The Queen's Rambles

We’ve had a lot going on lately, most of which was not fit for public internet consumption. My mom made a last minute decision to come visit us and bring along my four year old nephew. She was supposed to stay six weeks, which was a long ass time. I don’t mind her coming, but it definitely changes things when she’s there. I made arrangements so she could go on our vacation with us, including renting a small beach house instead of a regular hotel room.

She planned this sudden trip because she was pissed at my sister and couldn’t stand to be around her any longer. Instead of manning up and dealing with her, she tried to run away. My sister is in a really, really bad downward spiral right now and I was not pleased with my mom for leaving my other niece and nephew behind. They had no one to protect them.

I was also not convinced that my mom’s vacation would be stress-free. I knew she’d constantly be on the phone with her neighbor, listening to reports of what my sister was doing.

And she was. And the doings were big.

My sister was investigated by child services (yay!), took my mom’s car on a road trip, moved a druggie into my mom’s house, moved her new boyfriend (yes, she’s still married) into my mom’s house, broke the locks on my mom’s bedroom door and went all through her bedroom (such a breach!), had some wild parties, got in a fight and had a miscarriage.

My mom made the decision to cut her trip way short and fly home on Saturday. Her other grandkids needed her and she needed to get her house back. The police refused to go over and kick everyone out because it’s a civil matter (even though none of them live there). Don’t you love that you could go on vacation and squatters could take over your home?

It was fun to get to know my littlest nephew. I’ve only met him a couple of times. In the past I tried not to let myself feel close to him because it breaks my heart to hard when I know what the kids go through, but he easily won me over. He was very shy the first several days and has a very tender heart. You can’t say anything negative to him or he will run away and hide.

In the end he started talking and helped me cook and clean. He was by far the most helpful child in my house and the only one who would listen to me when we went out and about. I hate that he had to leave the safe space of my home and return to his mother (though he actually lives with my mom because he refuses to go with my sister. He even told me that my sister is not his mommy. Grandma is his mommy.)

I am desperately hoping, but not at all expecting, my mom to finally wise up and end this nonsense with my sister. If she would quit paying for all my sister’s crap she could easily pay a lawyer and get custody of the kids. It’s a no brainer. Instead, she lets my sister use and abuse her. For 20 years I’ve been hearing “If just this one super special thing would happen, she would be fine.” Guess what? She’s seriously mentally ill and a major drug user. It’s never going to be fine unless she decides she wants to make some serious changes in her life.

So there you go. Lots of stuff happening.

And now my little family is on vacation! We spent a very tiring day at Sesame Place–so tiring that everyone else was asleep by 9:15. Tomorrow we’re headed for our beach cottage up in Connecticut. I hope we have fun and Elsa doesn’t drown. That girl is nuts in the water. I went on a water ride with her today and our intertube flipped over at the end of the ride. It was a horrible feeling to go under so quickly and with so little control. I think my brain was bathed in chlorine water, so much went up my nose. When I finally came up the lifeguard was holding Elsa. Elsa had a huge smile on her face and kept saying “FUN! FUN! We go swimmin’!”

Then we went to another part of the park that was basically a huge water play area. They had regular water slides (no tubes) and she wanted to try them out. I was really scared to let her because they wouldn’t let me ride with her. Mike stayed at the end and we sent her down. My heart was in my throat, but she did great and wanted to do it several times. I don’t think Erik did the slides a single time.

Overall it was a really good day, though I certainly learned a few things. I didn’t really understand that it was a water park so was not as prepared as I should have been (no water shoes, but I did end up buying some). If I ever go to another water park I think I am going to buy some Keens or something like that. It’s hard to walk around all day in water shoes because they have no support, but you really have to have something you can get wet. I think Keens are supposed to be supportive? I don’t know. I’ve never really looked at them because I would have to buy mens and I hate buying mens shoes. I like pretty.

Too bad the internet connection at the hotel is so sucky or I’d post a few pictures. I didn’t get many because the kids refused to cooperate, but we did get a pic with Cookie Monster.

We can never seem to have a weekend of pure fun! We are grown-ups, so don’t really expect pure fun. More like 20% fun. There’s always laundry, shopping, home improvment, blah blah blah. The last few weekends have been pretty sucky, though. Now Mike is sick, so there’s no fun this weekend. He’s wasting away in bed while I try to tame the two beasts. I’m not doing a great job at it.

Erik and I went to Target to pick up new nunchucks for the Wii. I made a mistake and bought a super cheap set online but they have never worked. I bit the bullet and bought some real ones so I could stop hearing the boy whine. The originals were chewed to pieces. You’d think we had a rabbit, but no. Erik is a chewer.

While at Target we witnessed a small little car crash. Two cars were sitting in the parking spot, waiting for a spot to open up. Suddenly the car in front backed up into the car behind it. Crazy!

The first car was driven by an old man of possible Italian descent. I’m not sure. I just know he was old and white and didn’t speak English well. The back car was driven by a youngish black man.

The old guy gets out and starts cursing the young guy out, yelling at him and accusing him of hitting his car. He refused to give any of his insurance information and was just being a basic asshole. The young guy was calm at first and took a pic of the other car’s license plate. The young guy snapped, though, after the old guy got more and more obnoxious. At that point I shouted over to him that I was a witness and saw everything, so not to worry. We all knew what happened and I would be happy to talk to the insurance people for him. That did help calm him down, thankfully. I would have hated for him to get in trouble for getting into a fight when he did nothing wrong to begin with.

Thankfully he calmed down. The old man called the police. Why does the person in the wrong always call the police?

The officer finally arrived and didn’t want to hear anything. He just told them to exchange information and have the insurance take care of it. The old guy almost refused, but the officer gave him a threatening look and that was the end of that. I wonder if the insurance company will call me.

We got a letter from our HOA that we have to clean off our porch. Ugh. They are not wrong. we do have some junk there that needs to go, but they said we have to move our lawn chair. What’s up with that crap? If I want to sit on a lawn chair on my front porch, I would think I have every right to do that. Grrrrrrrr. Plus, our townhouse is side facing with a couple of big bushes in front of our porch, so no one but our across the path neighbors can see anything anyway.

I just hope this means they are going to be enforcing some rules down the street. It is downright nasty down by the little park. The druggie neighbors (one with the dead grandma, hungry kids) put trash out on non-trash days. Squirrels and crows eat into the bags. Trash gets everywhere. Sooooo gross. I won’t even take Elsa down to the park anymore.

Speaking of taking Elsa to the park. I keep thinking that I want to go to a local swing-set showroom and see if they can do a custom thing for our backyard. I just want a tower and a slide, no swing (there’s no room for it). I have a toddler sized one back there right now, which is great, but I want something bigger to keep Elsa occupied.

I must admit it is nice to have a kid who doesn’t like to play with kids. I didn’t pursue a backyard play structure when Erik was younger because he likes playing with kids. He doesn’t want to hang out in the backyard. I would much rather open my basement door and let her run into the back (it’s fenced), then walk down to the nasty park.

I was feeling much, much better today! I even tried to clean my house a little bit, but that wore me out. It is a scary disaster in here. I need to get it cleaned up my Thursday afternoon because my mom is flying in that day. If she sees the mess she’ll take matters into her own hands and we’ll never see our stuff again. I am glad she likes to clean, but the results are not always as desired. We still can’t find the sippy cup spouts from the last time she was here.

Mike’s work had a little party tonight at a tapas place in downtown Rockville. The restaurant opens onto a really nice little town square and on Friday nights they have live music. People set up lawn chairs and little kids dance in front of the stage. Very fun

My kids demonstrated their personalities 100% tonight. Elsa was too shy to dance. Finally she decided she could go out there, but only if one of us was with her at all times. If we dared take a break she would run for our legs as soon as she noticed. I don’t worry about her getting kidnapped.

I bought myself a new visor (can’t stand hats) and she absconded with it immediately. She is turning into a diva. She can’t leave the house without her purse, sunglasses and plastic puppy.

Erik was in full Erik Force tonight. He made some friends at the party, then burned up the dance floor. Instead of facing the band, like most people were doing, he faced the audience. I asked him about that on the way home and he told me he was putting on a show for the “old people.” He knew “they had their eyes on” him. He said the other kids were lame dancers, but he new how to put on a show. I have to admit he was kind of right about that. He’s doing pretty good in his break dancing class.

I don’t even want to think about the number of youtube videos he managed to sneak himself into tonight. Any time he saw someone with a phone, he started dancing right in front of them even though they were clearly trying to get footage of their own children.

Not a great picture, but you can see Erik with his blonde hair and a blue striped shirt in the background, putting on a show for the old people.

He was totally cracking me up this morning. We got a delivery of gourmet snack foods for the UPS lady. There was no card or packing slip, so I’m fairly mystified. Maybe my friends sent it because we cleared a fallen tree out of their driveway while they were in England? It doesn’t seem to be their style, though.

Anyway, Erik was completely hopped up about this package and wanted to taste everything, but I would only let him open one item this morning. He kept going on and on and on and on about the “bou-fet” [pronounced: bow (as in hair ribbon)-fey (rhymes with lay)]. I was confused about the word until he explained to me that it was like someone sent us a bouquet of flowers, but it was a food buffet instead. Very clever!

Guess I better get to bed. Mike has pink eye and a terrible cough, so I anticipate a rough night. I’ll take my sleeping pills, but I may need ear plugs as well.

I’m feeling about 75% today, which is a huge improvement from 5% on Tuesday morning. Getting the z-pack so fast helped, I’m sure. Along with not having H1N1. I assume that’s why I was hit so hard the last time I got this pneumonia crap.

I want to smack a guy on my FB page. I should just block him or delete him, but I hate drama. I need to see how to make it so he doesn’t see my updates. I do not need parenting advice from a guy who doesn’t even have kids.

Elsa is a typical two year old devil child. She is so sweet when she’s happy, but when she doesn’t get her way watch out! She is able to sustain temper tantrums for amazing lengths of time. Yesterday she refused to eat her lunch, insisting on ice cream instead. It would certainly be easy to hand her the ice cream and have her be quiet, but ice cream for lunch is not appropriate. No one ever told me no when it came to eating bad crap and look where it got me. I could win fat lady of the year award. I’d like to give Elsa a better start in life.

She threw the scariest temper tantrum I’ve ever seen. At one point I considered calling 911 because she was so purple I was afraid she’d bust a vein in her brain. She was so upset that she was throwing up. It went on and on and on for almost a full hour.

I have all my little tricks for dealing with Erik (not that I am perfect by any means. He and I go toe to toe complete with screaming fits on both our parts more than I’d care to admit), but none of them work on Elsa. When Erik was this age he would quit having a fit if I walked away. He does not have the resolve to maintain a sustained effort at anything.

This girl has resolve. I walk away, she follows me and flings herself down harder. I pick her up and try to comfort her, she starts physically attacking me. I put her in her bed, she crawls out and follows me.

Finally, finally, finally I made myself some lunch while stepping over her insane self. I sat down and started eating, even though it gives me a stomachache to eat with so much chaos happening. In a matter of minutes she was on my lap, eating up my lunch, acting like nothing had happened.

So now I know. Make myself lunch and she will be there to eat it.

Whew!

So this dumb fuck on FB tells me I should just spank her.

I don’t like spanking as a discipline method because it’s not effective. I’ve done it before and I will probably do it again, but it never achieves what I want it to achieve. I only do it when I am out of control and I don’t like being out of control. I don’t thinking spanking is child abuse, but I think it sits at the edge and some days that edge is quite narrow (at least for me).

You want a child to STOP screaming, so you physically hurt them? What do people do when they are physically hurt? They scream and cry. Yeah. That sounds like the perfect solution! Stupid stupid stupid people.

In other news, I sold my first eBay item! Well, not my first ever, but the first of this batch. The auction runs out in a couple of days, but someone chose the Buy it Now option. It’s so nice to get a little bit of return on these items! Ebay is also a heck of a lot easier to sell on these days than it was the last time I did any selling (when Erik was a baby). Gymboree is having their huge sale right now. Maybe I should place a big order of the super clearance stuff and make a little profit next year.

Some of our wedding gifts have been so well used that they are starting to wear out. Nine years is a long time, especially for some of the items that we use on a regular basis. We’ve been having smoothies every single day and I guess the blender just couldn’t handle all the frozen fruit. The base of the blades cracked, so I have a new one on order. No more daily smoothie or black bean dip. I am obsessed with this black bean dip. Elsa and I eat it every day.

I wonder if I should get one of those bullet blenders instead. It seems to be made for smoothies, but I like to make a huge batch, not just individual smoothies since the whole family likes them.

Ok, I should go take a shower while Elsa is watching George, otherwise she’s going to get in the shower with me. I hate showering with a toddler.

Elsa is going through her animal phase. She alternates between meowing, barking and hooting like a monkey. This morning she took off with her oatmeal bowl, but I was engrossed in my internet (bad mommy) so didn’t really notice. When I finally found her, she had it all dumped out in this Don’t Spill the Beans game dish and was eating it like a dog. I washed it out, but she was still hungry. She found it and then brought me a rotisserie chicken. A few minutes of barking and pawing later and I had figured out she wanted the chicken in her new doggie dish.

She is also still obsessed with Curious George. I had her in a super cute outfit this morning, but she ripped it all off and insisted on wearing her Curious George jammies all day. I’m glad it was only in the 80s or she would have been burning up!

Don’t even get me started on the giant centipede thing she ate this morning. Girl is insane.

She’s awfully cute, though.

Here’s her brother, just to be fair (do you see Lightening, the blue crab?).

We moved the hermit crabs downstairs, and it’s working out well. I don’t have to spend hours in Erik’s upstairs bedroom (sooooo hot) and the crabs have a new place to explore. The only drawback is Erik forgets to pay attention and sometimes the crabs disappear. New rule has been instituted: only one crab out at a time.

I am trying not to feel guilty about not doing Erik’s summer homework packet. He is just SO HAPPY this summer. I haven’t seen him so happy since school started. I don’t want to fight with him all the time over dumb homework. It’s not like we aren’t doing educational stuff. He loves doing his story problem books (math, reading and logic), Mad Libs, and reading various things about crabs. We are also working through some chapter books together. I think that is more than enough. I know we need to do more work on his handwriting. Maybe tomorrow I’ll write up some funny jokes on one of those handwriting printout sites and he can copy over them when he gets home.

I’ve been looking at pictures from my 20 year reunion, going “who the hell are all those OLD people? They look like they must be almost 40!” Ha. Most of the women aged pretty well and are recognizable, but most of the men look so different. I doubt I would recognize any of them if I saw them on the street. I do have one evil thing to say: biggest bitch of high school is the worst looking of all! Mwhahahahahaha. She looks older than my mom. Guess that’s what you get when you are a super pale white girl who loves tanning.

Ok, I gotta go take a shower before bed. Elsa has covered my legs with yogurt or chocolate or something. I’m starting to attract bugs. S-e-x-y.

Still feeling super blarghy. I have a major sore throat, but I don’t think it is strep. I can eat and swallow. Had a very brief fever last night, but nothing today. I managed to take a three hour nap this afternoon, which was much needed. Elsa also took a three hour nap, so I am guessing we will be up till midnight tonight. She mostly doesn’t nap these days, which is kind of nice because it gives Mike and I our evenings together.

I really need a haircut, a brow wax, a pedicure, and an afternoon at the movies. I think haircut has to take priority. My stupid period started, so the brow was will have to wait a week. It’s amazing what horomones do to the body–I have learned that periods and brow waxing don’t mix.

I am tired of looking at our Christmas portraits. I want something summery and fun! But I don’t like Elsa’s current haircut and I don’t have any outfits that I love on the kids, so I don’t really want portraits. But I do. But I don’t.

I refuse to cut Elsa’s bangs myself because I know I will screw it up, but even the stylists screw it up because Elsa jerks out of the way milliseconds before the snip.

I am so restless right now! I want to run a hundred miles, but I don’t want to move. I realize that doesn’t make any sense.

Also, I am soaking wet and need to change clothes. I went out to water my new grass and Elsa joined me. It is so damned hot here that the water coming out of the hose was warmish, so I don’t mind her spraying me down.

My neighbor finally had her baby, but I haven’t seen him. She went in to be induced on Sunday and came home yesterday (Friday) so I don’t know what the heck was going on. Her husband’s ex-wife, an old Chinese lady, has been here taking care of the girls. Strange situation!

They had a beautiful bouquet of blue hydrangeas, my very favorite flower, delivered the other day. The delivery guy didn’t want to leave it on the porch, so left it with me. I didn’t want to deliver it! I did, of course, but it was so beautiful I wanted to keep it.

I would love to rip out all the rhododendrons in front of our house (they only bloom for about two weeks) and plant some hydrangeas. We have enough pine needles to make the soil very acidic (acidic soil=blue, alkaline=pink). Too bad I don’t have a tractor type thing to pull out the bushes or any practical gardening know-how.

I am missing my 20 year HS reunion this weekend. I am not sad about this at all, but I can’t believe it has been 20 years! I’m looking at pictures and thinking how happy I am to not be around a bunch of fake drunkards. I escaped that life, hallelujah! I don’t know how I managed to turn into a normal, productive member of society. As much as I harp on Christianity for being hypocritical, my church really did save me when I was a kid. My mom dropped me off every Sunday and encouraged me to attend youth events, retreats, camps and all that. It was the only stability I had in my life and they really took care of me.

Ok, guess it is time to get Erik in bed. Have to read a couple of chapters of the completely awful Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. Ugh. Now I remember why I am not a Roald Dahl fan.

Elsa so very kindly passed along all her nasty germs. I feel like hell and just want to crawl under the covers and sleep it off. Not gonna happen with my two kids buzzing all around me.

We took out Guitar Hero a couple of days ago, and now Erik is obsessed with it. Problem? He is not very good at it. I have it set up on practice and he can do a couple of songs on Beginner, Slow, but he wants to do better. He can’t do better without practice. He doesn’t want to practice, he just wants to be perfect. Ahhhhh. I know the feeling well.

Sometimes I feel like the sun. No matter where I’m standing, or what I’m doing, I have two little people rotating around me like needy, talkative little planets. Erik wants to tell me all about his video game triumphs, which is about as interesting as . . . well. . . what’s the most boring thing you can think of? But I do my good mommy best to act interested, cheer and give out high fives even if I can barely stand to listen.

Elsa is very much into her twos. She used to be a great little talker, but now she just screams and cries and whines and throws herself down. She might have a thirty minute temper tantrum (Erik was never that determined, he’d give up after a minute if I didn’t respond), then finally sit up and say one word, usually “cookie.”

Really, most of her fits revolve around her love of junk food. It was so easy to keep it away from Erik because he didn’t know it existed, but it is harder with her since we have a lot of crap around here for both us and Erik. I need to clean it all out and sign up for Weight Watchers and institute a much healthier diet for the kids. I buy the “healthiest” options when it comes to junk food–whole grain, organic, all that jazz–but I know it is not actually healthy.

Anyway, what was I saying? I’m miserable? Yup. I did manage to finally get Erik out the door and to his summer camp. He wants me to pick him up as soon as the mailman arrives, but that’s not going to happen. He used his allowance to order a new (to him) game, and he thinks it will get here today.

I am loving his summer camp. Have I told you guys about it? It was super cheap and is very low key. It isn’t some super fancy theater/art/sports/whatever special thing you can think of camp. It’s just a very basic camp at the community center. They have all kinds of games and lots of high energy college aged counselors. They do crafts and other fun stuff.

It is called a drop-in center, so you pay for the six weeks and the kids can be there any time from 8am-6pm. There is no pressure to get there on time. It was so cheap that I don’t mind pulling him out to do fun things with him. Missing a day is not a crisis. Most days he begs me to leave him there until 6. I told him we need to have family time together and he told me “that’s what the weekends are for.”

Ok, I have to go give Elsa a bath. Maybe the steam will be good for me.

I bought a big set of Roald Dahl books at Costco last year. Erik is finally at a point where he can listen for a sustained period of time, so I started reading a couple of chapters a night. We did Charlie and the Chocolate Factory first. I know it is a fun book, but it was making me uncomfortable. It is extremely anti-fat, an attitude I don’t want to share with my son. In the book it is really easy to tell if someone is bad. If they are fat they are greedy and nasty. Guaranteed.

He loved the book and I tried to have a little conversation about fat people not being evil, which did not seem to break the surface of Erik’s brain.

Next up, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. I don’t think I’ve ever read it (or most of Dahl’s books, because I never found them particularly enchanting as a child).

Holy racism batman! Erik wants to continue reading it, but I think the book is going to have to get “lost” and we’ll move on to the set of Beverly Cleary books I have stashed in the closet. Dahl certainly had some opinions. And they were mostly nasty.

Are his other books like this as well?

Ear infection? Check.

Pink eye? Check.

Other cold symptoms? Check.

Antibiotics? Check.

Plans for this week? Completely scuttled.

Summer camp for Erik? Closed till Thursday.

What a rotten weekend. I learned something very important about myself: I suck at disasters. I suck at being hot. I suck at not having what I want, when I want it. I’m cranky, snipey, stinky and smelly. If the zombie apocolpyse/alien takeover/WWIII happens in my lifetime please just shoot me in the head and get it over with. Otherwise I’ll be bitching the whole time I’m being chased around by baddies.

Friday night we had a storm roll in out of nowhere. It was seriously insane. I went out in it to save our blow-up swimming pool, which was a huge mistake. We had no power, so I put on the first shoes I could lay my hands on in the dark: Birkenstocks. They have no traction. As soon as I stepped outside I slipped in the mud. I was rolling all around in the ivy and hoping like hell my neighbor was wrong and it was NOT a snake pit. Every time I tried to stand up, I fell down again. I eventually sprained my thumb, which still hurts. I have up on walking back to the house, and crawled instead.

That was just the start of the weekend of fun.

We didn’t have power for almost 48 hours. Temperatures were in excess of 100, so it was no fun without AC. I just looked up the storm and found out that it was not just us. Apparently this was a hugely widespread event. Yikes! How is that even possible?

Anyway, we were refugees for the weekend. I’ve never seen so many DC area women with ponytails and frizzy hair (myself included). I think if I could have just blown my hair dry and styled it, I would have handled the disaster a lot better.

We spent some time in B&N on Saturday. Everyone had the same idea, so it was a pain finding a power outlet. People literally brought in their power strips and you could hardly walk through the aisles b/c people were laying in them, using their laptops and phones. We waited our turn and eventually got an outlet in the children’s section, so we at least had a phone.

We moved Erik’s mattress to the basement on Saturday evening and all slept down there. It was pretty horrible and hot and uncomfortable. Eventually I ended up in the recliner and got some sleep, but not much.

Sunday was another crazy day. We went into Mike’s work to charge things, but they didn’t have AC turned on, so we went to IKEA. It was hotter than hell in there, but we did manage to buy a cabinet for our dining room. We need to move all our crafting supplies up and away from Elsa’s reach. She likes to pour paint and cotton balls on the floor. Also, we have plans to move the hermit crabs down to the main level, so we have to clear off a space for them. I am tired of living in Erik’s room. I have to supervise the kids and the crabs pretty carefully when they are together and it will be easier to do so in the dining room.

Our life is so crab focused that I had a big nightmare about them last night. I dreamed that their cage was full of holes and I was trying to patch it up, but the crabs kept escaping.

Anyway, we had word that our power would be out until Friday. I was ready to crawl in a hole and cry. I had friends call and offer up their homes as laundry facilities/cooling off places, so I went and did a load of laundry and got a friend’s spare key (she’s out of town, but her husband is still here and works during the week).

By the time I got home we had power!!!!! A miracle!!!!

So we spent the evening throwing away hundreds of dollars worth of groceries from the fridge and freezer. It took forever for the house to cool down, so Mike and the kids decided to sleep in the basement again. I didn’t care how hot it was in my room, there was no way I was spending another night in the basement. I took a cold shower and turned the fan on me and slept like a baby.

This morning Elsa has a weird looking eye with goop coming out of it. It’s not pink, just droopy. Plus she has a big cough. No gym for me, which sucks b/c I’ve been doing Body Pump for two weeks now! It is hard to stop and start that class since it is a muscle building endurance class. Now I have to decide if I should take her to the doctor ornot.

Erik needs to go to camp, but he doesn’t want to. He used his allowance to order a new video game, so he wants to sit here and harass me about it until it arrives. We ordered it ten minutes ago. It’s coming from NJ. I’m trying to explain that it won’t be here for several days, but he doesn’t believe me. Life is confusing when you’re six.

Ok, gotta go finish cooking up Erik’s lunch and get this boy out of here. He is very active and social and NEEDS camp more than I can possibly explain (unless you’ve met him. If you’ve met him, you know).

I guess if I can’t go to the gym, I can do some deep cleaning today. We desperately need it. And I have to sign up for WW. Ugh. So don’t want to, but I must. I bought a person scale and food scale on Friday, so I guess I’m ready. I think I’ve already gotten the money out of the food scale. Erik has weighed every small thing in our house, including the crabs.