The Queen's Rambles

*Fringe is back! I was crying so hard last night. Good stuff! Bad stuff! Really bad stuff! HORRIBLE stuff! But Peter and Olivia are back and they are always wonderful to watch together. I am so glad they get to finish out the series with an amazing storyline and the knowledge that this is really it. No teases to try to keep it going. Things will be resolved.

*We are supposed to be at Family Camp with Camp Fire this weekend. I reminded Mike about it on Thursday night and he said he wasn’t going. He’s had a rough week so I don’t blame him for wanting to stay home and relax. We decided I would take Erik and he’d stay home with Elsa.

Then things happened. Elsa gave me a freakin’ black eye by head butting me. I’m not enthralled with the idea of showing up somewhere with a black eye and saying “sorry, my husband decided not to come.”

Erik started crying when he realized he would miss the big Game Day in soccer. I don’t know if his soccer club is typical for first graders, but at this age they have regular game days against other teams in their club every Saturday, but this Game Day was 3 hours of games against another soccer club–not every team was playing every time slot. Each team played a total of 90 minutes, but we were all there a long ass time.

I found out we would be sharing a cabin with four families, which meant strangers would be looking at me in my pajamas. Maybe they’d be snoring. Maybe I’d be snoring. I am not at all comfortable sleeping in a cabin with complete strangers, especially men. Also, Erik refuses to take a top bunk and there’s no way I’m taking a top bunk. I think that could become a big problem.

Sooooo. . . we decided to call our registration fee a wash. We aren’t camping and I am totally happy about it! I’ve been dreading it for two months, but I was doing it for Erik. I feel bad about the lost registration money, but it was a small price to pay to have a more sane weekend.

Not that it was totally sane. We spent 3 hours at the soccer field, which was a bit too much for Elsa. She got pretty whiney by the end. Thankfully there was a little breeze, so we weren’t roasting in the sun. Hello, fall!

I hardly ever go to the games because I become a crazy soccer mom and yell a little too much “encouragement.” I played soccer in elementary school so I know a little bit of the strategy. For example, if the other team has the ball you should try to kick it away from them. If the ball comes your way, you should chase it and kick it. You know, your basics that not all 6 year olds understand.

Erik started out as goalie, which was way too stressful for me. He was sitting there picking dandelions, doing some dance moves, trying to climb the net. I am not proud at how much I yelled. Plus, no one ever told him the goalie can pick up the ball, so that about sent my blood pressure through the roof. It’s much, much better for everyone when I pay zero attention to the game.

*How do you RSVP to a party when the e-mail address bounces and the answering machine is full? I’m so annoyed. I am meticulous about RSVPing because I know what a pain it is to have all these question marks when you’re trying to plan food, goodie bags, etc. So let me RSVP, lady!

*Remember how I used to have a full hate-on for anything camo? I would freak out when my family suggested I buy my sweet, angel toddler camo clothes. I would swear up and down my son would never, NEVER wear anything that I associated with drunken, woodsy debauchery.

Yeah. That went out the window a couple of years ago. I still hate it, but it’s Erik’s favorite color. Guess what I’ll be making in two weeks? A freakin’ camo cake. I am not a fan of decorating cakes. I much prefer to go over to the grocery store, flip through the big book, and pick something out and leave it to the professionals. However, I’ve learned that my hometown independent grocery store’s bakery was a complete anomaly. They make delicious cakes and kick ass at decorating. They have actual, real, trained professionals doing the work. They made my wedding cake and it was beautiful.

The chain grocery stores out here? Not so much. The cake tastes terrible. I can’t find a single one that fills the cake with custard or mousse. If you’re lucky they fill with buttercream, but most don’t make filled cakes at all. And forget about the decorating. Ugh. If you want it to look like anything special you have to do it yourself or pay through the nose for an actual bakery to do the work. I greatly admire the skill of professional bakers and would be willing to pay for a cake for an adult party, but I’m not into spending that much for a children’s birthday party.

That leaves me making the cake or getting creative (ordering a fairly blank cake and sticking action figures on it). Thankfully it doesn’t seem like he wants anything impossible this year. I found a tutorial for a camo cake and it seems like I might be able to do it. You pipe on blobs and lines of the different colors, let it crust, then use a high density foam roller to smooth it. A friend on FB just told me to us a Viva paper towel and fondant roller instead, so maybe I’ll do it that way. If I wasn’t dieting I’d do a test run tomorrow to see if I could make it work. I may have to do a test run anyway and just try hard to stick to my diet. I am seeing results, which makes it a lot easier to stay committed to the plan.

Erik saw a kit for a haunted gingerbread house and had to have it. Lucky for him he had enough money in his wallet to purchase the darned thing. I want to like gingerbread houses. I want to have fun decorating them. I want to have a cozy time, laughing and sticking candy to a wall of cookie.

But I don’t. I hates it, I do.

Erik bought the kit and I told him and Mike to handle it. Mike put the structure together and Erik did every single bit of decoration himself. I am so proud of him! He sat there for at least 30 minutes working on it. I have never seen him concentrate so hard on an artistic endeavor.

Elsa is in the “refuses to have her picture taken” stage. I want pictures of my silly, sweet, sassy little girl, but she’s having none of it. I snuck this one in at the playground this morning. Erik didn’t have school because of Yom Kippur, so I knew it was imperative to get the boy outside. Before we left, Elsa grabbed both her lunch boxes and stuffed them with food. She was only happy on the playground if she had food in hand. As soon as she ran out of food she was ready to go home. I really need to get a handle on her eating. I don’t think it is ok to make a toddler diet, but I need to get her to eat more fruits and veggies. Right now she mainly eats meat in any form, crackers, bananas and any type of sugar she can get her hands on (more than I let Erik have, but less than some kids are allowed).

Today brought me back to the days of being a SAHM with Erik. It was such a different experience. We would spend a minimum of three hours a day outside, usually more. I spent the entire time chasing him. The second we got home he started screaming his head off and being generally discontent.

Elsa’s good for about an hour on the playground, then she asks to go home. So much easier! But also, makes a big difference in my activity level.

I totally freaked myself out this morning, thinking I was pregnant. People have talked me off a ledge and I now think I am just getting older and my body is having some ovulation spotting. Ugh. Better than pregnancy, though! I love my children more than anything and I know I would love any future children, but I don’t want to go through pregnancy and the newborn stage again. Our life is just getting back to the point where everything doesn’t revolve around naps and sleep.

Mike also pointed out that my problem could be related to my changed diet and rapidly losing 10 pounds. Maybe so, maybe so.

I must say, I am shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you. I love weight watchers. I have been dragging my feet with WW for years. Even when the doctor straight up told me it was the only weight loss program that she would recommend, I scoffed. I thought “sure, it works for other people, but how can it possibly work for me? My body hates me. Nothing will ever work. Diets are for shmucks. Woe is me.”

Ten days in and I’m having great success (though I fully expect the pounds lost to slow waaaaaaay down this week). It cuts through all my bullshit justifications, games, false health information and all my other excuses. It’s really pretty simple. Less food in.

I can eat whatever I want, but I have to budget my points. If I decide a brownie is more important than dinner, I can go for it (not that I’ve done that, but I could and just knowing I could makes me less angsty and crave-y). I’m so great at the justifications. “It’s whole grain! It’s organic! It has [whatever healthy thing it has].”

Or I go the other way and ban all things. Banning doesn’t work because then that’s all I think about and I become obsessed. I can do it for a few months, but once I fall off the wagon, I fall hard.

The first week of WW was hard, especially since I was all messed up with my food scale, but I’m in a groove now. I am not totally depriving myself, but I am eating much smaller portions. My stomach is used to the smaller sizes now. And I’m eating a lot healthier. I think I can do this! It would be totally amazing if this worked.

The only real snag is “what to cook for dinner?” Some of my recipes work, but a lot of them don’t. They are just not worth the points. I’ve been testing out new recipes and it has been a half and half proposition. Half are acceptable (a couple were even good) and half are nasty. Tonight I made the best one yet, Filipino Adobo Pork from Skinny Taste. Yum yum yum! It was so simple, too. Just pork in a crockpot with soy sauce, vinegar and a few spices.

What else is happening? I went and painted pottery for charity last night. My friends and I had a great time and I totally didn’t hate the results of my painting. I want to see the finished product, but it is going to a fundraiser thing so unless I go and bid on it, it is long gone. I won’t be doing that. I am not a gala attender type.

The kids have a nasty cold, with a hacking cough that keeps them up all night. I let Erik stay home from school today, which was probably a mistake. He need to go outside and run. He doesn’t have school tomorrow because it’s Yom Kippur. I think they’ll be ready to go to a park tomorrow.

I took them to Target for tissue and it was a nightmare. I let Elsa sit in the big part of the cart as long as she stays seated. As soon as she starts hanging out of the cart, I buckle her in.

Let’s just say she does not enjoy being buckled in.

She is a strong, determined young lady. I was trying to get her into the seat portion of the cart and she wouldn’t put her feet down to go through the holes. She was screaming so loud that people were coming around the corner to stare.

I finally got her buckled in and was showing a book to try to distract her. Erik, in all his six year old wisdom, grabs a $20 Dora book to show her. Of course that was the only book she wanted, but no way in hell was I paying $20 for a freaking sing-songy book that would either end up completely ignored or torn to pieces.

She finally settled down and we did our shopping.

At the end, Erik wanted to buy a pretzel from the snack bar, so we ordered and were told it would be a few minutes. We sat down to wait. And we waited and waited and waited and WAITED and WAITED and waited some more. Every time someone would look at Elsa she would hide her face. People thought she was playing peek-a-boo and would try to engage her. They didn’t catch on that she was saying “welly scared, welly scared, mom.” She finally crawled under the table because people wouldn’t quit looking at her. It’s not like they were in her face or anything. She hates to have anyone glance her way. So different from Erik, who must be the center of attention at all times. I was going a little nuts. The floor was so nasty, but she refused to come out and sit on my lap.

Ok, guess it is time to take this boy up to bed. Hopefully I’ll have a little TV watching time afterwards. I don’t know how I’m going to keep up with all my shows this fall. Last year I had hours of TV watching time since Elsa napped on me, but this year she isn’t napping. There’s no way I can watch my shows with her in the room. Can you imagine how freaked out she’d be if I was watching Grimm or Fringe while she rode her rocking horse?

About a year ago I followed a blog link to a drama post to a forum I had never heard of. I stuck around the forum because the drama was entertaining to read. As I kept reading, though, something happened. Epiphanies! Realizations! Spine building! The forum, Dealing with the In-laws, is over on Baby Center (very easy to google, I don’t want to link to it here). If you want to learn how to deal with difficult people and be entertained at the same time, I highly recommend it. I learned that my family is completely bat shit crazy and that it’s ok for me to say “No, that doesn’t work for me” when they start acting crazy. I should not be giving them my all when they are giving me a shit sandwich. It is not normal to spend so much time worrying about what my family of origin needs when I have my very own little family to take are of. Thus we had the best summer vacation ever. It was very freeing. No plane travel to a hole-in-the-wall that we all hate. No babysitting a bunch of kids who don’t know how to behave. No worrying that we’ll be murdered in the night by my sister/her husband/some random drug seeking person the cat dragged in. Wish I would have discovered DWIL years ao.

As a by-product of this new found spine, I also learned how to kick ass when things go wrong at school. Today I think I kicked some ass. I hope.

Instead of simpering around, being mad and raging internally and on the internet, I took serious action about the bully at Erik’s school. I e-mailed the principal (very firm, with a request for a three pronged action plan) and his teacher. I talked to the Safety Patrols (though I do not expect them to do much. I think it is ridiculous to give 4th and 5th graders that kind of power and expect them to handle naughty little children), and I talked to the bus driver.

As a former teacher I knew they were not going to suspend him, expel him, kick him off the bus, or anything else that would be drastic for a first offense (though I’ve heard from the neighborhood moms that this would be far from the first offense). My number one goal was to get the bully into an assigned seat behind the bus driver.

Whoo-hoo! It worked! That’s exactly what is happening.

The principal and I chatted for about 30 minutes and every time he would say something to try to smooth things over and downplay the severity, I’d say “physical abuse is completely unacceptable. I understand the other child must have some serious things going on in his life to cause his behaviors. It is not my six year old child’s job to understand that or be his punching bag. Physical abuse is unacceptable for any reason.”

Just so you know, I recognize that “boys will be boys” and that boys play rough. If this was a kid from the neighborhood that he had a good relationship with, I would not have taken this sort of action. Erik has been complaining about this child from day 1. He says he tries to stay far away from him and he does not play with him at all.

The principal told me that he was required to give me a link to the districts’s bully reporting website but that I did not have to fill it out. He kept telling me that he already investigated the situation so there was really nothing to be gained by reporting it on the site, but that he was not discouraging me from reporting it. He was TOTALLY discouraging me from reporting it. I told him I would most likely be using the link and I would do everything in my power to advocate for my child. That I understood things are not easy for teachers because they have to balance the needs of everyone, but my job as a parent is to solely focus on making school a better place for my child. If I don’t advocate for him, who will?

Still trying to decide if I want to report via the link or not. I need to talk to some experienced parents and find out what doing the report will actually do.

I am so proud of myself! Long time readers know that it is not long ago that I would have rolled over and showed my belly. I can talk a big game, but once I am in midst of an actual confrontation I turn into jelly. Of course, I am well aware that i still have problems standing up for myself. It is different if my child is getting the raw end of the stick. I would do anything for my kids, not matter how crazy or outside my comfort zone it is.

Except play video games. Ugh. I draw the line at playing little kid games (most days).

*I just fired off an e-mail to the principal. Tonight I found out that Erik is the victim of bullying on the bus. Apparently a kid was slapping his face and holding him down. The kid also regularly pushes him, says mean things to him and “pretends to be a mean horse.” Last year I think I under reacted to the situation with his teacher, so I am trying to be more proactive this year. My e-mail was not an angry screed or anything. It was firm, but clear. It said that we needed to work together as a team because physical abuse was completely unacceptable. I know it is hard to control what happens on the bus, but my kid should not be getting slapped in the face. No way, no how.

And yes, I know Erik has a history of making things up. I tend to believe him in this case because I have heard of this kid before and the general consensus among adults is that he’s a very mean little bully. I know that means there is something awful going on in his own little life, but my kid is not going to be his punching bag while he works that out.

Whoever said “bigger kids, bigger problems” was so right.

*I am a big idiot sometimes. I have been using my food scale to measure things for my WW adventures. Not everything, thankfully, but the meat, cheese, and even a chocolate chip cookie. I thought my scale was set on ounces and that I just couldn’t see the decimal point. So when it said my cookie was 30, I thought that meant it was 3.0 ounces. For a reasonable amount of points I can have two small cookies that are .5 oz each. I could not figure out how the hell anyone could make a cookie that was 1/6 of the size of my cookie! And I sure as hell wasn’t going to use that many points on a damned cookie! Turns out my cookie was just 1 ounce. Big difference! I had enough points for one. Yum yum.

I had a much more satisfying meal tonight, with a lot more meat than I’ve been eating. What a difference! I can’t believe I really thought I was just too blind to see the decimal point.

No wonder I was so hungry. I was totally cheating myself out of quite a few points. I’ve been eating a ton of fruits and veggies, but was missing out on protein.

*There’s a lady in my social circle who skews towards crazy. I have come to accept her, but some of the things she says blow my mind. She’s Dutch, so when she does something strange she says “Well, that’s just how we do it in the Netherlands.” I want to tell her, that may be so but we are living in America. Great attidtude from a former immigrant, eh? Everyone thought I was crazy, too. I should have sympathy, but I don’t.

The last time we had an event she told us that ALL Dutch women have home births, no Dutch women take prenatal vitamins, and no Dutch people use Novocaine during a visit to the dentist.

She said all this with pride, like this somehow made the Dutch people superior, but all I could think was “what the hell? I didn’t know there were third world countries in that part of Europe.”

I had to do a little research because I just couldn’t believe it.

Turns out that the home birth rate has dropped to 24% because the Netherlands has one of the highest infant mortality rates of any developed country. The problem seems to lie in the midwives, not the home births. A study showed the higher mortality rate happened with women who delivered with a midwife, whether it is in the hospital or a home birth.

Women do take a small prenatal vitamin–folic acid only.

I am thinking I never want to go through a pregnancy in the Netherlands! I didn’t take my pre-natals like I should have because they made me so sick so I’m not sure how totally necessary they are, but the high infant mortality rate gives me pause. (Not that I ever want to go through another pregnancy no matter the country I’m in.)

And forget about dental care. I was gagging as I was reading complaints about dentistry over there. Apparently most dentists don’t use anesthesia, nor do they sterilize their instruments between patients.

So what should I say when this lady brings up the Dutch superiority again? And I know she will. Do I just ignore it like usual or say “You know, I’ve been doing some research. I guess now we know why the infant mortality rate is so high over there. And haven’t your dentists had any modern medical training?”

*I have chigger bites. Holy hell, they are itchy.

*The end.

What a rotten day, weather wise. I guess we are having a tornado or something? Heavy rainstorms? I don’t know. I just don’t want to be out there. Did I already tell you that my children are products of the DC area? It’s 75 degrees out and Elsa is shivering, saying “wheel-wee [really] cold, mom, wheel-wee cold. Get my jacka [Swedish word for coat]! Now, MOM!” Yes, she’s bossy.

She then proceeds to wear a winter coat, while I enjoy the fresh breeze in my tee shirt and shorts.

I caused Erik to have a complete meltdown last night. Every week they do a Math Facts test based on their abilities. They continue on from where they left off the year before. He is currently doing subtraction with 4 as the number. So he goes from 4-4 to 13-4. In kindy, the kids could take as much time as they needed. In first grade they have one minute to do these 10 problems. That’s 6 seconds per problem. Even though he is great at math, he is not so great at writing and thinking on his feet. The teacher sent home a practice test and it was taking him much too long to do the page, so I had a brilliant idea to help him come up with a faster strategy.

I taught him to look for the 13-4 and start there, then go backwards from there instead of doing it in order. So first he would write 9, then 8, then 7 and so on. He understood the strategy. He liked doing it that way. He had me write up a bunch of practice tests and got his time down to 27 seconds.

I did my weight lifting class today (Body Pump) and feel like I’ve been through the wringer. I am so hungry! I’ve been scarfing down bananas, grapes, tomatoes and sugar snap peas like nobodies business, but I really want some carbs or a big hunk of protein. I know the WW program lets you trade activity for food so I guess I need to figure out how that works. It says I earned 12 activity points. Does that mean I get to eat 12 points worth of food? Because if so, watch out chicken, here I come!

Tonight will be the real test of my fortitude. I have a meeting at Starbucks. I can have a pumpkin spice latte if I keep my dinner under control, but do I really want to give five points to a drink?

Ok, no more diet talk. I hate diet talk. Let’s talk about something fun instead!

Ummmmmm.

I folded laundry today! I did two loads of dishes! I need to go make Erik do his homework!

Wheeeee! It’s a laugh a minute around this place. Whatever happened to the days when I could ramble about anything?

It’s a Jewish holiday today, which meant Erik didn’t have school. Mike has a ton of unused vacation days that he has to burn off before the end of the year so he decided to take the day off, too. Fun family times! We had a Groupon for a touristy cruise along the Potomac, so we assessed the weather (beautiful), assessed our children (needed fresh air) and headed into DC.

The cruise was a lovely little jaunt along the river. I’ve lived in the DC area 8 years, but I think I learned more in 20 minutes than I have in the past 8 years combined. It was very interesting to see everything from the river. It truly is a beautiful city.

The only hitch in the plan was Little Miss Elsa, our water baby. She tried to jump ship several times, finally ordering Mike to “go away” so she could clamber over. He did not obey and she was indignant.

We almost felt like we were in an action flick with airplanes chasing us down. Planes going into Reagan National fly along the Potomac to land. They were barreling down at us, one right after the other, landing gear down. I think we could have waved at the passengers and they would have seen us.

We also saw three black helicopters coming in for a landing by the White House. The old people from Ohio didn’t believe me when I told Erik the president was probably in one of them. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I’ve been told that when you see three black helicopters the president is travelling in one of them. The other two are decoys. You’d be surprised how often we see this happen. I just learned a few weeks ago that Camp David is just a little bit north of us. I thought it was far away on the East Coast. Ummmm. I forget where I live sometimes.

I started Weight Watchers yesterday and I have some hope that this program might work for me. Maybe I should have started it years ago. Every time I think of Weight Watchers, I think of this old lady who used to come into the Mexican restaurant I worked at. She had a really awful wig and scary, veiny hands. She always ordered half a taco salad with plain meat, no cheese, no sour cream. She would get hysterical if the cook did not prepare it EXACTLY to her specifications. I was just the dishwasher, so I don’t really know all the myriad ways he screwed it up.

I think I had a mental block about WW because of her.

But now I’m doing it. I’m hungry, but I’ve got lots of fruits and veggies to combat the hunger. In the age of the internet it is super easy to input recipes and foods and find out the point values. I am having some trouble thinking of things to eat, mainly because I never measure out my recipes. If I do it one meal at a time I will eventually build a meal library.

I didn’t realize just how much crap I was stuffing into my face when I fed the kids. Make some mac and cheese, eat a few spoonfuls. Dip out some ice cream for them, have a big tablespoon for myself. Cut up some cheese, have a few slices. And so on.

Accounting for every morsel that passes my lips is very eye opening and something I should have done years ago. My mom made me do it when I was a teenager and I hated it.

Maybe I need a therapist to get over all these old hurts that are keeping me from moving forward.

But I’m moving forward now. I hope like crazy this is the answer for me. I have been going to the gym every day, but I am still gaining weight (not muscle weight, either. I look more pregnant now than I ever did with either pregnancy).

My mom called yesterday and I could immediately tell something was wrong. I thought my sister had finally done herself in either on purpose or accident, but no. My 30ish year old cousin had died. What a complete shock.

It is always such sad news when someone so young passes. I didn’t really know him at all. The last time I saw him I was fresh out of college, subbing at my old high school and he was one of the students. He wasn’t really a cousin in terms of blood. His grandma was married to my dad’s brother. When they got married she already had a couple of kids and one of those kids was this cousin’s dad.

I didn’t actually know him through family connections because his dad was not interested in being around my dad, but he lived next door to my best friend for a few years. My best friend, Ron, had a whole passel of brothers and sisters, so Tucker would often hang around and play. I think he was the same age as another sibling in that family.

Even when he was an itty-bitty kid we knew he was gay. Being gay in a tiny hick town back in the ’80s and ’90s was not easy. It is my understanding that his mom and dad did not accept this at all and gave him a really hard time. I know he was tortured pretty badly in high school. He was out and proud, but this was almost 20 years ago. Bullying gay students was still socially acceptable.

I think I helped stop a little bit of that because his chief tormenter was the brother of one of my good friends from high school. One of my gay friends. When I caught this dumb ass kid harassing Tucker right in front of me I simply said “So, how’s Charles doing?” He turned all shades of green. I told Tucker to ask him about Charles every time he started in on him and it seemed to work. Not that it solved all his problems, obviously, but it was nice to do one small thing for him.

After high school he moved in with my cousin (his aunt) and had a great time living in a bigger city where he was not endlessly tortured.

That all came to a screeching halt a few years ago when he had some kind of health crisis that messed with his brain. I have no clue what happened, I just know he had to go and live near his mom and dad and have pretty intense therapy. He died from a seizure yesterday morning.

My heart is totally breaking for my Aunt Jewell and my cousin. My aunt took my dad in when he was a teenager. She had her own two kids, an infant and a very mentally ill husband to take care of (my dad’s brother). But still, she took in an abused, abandoned 13 year old who didn’t have a clue how to function in a family. I want to go to Oregon just to hug her.

My cousin always loved Tucker more like a sibling than a nephew. I know she has to be completely devastated.

I’m mourning a short life of lost potential. I didn’t know him well, but that doesn’t make it any less tragic.

I’m supposed to be at playgroup right now, but Elsa is still asleep and shows no signs of waking up any time soon. No worries–she’s breathing! She’s just very, very asleep.

We all went to Back to School night last night, which was probably a mistake. It was deadly boring, though it was all information that was very relevant and good to have. Mike didn’t get to learn much because he was off chasing Elsa through the halls. Erik said the whole thing felt like it took 18 hours. Yes, son, it really did.

It was dark when it was over and the kids started talking about monsters in the car, which I hate. Erik does not know how to moderate his words around Elsa. Why would he? He’s six. Still, it’s not good for Elsa to hear about scary monsters and spiders and tigers all the time.

The kids went to bed about an hour later than normal, which led to an off night. Elsa woke up screaming in middle of the night for the first time in almost two weeks (shhhhhh! I wasn’t going to tell you she was sleeping through the night. Didn’t want to jinx it). Erik woke up on the couch in the basement with no recollection of how he got there.

Overall: not a stellar night’s sleep for anyone.

I really liked Erik’s teacher. His kindy teacher would always use a lot of education buzz words that no one understood. I used to be a teacher and I could barely follow what she was saying, so I felt really bad for the parents who didn’t work in the field. This year’s teacher was perfectly understandable and explained the curriculum really well. It is very different from what we did as kids, but on the whole I think it is good.

They use an integrated approach, which I like. For example, this quarter they are talking about living creatures. This week they have looked at bugs, read about bugs, written about bugs, counted bugs, added and subtracted bugs, and so on. All things bugs!

They also have a big push for critical thinking skills, which I like.

The thing I don’t like: they spend FOREVER on a concept. They say that instead of covering a mile of territory and only going an inch deep, they cover an inch of territory and go a mile deep. In the abstract I think this is a good thing, but Erik is already so far ahead on some of the concepts that it doesn’t work in reality. Having him sit there for weeks and “discover how numbers work” is incredibly boring to him. He knows how numbers work. Not saying he couldn’t use some more ground work, but he taught himself multiplication and division, for cripes’ sake. Sitting around at his desk with 8 blocks, discovering different ways to group them is not going to hold his attention for long.

They do have math groups, but have not started them yet. I am holding out a little hope that the math groups might give more advanced instruction.

What else is going on?

I’m just sitting here, waiting for Elsa to wake up. It’s 10 am.

I guess it’s good that we are missing playgroup. I have a lot of stuff to get done today, but didn’t know how I would fit it all in. I need to take the van in to get the exhaust inspected. Today is the deadline, of course. I kept putting it off, but can’t put it off anymore. There are no conveniently located inspection stations, which is the main problem. I will literally have to drive 30 minutes to get to an inspection place. The only good thing is that the inspection station is near the very nice, big Costco. I can take care of some shopping without having my blood pressure go through the roof. Our nearest Costco is about ten minutes away, but it’s always a zoo.

I guess I should also call the bowling alley and book Erik’s party. I filled out their online form over a week ago. It said I would be contacted by a “party specialist” within 72 hours. I guess the party specialist must have taken a bowling ball to the head and forgot to call me.

This year is going to be tough as far as invites go. I’m not inviting younger siblings. I can’t handle a bunch of kids with bowling balls swinging them around toddler heads. I’m letting Erik choose 10 kids and that’s it. Politics be damned. He’s old enough to know who he likes and who he wants at the party. I’m not going to make him invite people he doesn’t like, even if they do live 20 feet from my front door.

Ugh. Really hope I don’t piss people off, but by age 7 shouldn’t a kid get to have the party they want, not the party that makes everyone else happy? No one is obligated to host people they don’t even like on the day that is supposed to be all about happiness.

Erik is very much a social animal, but he is becoming more picky about his friends. This is a good thing, I think. I need to stop being a people pleaser. I was trained to be a doormat and am slowly coming out of that mind set, but it is still difficult at times.

Apparently I should use a laundry basket instead of kicking a bundle of dirty sheets down the stairs. Somehow my foot went behind me, I started sliding down the stairs, the leg was pulled up behind me and I think my heel ended up touching my head. I only slid down about six steps, but it was enough to leave me screaming and in pain. I thought I was going to end up pitching over head first and flying down the stairs, so I’m thankful that didn’t happen!

I’m pretty sore right now. I took some ibuprofen, but am wondering if I should break into my stash of prescription pain killer from my surgery this spring. It would be nice to zone out of the world for a few hours.

I think I’ll be ok, but my Kindle ended up under my butt. The screen is dead. Bah. I talked to Amazon tech support and I’ll be getting a new one at a discounted price (I have to send this one back in). I’m glad to get a new one, but was not pleased at the options. I could either get a Kindle Touch which I refuse to have. I have a hard time making touch devices function. Every time I try to read with Mike’s Nook it ends up freezing on me, esp if I use it at the gym (the main place I read). Danged sweaty fingers.

I was able to get one with buttons, but it does not have a built in keyboard like my current Kindle. I guess I’ll survive. I only use the keyboard to search for new books. I suppose in a worse case scenario I can buy books from my computer and put them onto the Kindle account.

In completely unrelated news: my mom called and is going to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with us. I hope it works out. I will be beyond pissed if she has to leave early and completely disappoints Erik.

If she really does stay that long we’ll be able to attend Mike’s Christmas party with no problems. I haven’t been to one in several years b/c we never can find a babysitter. Or someone is sick. Not looking forward to all the winter crud that seems to keep us homebound.