives the baby to my sister whenever my sister asks for it, which is basically 5 days a week. This baby was born with problems and has even been taken to the hospital twice after birth because it stopped breathing. Can you imagine deciding this was your baby and being responsible for it? Or letting someone take your fragile little baby away?
So my sister completely ignores her own children (typical behavior on her part) and lavishes all her attention on this baby. When my mom calls her on her behavior she has no freakin’ clue what the problem is. Narcissist. It is a good thing I am 3,000 miles away or I might do something that landed me in jail. I feel so bad for those poor children, but there is absolutely nothing I can do for them. I have offered several times to take them. I was 100% serious, but it just made my sister mad. She likes to love them for 5 minutes a day, then treat them like crap the rest of the time. She won’t even help them with their homework because they won’t cooperate with her. If there’s anyone on this earth that I pound into a bloody pulp, it’s my sister. She’s the reason I will never visit my hometown again.
My sister has two adult step-sons. One is just as slimy as she is. The other is a really good kid, or tries to be. He’s 22 or 23 I think. He lived with my mom and dad off and on through high school. He worked his ass off against horrible circumstances (my sister was the stable adult in his life, which tells you all you need to know about his mom and dad) and managed to graduate from high school. He’s held down a steady job since he graduated and has been supporting himself with no help from anyone.
So what does my dumbass sister do? Introduce him to this girl with 3 kids and try to convince him to date her or marry her. You’d think he’d be smart enough to say hell no and walk away, so this is partly on him. But instead of walking away, he becomes this girl’s booty call.
Why on earth would you ever introduce such an unstable element into the life of a young man who already has enough struggles to survive? My sister thinks it’s hilarious and that they are going to have a bunch of babies for her to raise. She’s only interested in babies until they start talking. Same with puppies. She always wants a puppy, but will never take care of a dog.
She was doing a lot better because she was in counseling, but once she met this girl and started her psycho behavior she stopped going to the counselor because he took her to task for her insane behavior.
And that, my friends, is why I’m all for mandatory sterilization. Not really, but I do wish I could give her a hysterectomy. I know I’m not a doctor, but that’s one home surgery I’d willingly perform. No anesthesia.
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February 15, 2012 at 9:16 pm
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I forgot just how much “fun” toddlers are. Elsa is fully into the getting into trouble stage. She’s smart and physically competent enough to make a huge mess in about .5 seconds.
I decided to make us a really nice family Valentine’s day yesterday. The dining room table was covered with crap and it was bugging me. Plus, it still had on the vinyl Christmas table cloth, which was way too busy for my eyes. But getting it off the table required clearing off the whole thing. Archeological digs are less complex than clearing off this table.
I assumed that if it was bugging me, the slob, it must be about to send Mike into orbit.
It took me three hours to clean up the room. Three exhausting hours.
It would have gone a lot faster if I didn’t have children going along behind me, undoing everything I was doing. Or creating bigger messes in other rooms.
I hear some noise in the kitchen: Oh look! Elsa has the whole silverware drawer totally scrambled up.
I hear the water running in the bathroom: Oh look! Elsa is covered in tomato seeds and her eyes and skin are burning from tomato acid. She took a whole box of Zima tomatoes (best tomatoes ever, btw. They’re like big, orange grape tomatoes, only super sweet) and smashed them all up in the sink.
Erik decides he wants to decorate the house for Valentine’s day and cuts up teeny pieces of paper and tries to GLUE them to the wall. I taught him about tape. Then he cuts out a strip of paper and wants me to tape it into the doorway of the bathroom. Strip of paper is 8 inches long. Doorway is way more than 8 inches. He starts having a screeching fit about what a mean mom I am and I just don’t understand. I finally figure out what he wants (the paper to be like a streamer across the door) and realize he is an insane person if he expects me to miraculously make this 8 inch paper fit across a 36 inch space. I try to help him make a paper chain, but he just screeches at me that I don’t know anything. I swear to god if he was an adult man I’d take out a restraining order. I guess a six year old is not a mature adult, huh? Lucky for him, or I’d totally be cutting him off for that behavior.
So after we both get ourselves settled down and come to an “understanding” I help him make a paper chain even though it’s the last thing I want to do and I’m frazzled and making messes is not helping me clean up the mess.
I was so exhausted by the time that I finally got the dining room cleared up, the kids settled into the basement and the gifts all sitting nicely on the table that I wanted to sit in my comfy chair and never move again.
Then Mike finally got home and didn’t even seem to realize it was Valentine’s day. I guess a bunch of geeks and nerds don’t know enough about romantic relations to gossip about Valetine’s day at work and compare notes about what they are getting their wives and girlfriends. Some of them bring their moms and sisters to holiday parties, so what do they know about Valentine’s day?
After all the work I put in on making the home a nice place for the evening, you can guess how happy I was that I’d been completely forgotten. I suppose it is not fair to expect something if I have not made my expectations clear, but it’s Valentine’s day. Do I really have to say that I need a token of appreciation? It seems like all my friends were posting pictures of the flowers, candy and other little gifts that their husbands surprised them with. I don’t need or want much. A piece of the special cake I like, a box of chocolate, a card. . . any of those would have been fine. Of course, I wouldn’t turn down diamonds and gold either, but that’s just crazy talk.
And when I am very upset I eat sugar. And when I eat sugar I get very upset. Emotional eating sucks. Being a giant, fat woman who can’t control herself sucks. I need to get a gastric bypass, but I don’t think that takes away a sweet tooth. I would do just about anything to get rid of this sweet tooth. Do you think cutting out my tongue would help? Little home surgery with the super sharp fish knife? I can learn sign language, right?
Mike redeemed himself tonight by coming home super early with some roses. The roses weren’t the redemption. Coming home before 5 is about the best gift he can ever give me. Most nights we’re lucky if we see him by 7, which really sucks.
Subject change:
I got an e-mail from Erik’s teacher saying he is behaving a lot better in class. I’m so glad. I am worried about him. We all hate to see our children unhappy and having problems at school, a place they will be spending at least 13 years of their lives. It is so difficult to have our hearts walking outside our bodies, completely away from us for several hours a day. The teacher did mention that he still has constant body movement and can’t seem to control it. I know what she means and I know it probably drives her insane. It drives me absolutely crazy. I suggested she let him sit on a bouncy ball or an active seating disk or wedge, so we’ll see what happens. When I subbed in Alexandria a lot of the kids used active seating devices, but I’ve not seen that here. I will even buy it if she will just let him use it. I don’t know if it would help at all, but it’s worth a shot.
If you follow my FB feed, you’ll know that his Valentine’s loot was insane. I am so irked by this new tradition of turning Valentine’s into Halloween. Why the fuck does a kid need to bring home a whole backpack full of candy? He has 17 kids in his class. Eight of the kids sent home birthday sized goody bags stuffed full of candy. It is just completely insane to me. Some of them didn’t even give out Valentine’s cards, just the bags of candy. I guess Erik made a poor showing with his homemade cards with a pencil taped on them. I refuse to participate in that over-the-top goody bag business. I think it’s very intersting that all the big goody bags came from the kids who live in the single family home neighborhood that’s supposedly really fancy. I am so glad I don’t give a rat’s ass about keeping up with the Joneses. I don’t need to make everything bigger, better, bigger, better MORE CANDY! I don’t look at the bags of candy and think “wow, those must be great parents with a lot of money.” I look at it and think “wow, those people are asshat losers who want to sugar up all the kids and are desperate for approval.” I’ve met several of the parents at birthday parties and other activities and I can’t stand any of the ones from that neighborhood. They are just huge snobs. Ugh.
Last thing:
I booked my mom’s spring plane tickets. She’ll be here six weeks! Crazy, but she wanted to be here for my birthday and she wanted to help me the last week of April because Mike will be out of town. We love having her, so it is not a problem. She’s good at making herself scarce when she needs to and she respects our boundaries. Hopefully we will all have a good visit.
My sister is even more bat shit crazy than usual. Remind me to tell you about her new non-biological baby. I thought I’d lost the energy to be emotionally invested in anything she does, but I am completely livid on her children’s behalf (behalves? behalfs?).
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February 13, 2012 at 11:18 am
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You really shouldn’t post about cleaning someone’s clock. CLOCK. As in time piece. As in punch them in the face (I guess that’s what cleaning someone’s clock means). And then go on to post about wanting that person to be naked.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I don’t generally use the word clock without an L, especially on my blog.
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February 12, 2012 at 7:49 pm
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Life has been keeping me very busy, with no time to sit down and journal. I can’t believe I pretty much posted every single day for almost 10 years. Two kids takes the words right out of me. Or the time. Plus, I feel like I’ve said everything I need to say. You know how I would run things if I was the queen of the world. I’m not. Let’s get on with things.
If you remember, we ordered furniture about six weeks ago. It finally arrived! It is not my style, really, but nothing that was my style fit our comfort and practicality ideals so style got sacrificed. There will be pictures. One day. Maybe.
The new couch is a lot bigger than the old couch, so we ended up with a huge pile of toys at one end of the room. It was very stressful and ugly, so we decided a toy purge was in order. I didn’t want to throw everything out once I knew I was pregnant, but now we know Elsa’s tastes and they very much run in the stereotypical girl line. We can safely get rid of the majority of wheeled things and keep all the Little People and other figurines. We’ve got the pile whittled down quite a bit, but we are not completely done. Once everything is looking decent down there I may remember to take some photos,
Erik was being oh-so-helpful and loading up all of Elsa’s toys into the trash bag. I don’t think he meant to throw her things away. He just doesn’t play with them so thought they could go. He’s six. He has no idea he’s not the center of the universe.
Next topic:
We had a babysitter today! Let’s all do a cheer!
Our sitter used to watch Erik for me all the time when I was pregnant with Elsa. She is a stay-at-home mom who does week daytime sitting, which doesn’t really fit our weekend babysitting needs. This weekend, however, she needed some extra cash so she opened up her home as a drop-in daycare sort of thing. We left the kids there for four hours and enjoyed some alone time in our house. Mike suggested cleaning the basement and I about cleaned his clock. Alone time in our house? Boy better be naked when I get home from dropping the kids off.
We went to dinner and then didn’t really have time for a movie, so we sat together and watched the pilot of “The River.” Neither of us enjoyed it, so it’s out of the rotation. We didn’t even finish it, it was so bad.
In other news, Erik is completely obsessed with hedgehogs. He’s been watching “Sonic the Hedgehog” on NetFlix and wanted to know what a hedgehog really looked like. Mike found a pic and an obsession was born. Did you know they are the cutest animals ever? Did you know they need to be your favorite animal? What do you like better, snow or hedgehogs? Huh? HUH??? WHICH DO YOU LIKE BETTER?!?!
Yes, the hedgehog love is intense. We’ve been enjoying it, even if we do get tired of answering “Which do you like better, hedgehogs or [shoes, blankets, cookies]?” every five minutes. I’m all for any obsession that gets him away from TV and in front of reading material. He has big plans to make a video about hedgehogs to tell everyone who speaks English about how great they are. It’s going to be on the news and everyone is going to say “Wow! That boy knows a lot about hedgehogs!” Stay tuned. I am a mean mommy and forcing him to think about what he wants to say and practice before he does any filming. He keeps getting distracted so it hasn’t happened yet.
I also ordered a couple of books and a Sonic the Hedgehog hat. He wanted me to make him a hedgehog costume while he was at a birthday party yesterday. He has a lot of faith in me, but I can not produce a costume in an hour and a half. He hasn’t mentioned it again, so I hope the hat will be good enough. And I’m really hoping he is over this obsession by October! I can just see him wanting a hedgehog themed birthday party and Halloween costume. I seriously doubt his obsession will last nine months.
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February 8, 2012 at 8:13 pm
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>>What a week! I’ve been to a MOMS Club event every day this week, mainly because we had prospective members coming to things and I want to make sure they are properly welcomed. Both of them joined, so I guess I was friendly enough. Now that I am president, I often find myself carrying the conversation in middle of a large crowed. 2005 Carrie could never have imagined being the star of the show. And it’s not that I want to be the star–it’s that everyone else is so shy and reserved that someone has to keep asking questions to get people to talk.
>>I should have been going to the gym, but I can’t do a MOMS Club activity plus gym time and still have time for Elsa’s nap before Erik gets off the school bus. Erik stopped napping at age 2 because I just didn’t have the energy to fight him anymore, but I have a feeling Elsa will be napping for years to come. If I don’t get things set up for the nap before she’s ready, she’ll come to me and tell me “boopy, sleep, boopy, sleep” and be very insistent about the whole thing. I love having a child that is so very easy. If I wasn’t 37 and we had more money and I could guarantee an Elsa clone I would happily have another baby. But I am and we don’t and we can’t so two and through is my motto. And apparently “run on sentences are my friend” is my other motto.
>>We’re getting our new basement furniture tomorrow! I’m so excited! I am so tired of having furniture that’s so uncomfortable you’re almost better off sitting on the floor. Plus, the new items don’t have any pull out pillows or cushions, so I won’t be spending my life putting them back together again. Mike has had a long talk with Erik about jumping on the new sofa, but I don’t think it will help. We will have to take a hard line with him. I’m not looking forward to that part of the whole deal. But new furniture! Happy happy joy joy!
>>One of my newer friends heard me talking about Elsa’s not so great immune system and recommended something called sambucus. It’s an elderberry extract that supposedly greatly enhances the immune system. I ordered some and am crossing my fingers that it gives Elsa’s little body the extra help in needs in fighting off colds. My friend pointed out that it is made from elderberries and the Elder wand is made from elder wood, so it should totally defeat any germs. I love making new real life friends who can weave in a Harry Potter reference.
>>I am itching to go buy Elsa some new clothes, but the time isn’t right. She is on the cusp of outgrowing her winter clothes, but we’ve had a very mild winter so I am hoping to make it through with what she has. The problem? She only has a couple of outfits that I LOVE. The rest are just kind of blah. I know it is so silly, but I really like to look at her and know that her clothes look great on her. Yes, she’s not even two. I am an insane person. The problem is that I bought her a bunch of pastel shirts that had a really cute theme, but she doesn’t look her best in pastels. Note to self: dress her in brights. Also, I know my days of picking out her clothes are coming to an end. She is already very vocal about what she will and won’t wear so it is only a matter of time before she wants input in the store as well.
>>I am just now catching up on the last few Chuck episodes. I hate to be such a bad fan because I enjoyed the show for so long, but this last season has been a slog. I perked right up today, though. Peter! From White Collar! Whoa. . . wait. . what? He played a nasty villain, which was hard to comprehend. Fun, though!
>>Speaking of television, I started watching The Finder and think it is kind of goofy fun. I like goofy fun. What else is good these days? Anyone watching Touch? I might watch it onDemand just to see what it’s about.
>>I signed our family up for the Cultural Heritage Showcase at Erik’s school. The lady in charge said it’s only the second time in history that someone has chosen Sweden as their country. Now I have to figure out how to create a display. I’m thinking of getting one of those tri-fold boards and gluing on a map, a list of words translated into Swedish, and maybe some pictures of reindeer and the ice hotel. She said to keep it very casual. We have some Swedish books we can put out. Maybe a picture of Pippi Longstocking? I wish I had a fun kid’s map of Sweden. I don’t even know what happened to our Dala horse. We do have a Swedish flag that we can display.
We are allowed to serve food if we want but I am not sure what I would bring. She said a lot of the kids will have on ethnic outfits that are not easy to clean, so not to bring anything that would stain. I don’t want to kill myself with this thing. The showcase is actually on Elsa’s birthday so it will be a busy weekend. Possibly kladdkaka (like brownies) cut really tiny and stuck on a toothpick? Even though it is a Swedish recipe it is not really what I think of when I think of Sweden. It is super easy to make, though. Cinnamon buns are much too complicated to make for such a large crowd, even if I cut them up small. And I’m sure as heck not going to bring pickled herring. I suppose I could clear the room with a can of surströmming (rotten fish that smells like garbage and onion peels).
Ohhhh! I just had a brilliant plan! Salt licorice! I don’t think I would need that much because most people wouldn’t want to try it. Plus, it’s much more foreign than a piece of cake or cinnamon bun. I will have to go down to the Dutch market tomorrow and see if they carry it at the candy shop. I seem to recall seeing it there. If not, it looks like there are a few online sources.
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