The Queen's Rambles

>I have been properly schooled about black and white twins. It is possible to have twins who are on opposite ends of the color spectrum–it all has to do with genetics and can happen with second generation mixed raced couples. I think. That’s what I got out of the articles anyway. So basically I’m an asshole for laughing at the idea and we should all be prepared to see more of this rare phenomenon as the world becomes more of a mixing bowl of races. One couple in the UK had two sets of twins with one who appeared black and the other who appeared white. I had no idea! It’s completely fascinating. Google black and white twin images and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

But don’t you think if there was a set of black and white twins in the school they’d be kind of famous and everyone would know about it?

>Elsa had her first real haircut yesterday! We went to a fancy children’s place since they know how to work with kids, thus are more likely to give a good cut with fewer tears. Erik was extremely impressed because they had free popcorn. He declared that he was only getting his hair cut there from now on. I told him that was fine, but that I would only pay $12 for a haircut. He would have to pay the $6 difference. He thought a moment and decided we could make popcorn at home. Amazing how things change when you have to foot your own bill.

Here’s a couple of pics:

And the result! Not that it looks much different from the front, but it looks way better from the back. We got rid of a lot of the stringiness and now it looks nice and full and swingy.

Afterwards, we decided to try out an Indian restaurant that our neighbors told us was one of the best in the area. It was very tasty, but we won’t be going back as a family. It was the slowest service ever and very expensive. Elsa and Erik both loved the food, but both melted down before it arrived. The portions were also very stingy. We ordered what we thought would be enough for all of us, but Mike and I both came away hungry. Booo!

>I decided Erik and I needed a mother-son date yesterday, so we went to see Hugo since it was the only children’s movie playing at the right time. So why is this a children’s movie? Just because it has child actors? The trailers make it look like a couple of kids who are on the run from an evil police guy. They also make it look like the kids are building an awesome robot man.

While those things happened, they were not the focus of the movie. It was mainly a fairly slow placed (if you are six) movie about an old man and his regrets as seen through the eyes of children who don’t have a clue what is going on. It’s quite beautiful and I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to see a sweeping, subtle movie (and Johnny Depp has a cameo!), but it’s not at all good for squirmy six year olds. Here’s a good review: that says what I mean better than I could say it. I had no idea it was based on a true story.

After the movie, Erik begged to go to Mexican food, so we hiked over to Uncle Julio’s in the snow(!!!) and found a 45 minute wait. Since Mike wasn’t expecting us to be gone so long, I had to nix that idea. So Erik barged on over to Copper Canyon Grill, even though I didn’t intend to go there. He’s such a confident young man that he was asking for a seat before I even stepped into the door (I was trying not to slip off the bridge in my non-snow friendly boots). They had a huge wait too, so we ended up getting cupcakes at a local cupcakery. I don’t quite get the cupcake fad. I want to like cupcakes, but I just. . . don’t. And the ones at this place are kind of nasty. Cupcakes for dinner for the parenting win!

This particular cupcakery is very kid oriented and they have a ton of super expensive kids toys all around, so he started begging for something. He was not at all impressed when I said he could have anything he wanted, but he would have to pay for it from his funds. He ended up getting a $2 thing of cupcake lipgloss. He’s quite impressed with it.

Then I saw a purse in the window of a girly store that I just had to have, so we slipped on over there. I don’t recommend accessory shopping with a six year old boy. He decided he was going to pick me out something that was beautiful that I could wear every day. He has the tastes of a six year old boy, so his main love was two big, tacky gold bracelets that would make me look like Wonder Woman. I’m really glad he’s stingy with his money–he wouldn’t part with any to buy me anything. Ha.

I love my new purse, even if it wasn’t to Erik’s taste. That’s probably a good sign.

>Does anyone know of any good parks or nature centers in NoVa? One of our Campfire families moved to Ashburn, so we want to do some field trips that are half way between Germantown and Ashburn. However, none of us know the first thing about NoVa. I think I found one that might work. Riverbend in Great Falls, VA. We also would love to do some kind of hands on science center tour. We all love the Maryland Science Center and Port Discovery, but they are in Baltimore, which defeats the purpose of meeting halfway. We may just end up going to one of the museums in DC.

It was Family Academic Night at school last night. Erik kept calling it Epidemic Night and thought it was going to be super fun game time. I didn’t really want to go because I knew he was going to be disappointed and it didn’t end until 8:15, which is after his bed time. But we did go. He was over the moon excited when I said we could go. He was jumping so high I thought he might hit his head on the ceiling.

Of course, Mommy is often right and he was pretty disappointed. He thought it was going to be like Family Game Night, which is when they set out a bunch of game boards and families come and play. Instead, a lot of different teachers were at a lot of different stations teaching academic “games” which barely qualified as games. He was not really polite in his disappointment. If you’ve been reading awhile you’ve probably picked up on the fact that he is not the happiest kid in the world. No one would ever describe his personality as “sunny” or “happy.” He has nothing to be unhappy about, but he’s always been pretty discontent, from the day he was born. It can be very exhausting. And sad for my mommy heart.

There was a good part: his best school bud was there, so I finally got to meet him. He was there with his dad, so we walked all over the place with them after we found them and the boy helped keep Erik in check. I was very pleased to see that the boy is really well behaved and smart. He’s exactly the kind of friend I would want for my child. The boy was actually much better at math than Erik (scary smart!) so by the end Erik was getting a little upset. They had a lot of fun playing a dice game, though. They would roll the dice and add up the numbers.

When they sat down at the dice game, the teacher asked if they were twins. I just laughed it off because Erik is one of the palest kids in the school and his best bud is on the opposite end of the color spectrum. Just from accent alone I am guessing that his dad is African. The two boys were obviously really happy together and enjoying each other’s company, but I don’t think it’s out of line to say that you can tell by looking that they aren’t twins.

So we get up from the table. The teacher hands the dad a packet of information. I hold out my hand for a packet and she says “Oh, each family just needs one.” I look confused. “The boys are twins, aren’t they?” she asks again, very confused looking.

I started laughing so hard that I couldn’t stop. I felt terrible! But I couldn’t stop laughing. Twins! What the hell? We aren’t in a sitcom. I don’t think there is any biologically possible way that the father and I could produce twins from the opposite sides of the color spectrum. If we were a couple, our twins would be a delicious caramel color.

The teacher got really offended and said “It could happen. They get along so well, I just assumed they had to be siblings.”

I suppose they could have easily been step-siblings, but certainly not biological twins. Ha! Besides, what siblings get along so well?

In other news:
>We don’t have a single thing planned this weekend! Freeeeeedom! Next weekend was have two birthday parties on Saturday and a babysitter for Sunday afternoon.

>I turned Elsa’s car seat even though it’s a couple of months early. I haven’t weighed her, but I’m pretty sure she exceeds the rear facing weight limit on our car seat. Plus, her poor legs were just not looking good in the rear facing position. She thinks she’s pretty hot stuff now that she’s facing forward, and it’s hard to convince her to get out of the car.

>Mike and I have been watching Alcatraz together. I am mainly watching it for Hurley. I’m enjoying the show, but it doesn’t totally have me hooked yet. It’s nice to have something to watch together with Mike.

>I made a healthy dessert recipe called cookie dough dip. I was shocked–it really did taste good even though it was made with chickpeas. If anything, it was too sweet. Unfortunately it doesn’t solve my sweets cravings. I have been reading a book on sugar addiction (thank you Beck!). I’m a text book case of a person with sugar sensitivity. I’m very, very lucky I never started drinking or I would absolutely be an alcoholic. The healthy cookie dough dip may taste just like regular cookie dough (or pretty darned close), but it does not give me the same brain reaction as a traditional dessert, leaving me feeling empty and still needing a hit. I am hoping this book’s plan will work for me (I haven’t read the whole book, but it seems to depend a lot on eating protein, whole grains, and a daily potato). I am tired of being addicted to sugar. The book is very revealing and it does make me feel a lot less guilty about having zero will power. For those of us with sugar sensitivity it is not a matter of just saying “Ok, I won’t have sugar today.” It truly is an addiction.

>Elsa needs a real haircut. She has a lot of split ends and her hair is just odd looking. I am not looking forward to how this plays out. I can’t imagine it will go well.

>Time for lasagna.

What a freakin’ saga!

Remember when we had a horrible smell in our basement and I thought we were going to die? We cleaned the dryer vent (it was 100% blocked so it was necessary), we had the timer replaced on the washing machine (it was not spinning all the way, then one day it went ker-plunk and was dead. It still doesn’t spin all the way. Gah!), and we unplugged the fridge (fridge had smoke coming out of it). So yeah, our basement was a freakin’ mess. And the smell STILL didn’t dissipate in a timely manner. But then it did. Weird.

The smell is back! But this time it’s in the corner by Mike’s desk. And guess what I just figured out? It’s a stupid, old, wet disposable diaper!!!!

Stupid stupid stupid. Can you believe that? We spent a shit load of money trying to resolve this (and everything we did was actually necessary, but we were kind of ignoring it). All because we rarely take out the basement trash.

I don’t know if I should laugh or cry.

I really should be in bed. Really, really. The bags under my eyes are begging me for a little rest.

So why am I writing here?

It was just a day. It’s been a week. You know? Ugh.

So today was our MOMS Club meeting. I’m the president, so I should be there early to open the room and get things set up. I have it all under control and planned. I hear Elsa crying. I walk into her room and find her hanging off her changing table. I feel terrible because it looks like she’s been crying for hours with the amount of snot hanging off her face. I didn’t know a child could have that much snot.

And a child probably couldn’t have that much snot.

It wasn’t snot. It was a whole travel size thing of Vaseline all over her face, in her hair, on her clothes. She had it all in her eyes, which is why she was crying I think. Good lord, it was a mess and a half to clean up.

I was late to the meeting, but I don’t think anyone cared much. We are a very casual group. We really only had one item on our agenda: making Valentine’s for kids at a children’s hospital.

We looked around the room and realized our fun craft idea for kids was pretty much shot to hell since our children ranged in age from 6 months to Elsa. Yeah. They weren’t so big on making Valentine’s, though Elsa did get into using the stamp pad. She basically coated herself in ink (washable), and then rolled around on a table, coating the table in ink. It all came off with use of diaper wipes, but I was worried there for a few minutes. I’d hate to lose the use of our free meeting place.

I’ve had a lively e-mail exchange with Erik’s teacher today. Yesterday evening was awful. It all started with Erik refusing to eat his lunch. He loves my super easy chicken sauce, so I thought I’d be smart and send it in his lunch. Big, big mistake. He didn’t eat a single bite of lunch, so he was a complete bear when he got home.

For all my complaining about the math program at his school, the reading program works very well for him. Why can’t they do math groups the same way? He is currently reading at an end of first grade level, so now his reading homework has a written component. It’s a little much for him just because he hates writing. He can answer the question, but getting him to write it out is like pulling teeth.

After an afternoon of him whining, crying, screaming, and just generally testing my patience, I was done. It was time for him to go to bed, the homework still wasn’t done, and I lost it. Completely lost it. I ripped up his paper and told him to just forget it. I regretted it immediately.

He told me the teacher would be disgusted with me and I need to learn to control my temper. So true. So very true.

I e-mailed the teacher to let her know what happened. It was extremely embarrassing, but I didn’t want her to accuse Erik of lying when he came to school with this story. Thankfully she didn’t want to call CPS on me and my crazy self. She did say that she never, never wants her students or parents to feel that frustrated over homework. If it’s not working, just put it away and she’ll deal with it at school. That was definitely a relief to hear since he will be getting more work like this as he advances through the reading levels.

Erik got his report card today. It was pretty much as expected. Proficient in every academic area and most social areas. In Progress on several of the behavior/completes work items.

I am still very frustrated about the math/science situation at his school. Mommyprof and Jeanette gave me some great comments over at the blog2.queenoframbles.com blog. As Mommyprof says, their gifted program is ludicrous. It is just completely and totally effed up. They say 30% of kids qualify for the program and only 2% are accepted. So it is totally ok to fail 28% of our children? The whole system enrages me. I am not saying Erik would even qualify. I don’t think he is a super genius or anything, but he is no slouch either. I just hope his teacher really does work out a way to give him some acceleration in his class. I’ll give her a couple of weeks, then it’s time to go to the principal. I have been very friendly about it and have done a lot of “how can we work together to solve this? What do you need me to do at home?” types of things. I don’t want to get her on the defensive. I just want him to not hate school. If a flim-flamming addition worksheet could help in that goal, I don’t know why he can’t have one. I was looking up the math curriculum last night and discovered by the end of the year they will be adding! All the way up to 5! Whoo-hoo! Their biggest challenge will be adding 2+3. Give me a break.

Ok. Really gotta go to bed.