The Queen's Rambles

I’m beyond exhausted, so this will probably be a bunch of non-sense.

This summer Elsa had a beautiful few months of sleeping through the night.

Then she got sick with a cough and that was shot to hell.

The wonderful routine was destroyed, never to be found again. It didn’t make a big impact on my life. She was such a daddy’s girl that I was literally afraid to go in her room at night. When she wakes up she’s a complete wild beast. You don’t want to get in her path unless you are her daddy or she will cut you. (Or maybe just scream, slam the door in your face, punch you, throw puzzles at you, etc).

This morning, at the lovely hour of 3:30 am, I woke up with a foot shoved in my butt crack and sharp little fingernails trying to pick moles off my back. It was lovely. In the last two days she’s suddenly become all about mommy so these late night fun times are now my problem. Any fleeting thoughts of a third baby have been completely nixed. And by fleeting, I mean running like a freakin’ cheetah on fire. Do not need another baby, even if they are cute and squishy.

Despite the exhaustion, we had a really nice evening tonight. I invited our family friends over to enjoy elf-ordained marshmallow snowman making. It was not nearly as cute as pinterest would have one believe (CLICK HERE, especially since the kids started chowing down before the candy was hardened. No one seemed to mind, though. I also served dinner and the adults had a relaxing evening with a bottle of wine. Turns out Pinot Grigio is much better than Chardonnay (in my very, very limited experience). I may actually sleep tonight even if a mini-heater attaches herself to my back. That’s the other bad thing about my darling wanting to cuddle: she’s hot! And we can’t possibly turn the A/C on. It’s December! And it was 70F out yesterday! Global warming is starting to scare the crap out of me. Are we going to be trying to grow crops in the winter and hiding in caves in the summer? We need to get the kids their Swedish passports. Kiruna might be the new LA in forty years.

Subject change:

My mom saw my iPod Shuffle and declared that’s what she wanted for Christmas. She’s never seen an MP3 player, I guess. She thought it would be perfect to take with her on her cleaning jobs, and I agree. Problem? She can’t figure out how to watch the DVDs I sent her for her birthday (yes, she has a DVD player), so how the heck is she going to load up an MP3 player.

Ellen has been very helpful in giving me music suggestions because I don’t have a clue where to start. I found a scandisk slot radio thing that sounded perfect–it is a little MP3 player that you can buy SD cards for. They even had an Oldies card. Problem? It had terrible reviews. Apparently the music is full of cover bands and B-sides.

My computer’s CD drive is broken so I can’t even go to the library and check out a bunch of CDs to burn.

A solution presented itself tonight! My friend apparently has thousands of MP3 oldies, so she said I can come visit and we can set up the iPod (or whatever thing I decide to buy. Do you think a non-iPod device might be easier to work with?)

Last subject:

Thank you to regular reader, Gopher, for suggesting Arrow! I have not been paying attention to the CW since the cancelled Veronica Mars. Arrow is exactly the kind of show I love. Campy, sexy, geeky. Sure, it is not the best show ever made, but it’s fun. I like fun.

Oh, I forgot one very important subject: I just ordered new underwear! I used to wonder why my mom wore ratty old clothes and would never buy new dishes or new towels. Now I get it. There’s a lot of other things to spend money on and you should use what you have until it is done. I’m going to go out on a limb and say most of my underwear is done. When you suddenly realize you are mostly wearing crotchless panties and they were not purchased at a novelty shop, it might be time to invest in some new underwear. I found myself calling my maternity underwear my “good” underwear and. . . shocker. . . they don’t exactly fit correctly.

I really am a grown-up, aren’t I? Getting a thrill out of new underwear. Maybe that’s what Santa should bring me.

Actually, Santa had better damned well bring me some of the jewelry that I specifically pointed out, especially the ring I e-mailed about this summer. I need jewelry in a very specific style. I’m a big lady, so I need big jewelry. Delicate jewelry doesn’t look right on my body and just makes me feel fat and ugly. Hopefully Santa is listening!

Just when I think I have things figured out, I realize I know nothing.

I wasn’t going to do our yearly Christmas Countdown activity thing because I thought Erik was too old for it and that he’d be jealous if I did it for Elsa. I couldn’t figure out a way to make it work for both of them.

In the end, I couldn’t bring myself to can the project because it is one of my favorite things about December. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, I cut up a bunch of squares, number them 1-24 and then each day we do what is written on the back of the square. The first year I wrote out all our activities at the beginning. Erik couldn’t read so I could modify things if necessary. The next year I wrote the activities the night before. This year I didn’t write anything on the backs of them and the elf is coming in each night, writing with “grown up ink” that only an adult can see. Brilliant, if I do say so myself. Last night Erik left the elf a regular pen and the elf used it. Mike thinks Erik is going to hate me when he finds out that I’m a big ol’ tricksy liar. I think he’s going to love me for making his childhood so magical and fun.

Can I just say, keeping the magic alive when your kid can read is soooooooooo much harder? Because it is.

Erik is completely obsessed with the countdown and Elsa could not care even one teensy bit less. I was so, so wrong about how this would go. Now I just have to think of easy activities that can be done after school. I have a feeling my old stand-bys of “read a book about a snowman” are going to fail in a big way. He wants to make cookies every day.

Our first activity was going to a local town’s “Jingle Jubilee.” It turned out to be a very small event with music by the local high school band. I’m glad the weather was beautiful because the kids basically ran like wild things for an hour and slept really well that night. Santa rode in on a fire truck, Dora and Diego were walking around, and the band was playing in the background–very nice evening for everyone!

Here’s some blurry pics because I like forcing you to look at out of focus pictures of my special snowflakes:

Jumping at a Christmas Concert. Perfectly normal, right? I probably would not have let Elsa jump off that thing because it was giving me heart attacks, but I’m reading a book about two year old development and it says they need to jump off things.

Didn’t know there clothes would get so dirty at a concert!

Bonus blurry picture because this is one of the only pictures I’ve ever taken of Elsa with a real, genuine smile! She is completely in love with the Christmas tree and likes to sit and look at it.

Btw, I totally ruined Erik’s Christmas and made him “sadder than [he’s] been in [his] whole life,” by buying new ornaments so we could have a red and white tree. I am over my old blue and silver decorations. Erik is not, apparently.

My mom went home on Saturday. It was nice to have her here, but it is really nice to have my house back. She thinks she is being helpful and tries to organize my things, but it is not helpful to have my perfectly organized clutter stowed away in places I’ll never look. Or tossed out altogether. Grrrrr. At least she admitted that she needs to book two week trips because she can’t seem to stay any longer.

It truly is nice having her here. The kids love her so much and it is fun to see them enjoying their grandma. When Elsa would get angry with me, she’d run over to bury her head in my mom’s chest. It’s the only time she’s cuddly, silly girl.

I guess I better wrap this up. The girl is getting anxious for some attention.