The Queen's Rambles

We had a pretty windy night, and I watched the siding on the neighbors house flap around a little. Other than that, we are all good. I expected the power to go off around 5 pm and stay off for at least 5 days, so I was pleasantly surprised that the power was out for a max of one minute.

I’m just sorry for all my NY/NJ/closer to the coast friends. Looks like a horrible mess out there. I hope you all have stayed safe and have a quick recovery.

I didn’t want to sleep in the basement because I’m a picky little princess, so we took a look at the trees and decided the only room that was really in danger was Erik’s room. He was more than happy to sleep in the basement. He was over the top excited yesterday, just waiting for the hurricane to hit. When it was blowing like a banshee out there, he was crying that it wasn’t exciting enough.

There’s no school or work today (roads may be flooded, they are trying to keep everyone off the roads), so it will be another looooooong day. I know some people enjoy being homebodies, but I’m not one of them. We usually do at least three activities a day: trip to the gym, morning or early afternoon MOMS Club play date, then after school park visit/soccer/cooking class/something. Sitting inside all day long drove me crazy yesterday.

I had Halloween candy already purchased and I have been so good about leaving it alone, but I totally broke diet protocol and stress ate my way through half a bag of peanut butter cups. I feel so sick this morning. I really regret it, both from a dieting standpoint, but also from a happy tummy standpoint. Why do I have to sabotage myself like that? I knew I shouldn’t have peanut butter cups in the house, but I saw all the big boxes of kettlecorn, pretzels, fruit snacks and other healthy things and had a rebellion. I don’t want my kids to eat a lot of sugar, but I have such great memories of Halloween being all about candy and fun that I couldn’t be the old scrounge who handed out the equivalent of raisins. Let’s give these kids some decent candy, by golly!

I bought a copy of It’s Not the Stork, the number one recommended (to me, by friends, not on a national level or anything that I know of) book for teaching young children about sex. At the time I couldn’t face telling Erik that the penis went into the vagina, so I set the book aside. I have no idea what happened to the book. It is huge. The biggest book I’ve ever seen! And it is gone. I need it!

Last night we pulled out Erik’s school library books and started reading about the life cycle of a wood frog. He prefers non-fiction and we’ve read several of these life cycle books. None of them have ever mentioned mating, so I was quite surprised by the picture of humping frogs and the explanation that went with it (nothing explicit).

I didn’t think he quite understood what was going on, so I asked him if he knew what it meant that the eggs were being fertilized. Of course he was clueless. “It’s like when you have to put fertilizer on the ground–it makes them grow.” Sort of right, but not really right at all.

We talked about what fertilizing an egg meant, then he asked the dreaded question, “But I still don’t get how the daddy seed gets into the mommy’s belly.”

I suspected this was coming and I’ve thought a lot about what to say, but it was still awkward. I explained the whole deal about the penis and the vagina. His eyes about popped out of his head and he said he would never do something like that. Then he said “so, I have to pee inside [girlfriend]. I don’t want to!” I explained it wasn’t pee, it was sperm and looked different.

People, I was dying inside!

I explained that a man could only make the sperm come out when he was really happy, and he said “I guess it’s a good thing daddy has only been really happy twice!” I could barely stifle the laughter.

He concluded that he was never “going to do that thing” and never have children. It was too weird.

Whew! First big talk over. I’m sure there are many more to come as we have to explain things a little more thoroughly when he starts developing more and becoming interested. Next time I’m referring him to Mike!

I guess there’s a hurricane coming. Maybe you’ve heard about it (hahahaha. . . like no one hasn’t heard of Sandy). I knew it was coming, but didn’t realize what a big deal it was until they preemptively cancelled school for two days and closed Mike’s office. If Mike’s office is closed, you better watch out. Armageddon is on the way.

My biggest concern? What about Halloween? We can’t skip Halloween!

Maybe I should be more concerned about what we’re going to eat when we have no power for several days.

Erik wants to find high powered fans that require no energy so we won’t be hot when the power is out. He’s having flashbacks to our 5 days of no power during 100F days. This time we’ll have no trouble with lack of A/C. We’ll be cuddling in our blankets and hoping for the best, I guess.

I’m down 18 pounds! So amazing! I never thought that would be possible.

So why do I want to celebrate with peanut butter cups and cupcakes? Ha! At least I’ve found an awesome low-cal way to make cupcakes. Just take a cake mix and add a cup of pumpkin and a cup of water, then bake at 350 for about 20 minutes. The vanilla ones are really good, esp if you add pumpkin pie spice. The chocolate ones? To die for! You can’t taste the pumpkin at all in the chocolate ones. They are super fudgey and moist–no need for frosting.

I made two yellow hats for Erik. The first turned out really wonky (you can see a pic on FB, I’m the only C@rri3 B@d0r3k P@lss0n on FB if you want to find me, obviously with real letters instead of symbols). Elsa immediately grabbed it and claimed it for her own. It was too small for his head and not quite right, so I made another one today. I just need to glue the black ribbon on it and it will be good to go. It’s far from perfect, but it looks like a yellow hat. It’s not like he is going to be wearing it on a jungle expedition to kidnap a real monkey.

I think Elsa will be dressed as George and wearing a yellow hat. Silly girl. I’m sure George would like his own yellow hat, so it will be cute.

The other day Elsa slapped me across the face and I said “I don’t remember Erik ever acting this way!” My friend started laughing at me. She remembers.

I wrote in my blog every.single.day back then. I don’t know how I did it, or why I did it, but there are years worth of journal entries detailing the many, many ways Erik used to drive me crazy. I went through and read a bunch of entries from when he was this age, and he was quite a handful. I want to reach through the screen/go back in time and A) shake myself for being so annoyingly oversensitive and worried and B) give myself a big hug and tell myself it gets better.

It was funny to read those entries and see how much my life has changed. In one entry I was contemplating going to Body Pump for the first time, but I was scared. As many of you know, I am addicted to BP, though I rarely get a chance to go anymore.

In another entry I said you couldn’t pay me enough to join MOMS Club because it had ridiculous rules and was full of mean girls.

Let’s have a hearty laugh, now that MOMS Club is one of the main reasons my life is so much better than it was before. I am even a volunteer on a regional level, beyond my own chapter. And those mean girls? Not so mean. Just shy.

I also used to pine for a big LJ commune, where I could live together with all my online friends. I desperately needed the support of physically present people. As much as I love some of you (truly, I consider a couple of you to be my best friends and would ask you to take my kids if Mike and I died, but that might be kind of awkward), a long distance friend can’t babysit, have a playdate, carpool, share info about local events, etc.

Now I have local friends and we have a wonderfully supportive network. Life is so much easier.

Instead of planning my lotto winning commune, I’m planning my lotto winning private school.

If you don’t hear from me for a few days, you’ll know why. Not that I post here daily anymore. I’m lucky to get a chance to post weekly. Even if I do get a chance, I never have much to say. I used to be so mean and sarcastic, but I can’t do that anymore. I’ve learned time and again that it is much to easy to find my journal. What you say on the internet stays here forever. Except for damned Diary-X. That disappeared very effectively.

I am just sitting here and don’t have to be anywhere for an hour. What a rarity! Of course, I should be doing laundry, fixing the dishwasher (the top rack is not getting clean) and scrubbing down a bathroom. Instead I am going to tell you tales of excitement and adventure.

Or just gripe about life. Whichever.

Weird thing: I’m driving a rental van, which I hate. I am totally spoiled by my suburban mom van (seat warmer, lumbar support, automatic doors, nice sun shades) and am sick of this boxy, clunky Nissan. Life goes on.

My neighbor, whom I’ve never spoken with, ran over and asked me if I had a new car. I explained it was a rental. She went back home. Neighborly social interaction over.

Then yesterday she runs over to me and tells me that I jinxed her with my talk of a rental car because her son was in an accident. She goes on and on and ON about this accident, not letting me leave. I finally had to walk away because I was running late. She said that it was my fault for jinxing them at least five times. What the hell? Did she think I should apologize? Offer to pay for it? What? I don’t believe in jinxing. Ugh. It’s not my fault some unlicensed driver t-boned her car.

Good thing: Take a box of vanilla cake mix, add a cup of water and a cup of pumpkin puree along with a tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice. Bake about 20 minutes and you have yumilicious, low points cupcakes. I could eat the whole tray. But then that wouldn’t be so low points.

Now that I’m past the first few weeks of dropping weight, the diet is not working as well and I’m getting bored. I have to keep telling myself that a drop is a drop, even if it is a tiny drop. Tiny drops will add up over the long term.

Bad Thing: I had a terrible nightmare this morning. It shook me up, big time. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for a couple of hours after getting up. The sad thing? It wasn’t about monsters or blood or death. I was transported back to my childhood, in my bed, listening to my mom and dad scream and fight. They were always brutal. I was always terrified. I got very little sleep in my younger years.

I am so glad my children don’t have to live in that type of a household. I am so glad I don’t have to live that kind of life.

Future Thing: Ellen gave me a great idea about jobs–a college that has 10 month employees. There are a ton of universities around here so I did some looking. I am not applying to anything right now, but after looking at job postings I am thinking I may have a shot at something on a college campus in a few years. I’ll need to take a course in Microsoft Office. Most colleges around here have reciprocal tuition for in-state schools. That would be an amazing perk when the kids are old enough to attend. Obviously this is far, far in the future and a big fantasy. It does give me some food for thought, though.

I hate that I feel like I am wasting my brain. I am smart! I could do something smart! But. . . do I really want to work 60 hours a week? I need to maintain my home. I need something that brings in some cash flow, but I’m not passionate enough about anything to work my fingers to the bone. I could be a doctor! A lawyer! A famous author! But. . . yeah. . .that would require focus and dedication and sacrifice. Not going to happen.

Maybe one day I will find my passion.

I love beautiful fall weekends. I could live without the rain, but I guess that’s what you get when you live in this area–random thunder storms after days of weather bliss.

There was no school on Friday, so Mike took the day off and our Camp Fire club went out to a fall pumpkin festival corn maze type thing.

I am going to editorialize and say a good time was had by all. Except one dad. Poor guy has a heck of a time with this kids. The older one kept running off and the younger one has some delays. The dad finally called it a day when the younger one peed his pants right as a bee stung the dad’s finger.

Our family had a wonderful time. I even got a fun picture of Elsa.

I’d never been to a pumpkin patch or corn maze until we moved out here. Do they have such a thing in Oregon? I don’t think corn grows in the high desert. My hometown grows potatoes and hay.

I really love the tradition and am thrilled that we’ve found a super cool farm to call “our place.” In the past we went to the orchard down the road from us. It’s super expensive and doesn’t have all the much to do. It has fun decorations, but what kid wants to look at a bunch of painted pumpkins when they could be doing something instead? The place we went to this weekend had the corn maze, several smaller mazes, a corn pit, two jumping pillows, a playground, two sets of big slides, ducky races and other things that I can’t remember right now.

In other news, I am kicking around the idea of “what do I want to do when Elsa starts school?”

I always said that I would just sub. The hours are perfect, even if the pay is crap. But you know what? I don’t like other people’s children. I don’t want to work with kids in any capacity (other than volunteering at my children’s school/events to make life better for them).

But. . . the thought of working full time freaks me out. Who is going to cook? Who is going to clean? Who is going to do laundry? When will I work out?

But. . . if I was working we would have more money and could move into a single family home a lot more quickly. And our retirement fund would grow! And we could travel.

Maybe a part time office job will come up in the future. No need to borrow trouble now. I want to get a Masters, but I have no idea what I want to study. Makes it kind of hard to write a personal statement and all that jazz. I don’t think “I need a job so I can make money, and be fulfilled, but I don’t want to work too hard” is going to cut it.

I can’t believe I have a seven year old! Doesn’t seem possible that he is such a big kid, yet in some ways I can’t remember what life was like before he came along.

How did this little bundle:

Become this:

You can click through for more pictures if you are interested in seeing a bunch of goofy kids trying to all look the silliest during pictures.

This was, hands down, the easiest birthday party I’ve hosted. I let him pick 10 friends (we did let a few siblings come) and manipulated his little brain so no brats were on the list. Other parents were surprised at the mix of boys and girls. I guess at this age a lot of kids only want same gender friends, but he really enjoys playing with girls. Or I should say he enjoys being around girls. He doesn’t really like playing with them unless we are doing something like bowling. The girls always want to play house and he always wants to play ninja warrior fighter crash or whatever the heck it is boys play. Somehow it all manages to work out.

Can we have a bowling party every year? It was so much cheaper than a lot of the party places and all I had to bring was the cake and goody bags. I wasn’t allowed to bring in any other food, which was great. Usually I stress out over what type of munchies to put out for the adults. Kind of nice when all the stress is taken away because some one else lays down the law.

I did stress over the cake, but it turned out pretty neat. You know I hate camo, but I will do anything for my kids. So. . .

He got his camo cake with a waterfall. He wanted a moose drinking from the waterfall, but when we got to Micheal’s he saw the tube of bugs and had to have them. There’s a preying mantis in the water, which is the MOST HILARIOUS THING EVER. Ummmm. If you’re seven, maybe. I don’t get the joke.

I found a tutorial on making a camo cake, but someone on FB told me a better way to do it. I just piped out blobs and lines, let the cake sit in the fridge for about a half hour, then laid Viva paper towels over the cake and smashed it all down with a fondant smoother. The Viva paper towels are super, super smooth so leave a smooth finish. My buttercream was a smidgen too runny so I had a bit of an issue. If I ever use this method again I will really blob on the frosting with a super, super big hole in the bag instead of piping it on with a skinny hole. You can kind of see the lines were I was piping. I’m pretty proud of the cake, regardless. Erik placed all the bugs and chocorocks, so I can’t take credit for that artistic vision. I refuse to take credit for giant cockroaches.

The inside of the cake was also camo colored, but I didn’t think to take a picture.

One of my friends took Elsa for the day, so that alleviated a lot of stress. No one had to chase after her for three hours. My friend even took some really cute pictures of her, which is a minor miracle. Elsa refuses to look at the camera when I point it her way, which is very frustrating for someone like me who loves pictures.

This is the best I get:

Hope you all had a great weekend!

I need to remember that to-do lists calm me. I have never been a to-do list maker, but I discovered they were a saving grace after I had Elsa. My brain is not as sharp as it used to be–or maybe it’s just that I have four people’s schedules shoved into a brain that is designed for one person.

Things got a lot more complicated this morning when I was pulling out of a parking space and heard a crunch-crunch-screech sound. I backed back into the spot and took a look at the car next to me. I did a number on their bumper (because I know someone is going to ask, we were both facing out of a parking space, so I hit the front of their driver’s side with the back end of my passenger side).

The owner of the car walked out right when I started flailing about, looking for some paper. He was pissed for a millisecond, then became really nice and calm when I fell over myself apologizing and got out my insurance card.

I spent a long time on the phone with the insurance rep, getting everything set up. I haven’t needed to make a car insurance claim in over 10 years. This was a MUCH better experience than I remember. I don’t know if it’s because I’m older and calmer, have better insurance or if times have changed that much. He was able to make an appointment for me to take my car into the shop for an estimate and arrange for a rental car. Easy peasy. I’m not thrilled with the deductible hitting right at the beginning of Christmas season, but at least we only have a $500 deductible instead of $1000.

Since the door is not really all that damaged (I doubt I was even going 2 miles per hour when I went crunch-crunch), I am not taking it to the shop until Monday. I have things to do! Places to go! People to see! I don’t have time to mess around at an auto shop tomorrow.

It’s Erik’s birthday weekend, along with a big school even called Sweets and Treats (basically their fall festival with a candy and cake theme). I’m running the Sugar Shuffle, a shell game with a piece of rolo candy as the prize. Erik always wants to go to New York so he can play the shell game and win lots of money, so now he gets a chance to win a piece of candy. That’s even better than a fifty dollar bill, right? I don’t know if I’m the right woman for the job. I have a lot of practice since Erik loves the thrill of the gamble, but he always wins so maybe I’m not fast enough.

We have an all day soccer game-day on Saturday, which sucks. That’s when I’m supposed to be making the birthday cake. I’ve got myself psyched up for doing the camo frosting. What can go wrong with big blobs of icing? But now he wants me to make a moose taking a shower under a water fall.

Just a leeeeeettle bit outside my skill set. I’ll take him to Michael’s and let him pick out a set of animals to put on the cake. There was a Native American set that might have a moose. I can make a pond with blue icing. I picked up some sparkly clear gel icing that I can mix with it to make it look more like water.

I am starving for pizza. Someone give me pizza1

Five minutes later. . .

I can have pizza! I have enough points for two slices of my favorite pizza. Whoo-hoo!

I’m still doing well with the WW. They say you lose the most the first two weeks and that seems to be true. It is definetly disappointing, but not unexpected, when you start losing 1-2 pounds a week instead of a huge ten pound drop like the first week. I’ve been doing it three weeks and am down 13 pounds. Not too shabby. I don’t even hate it. They give you enough points to have a little, key word being little, treat every once in a while. If you do some planning you can go out and eat with out a problem. I am trying not to berate myself for not doing this years ago. It is what it is and I need to reap the benefits now. Look to the future, not the past. Blah blah blah. I’m getting better at not berating myself about things I can’t change.

Also, a big thank you to a reader who pointed me to Naartjie Such CUTE clothes! And not too much worse than Gymboree (though I don’t spend nearly that much at Gymboree since I shop sales). I ordered a few things to cute up Elsa’s fall wardrobe.

Heather has been sending me lots of links to cute dresses, so I have some options! I even went to Burlington Coat Factory today but I swear there is some kind of vacuum that all the 3T clothing goes into. Guess I’ll just have to wait a couple of weeks for Christmas pictures. It is so tempting to pull Erik out of school for a morning photo shoot, but I guess that would be setting a bad example about the value of school.

Don’t even get me started about the value of school around here. I am so tired of the smart gets getting short shrift. I visited the classroom on Monday and it was eye-opening. Erik was in the back rolling around on the carpet while he waited for the other kids to figure out the “sensory word” in the phrase “green beetle” was green. I am glad the teacher has an infinite amount of patience for the kids who need extra help, but it is upsetting to know that Erik is not being challenged. I have been exploring my options again and the only solution seems to be home school. I’m not that desperate yet. I don’t think Erik and I would make a good student-teacher combination.

Guess I better go order that pizza! The natives are getting restless.

I threw my back out this morning, which has been no fun. I can stand up straight if I use a heating pad and really try hard, but it hurts. I want to take some pain pills, but I know they’ll knock me on my ass. I have things to do. I’ll take them before bed and hope for the best.

We were supposed to go to a corn maze with our Camp Fire group today, but the farm was closed for rain. The family that always hosted Camp Fire last year doesn’t want to host again this year (I can’t say I blame them). We are trying to do as many outdoor activities as possible, but obviously that doesn’t work in the rain. I ended up saying I would host and throwing together a lesson plan. We made play-doh and messed around with Erik’s Squishy Circuit kit. The kids LOVED that. Then we made smoothies. The kids had a choice between my recipe with spinach or my friend’s recipe with rice milk. Only the non-verbal child and Erik chose mine. They don’t know what they’re missing. Erik was quite put out that no one would try his delicious smoothie. The recipe is all his, you know *wink*.

I’m working on our school directory. Ugh. Why can’t people print neatly? I’ve been making phone calls and sending e-mails, but there are a few that are so bad that it is impossible to make out any information at all. This whole directory feels kind of pointless. There are 511 students and only 103 turned in information for the directory. Erik’s class has two entries, including him.

It’s also a very classist book. I’d say 95% of the entries are from the very wealthy neighborhood surrounding the school (think doctors and lawyers). The rest are from us schlubs who live out in townhouses and apartments. Our PTA is ran almost entirely by the rich neighborhood. More power to them! I wish we could get more people involved, but let’s face it: rich neighborhood=more stay-at-home moms. I almost invited the president to my house so she could show me some things, but ended up keeping my trap shut and going to her house. She’s a very nice lady. She had a doll house all set up for Elsa. The thing was bigger than Elsa’s toddler bed. So beautiful! I wish we had room for one at our house.

Erik’s birthday is less than a week away. Eeeeeek!

In addition to all the last minute birthday events, it also means it is time for Christmas pictures. I like to do them on his birthday so I can get Halloween pics, birthday pics and Christmas pics all in one shot. Last year we were a couple of weeks behind schedule and hit the beginning of the Christmas rush. I don’t want to make that mistake again, but I’m having trouble finding a pretty dress for Elsa. I don’t want red. I want. . . wait for it. . . turquoise or teal or blue. Shocking, I know! But my kids look damned good in blue. They look pasty in red. I’d accept something in the purple family.

Maybe I should skip Christmas cards and send out Halloween cards instead.

I went shopping for Elsa’s fall wardrobe and was sorely disappointed. The transition from 2T to 3T means Elsa went from being a cute little toddler to a 50 year old, overweight divorcee. Yes, I can find cute separates, but I really love the Rare Editions (and other brands) tunic and leggings sets. The ones for 3T are sooooooooooo ugly. They’re all bat-wing and Mrs. Roper-esque prints. I guess I need to expand my search. Macy’s, Pennys and Kohls aren’t doing it for me. Gymboree and Crazy 8s failed me. They had stuff, but it was all retro-70s colors that burn my eyes. Children’s Place had some cute stuff, but my kids are too hefty to wear their clothes. I can’t afford boutique prices.

Yes, yes, I know. I am too picky.

I just want sweet, functional, attractive children’s clothing. No hoochie mama. No great big fake plastic gems. Not much glitter or sparkle. I want to expand the cute little newborn clothes into size 3T. Is that really too much to ask? Without paying an arm and a leg?