The Queen's Rambles

I’ve been working really hard on talking about diversity and the science behind different skin tones. It is not falling on deaf ears, but there are defintely some issues with our materials and Erik’s perceptions. Case in point:

Erik pointed out that the white children are crying and look miserable.

He pointed out that the black and biracial children look super happy. Clearly the white children would be happy if they could just be black. Just like he could be happier if he were black.

Like all parents, I just want him to be happy with the skin he is in. I am flailing around here, not even sure what to say, do or think.

I had to call the police today. Why is my life always so full of “experiences?” I don’t want to be the person calling the police! I want calm and peace and happiness.

There’s a teenager in the neighborhood who causes trouble. It’s kind of obvious that he’s not all there, mentally. He likes to hang around the young kids, even though he is 15. We have tons of teenagers in the neighborhood and most of them are nice to the kids and will say hi or let them have a turn kicking the ball, etc. They do not ever try to hang around the little kids. They just aren’t interested–perfectly normal.

This kid hit Erik with a metal stick a few weeks ago and also told Erik that no white people are allowed in the playground. You can guess how that went over. I had some very harsh words with the teenager.

Today I went out and he was trying to take down a real estate sign in my neighbor’s yard. We had words again and I told him he better shape up or ship out–that I was calling the police the next time he caused trouble.

I took Elsa down to the playground and a big group of kids, including this teenager were hanging around the on the porch of the house that was directly across from the park. Suddenly I hear a bunch of yelling “that’s so disgusting! You can’t do that! That’s just wrong!”

This 15 year old kid was making a four year old boy hold his juice box in front of his [4 year old’s] crotch area, and the 15 year old kid was about to take a drink from it.

I went nuts and started yelling “Stop it you pervert! Get away from him!” I went charging up to the house and banged on the door. The people inside probably thought it was an FBI raid, from the strength of banging.

The grandma of the little boy answered the door and I explained what was happening. She went bat shit crazy and the teenager is lucky he escaped without a scratch. The mom of the little boy started crying (she is also the mom of my “bonus child” so I sort of know her, but not really). There was a man in the house and he calmed the grandma down. We all made the teenager take us to his house, though he lied about where he lived. Finally he took us to his real house and the grandma started going ballistic on the lady who answered the door. We had no idea who she was or how she was related to him. It turns out she was his aunt and legal guardian. We didn’t find that out until much later.

I finally left and went home to call the non-emergency police line. I don’t know if it was my place, but we absolutely can not have a pervert running around the neighborhood.

***TRIGGER WARNING: ONE PARAGRAPH****

When I was teaching we had a mentally ill 16 year old boy rape and kill a six year old girl. She was a friend of his families and they had sent him out to babysit her at the park.

***END TRIGGER****

So yeah. . .I can see something like that happening. I have children in this neighborhood. I know this incident was not a crime, but it needed to be reported and he and his family need to know this is serious. We will not stand for this kind of thing in our neighborhood.

The police sent an officer out pretty quickly and I walked him through what had happened. He thought it sounded pretty bad that a 15 year old was doing that with a four year old–not something you want happening in your neighborhood. He went down and talked to the four year old’s family and the four year old himself. He had a really wonderful manner about him and I think he must have been trained to work with kids. Several of the middle school students knew him by name and came up and talked to him. At the end, he asked me to go back to my house because he wanted to talk to the family of the teenager alone. Totally ok with me!

He talked to them for over an hour (or at least his car was parked in front of my house for over an hour). I was dying to know what was said, but was pretty sure he would not report back to me. As he was leaving the neighborhood, he pulled in and talked to my neighbor. My neighbor is a volunteer fire-fighter and knew him from that. The neighbor said the officer had a long talk with the family and let them know this is super serious. The teen has no parents and lives with an aunt and uncle. He has mental issues, which was already pretty obvious. We are supposed to call if anything else happens so they can keep an active file on this kid and get him out of here before something really terrible happens.

I’m just glad he wasn’t doing that to Erik or Elsa. I would be in jail or dead right now if I caught a teenager doing that to either of my kids. I know I would go straight up ballistic and . . . well. . .honestly I don’t know. Just the thought makes me so angry that I start shaking. I’m just so happy that I saw it happen. Who knows what that boy has been doing or might do in the future? Now we know to keep a close eye on him and our children.

We had our annual year-end MOMS Club bash yesterday and it went really well. I said I absolutely was not planning the party and suggested we ask for volunteers for a party committee. We had a couple of volunteers, but they completely disappeared. Guess who planned the party? Me and my friend, of course. Honestly, though? I like being in control.

Our chapter has grown so much this year that we couldn’t host it in someone’s backyard. Our president lives next door to her community pool and worked out a deal where we could use the pool for $100, so we decided to charge each family a set fee and supply everything. That worked out so much better than counting on potluck. So much better. No worries that the person who was bringing the plates wasn’t going to show or that we’d have four pasta salads and no main dish. In the end, the pool only charged us $15, so we are issuing partial refunds to those who paid. The pool was super unorganized in regards to the party, obviously. However, it was basically like having a private pool party so that was a big plus. There are two pools in my friend’s community and we were at the small one. It was a hot Saturday afternoon and there were only six other people at the pool! Crazy!

I guess I am really and truly a grown-up now. I’ll be 40 next year, so it shouldn’t surprise me that I have the tools and knowledge to handle the food at the party. My mother and grandmother were not party throwers and never developed any skills for packing up a bunch of food and taking it to a park/pool/kiddie party place so it all seems kind of foreign to me, but these days I’ve got it down to a science. The only thing I will do differently at my next party: take along several disposable tupperware containers and load up the left over cake in containers and encourage people to take home a container. We had a ton of cake left, which is kind of funny because I thought we wouldn’t have enough. One of the other moms served as cake cutter and gave out super tiny slices.

We even had a bit of excitement when the lifeguard had to get in the pool! Unfortunately, it was my kid he had to save. Except I had already saved him, so the point was moot.

I was in the pool, but had turned to talk to my friend. Big mistake! The kids had been doing so well and everyone was so happy that I didn’t have my usual water anxiety.

Elsa swam over to Erik (she was in a puddle jumper, he had a kickboard) and started wrestling with him, climbing up on his back and pushing him under water. His kickboard got away from him and he was out of his depth. She thought she was just having some fun with her bro-ey, but she was about to kill him. Mike yelled out, “Elsa get off him!” and I turned around to see what was happening. I made it to Erik very quickly, lifting him up just seconds before the lifeguard splashed down beside us. Erik was totally ok, but they had to shut the pool down when the supervisor arrived, and we all had to stand around while the lifeguard shakily filled out an incident report. He was very, very young and that was his first “rescue.”

I was afraid Erik would never get in the water again, but we convinced him to come back in a little later. He is asking for swimming lessons, so I think that’s a good sign that he isn’t totally scarred for life. I’ve been meaning to get both kids into lessons, but haven’t gotten around to it. This is the impetus that I needed. I’ll go get them signed up on Monday, I guess.

In other news, Mike has been working his butt off on getting Elsa’s new bed put together. Several weeks ago and LJ friend posted a link to a loft bed on Amazon. Amazon! Who knew? I found Elsa a loft bed with a slide for about 1/3 of the price as the local baby furniture store. It’s metal and seems sturdy. Most importantly: it has a slide! If I was a kid, it would totally be my dream bed.

I also bought a big castle wall cling, so once we get some of the other stuff out of there I can work on making her room appropriate for a little girl, not just a storage area with a bed. I want to put a big mirror in there and some hooks on the wall for all her dress up clothes. I think that would be really fun!

If Mike gets the bed finished today, I guess we’ll have to run over to the mattress store and pick up a mattress and box springs. It is so nice to have the van and be able to cart things like that home without paying for and arranging for delivery. Have I mentioned how much I love my van? I could write an ode to my van, but who would want to read it?

I really hope I don’t have high blood pressure! I don’t want to go on meds. I’ve been really proud that despite my weight, my blood pressure has always been in the normal range. Both of my parents had to go on meds before they turned 40, but both of them had some really bad health habits. I eat too much sugar, but I do exercise regularly and I don’t smoke.

Anyway, remember that Elsa knocked into my chin and caused my jaw to hurt? I woke up in a lot of pain yesterday so decided it was time to consult a professional. I hate going to the doctor, but sometimes it must be done. The doctor had a horrible bedside manner and was mean to my children, telling them to sit down in the chair and behave (they were sitting on the exam table and I was in the chair). She was not at all concerned about my jaw and said it would be fine in a week. Good to know; I just hope she’s right. She gave me a prescription for Tylenol3, but I’m not going to bother to fill it. Advil is good enough for me. My primary concern was not the pain; it was the fact that the pain was not going away. I was afraid there was some sort of serious damage.

The main concern of the appointment was my blood pressure, which was completely unexpected. It was through the roof when the nurse first took it, then went down considerably but was still high at the end of the visit.

I’m supposed to go back next week and get it taken again without the children. The children were crawling all over me. Elsa was using my arm as a bar to do flips over. The room was tiny. The doctor was not child friendly. It was a great situation for high blood pressure.

Hopefully if I can manage to go in without the kids (and how am I going to manage THAT? I have several friends who can take the kids, but I hate to do that to people) my BP will be normal and we won’t have to consider meds. I really really really really do not want to go on meds. I know it’s not a big deal and if the doc says they are necessary I will take them and be fine with it, but I just don’t want to admit that A) I am getting to be of an age when I need meds and B) I’m going to stroke out at any moment without the help of meds.

I should check and see if Claritan increases BP. My Claritan use is really the only thing that’s changed since my health check last year.

I am contemplating ordering a BP monitor to have at home. I occasionally check it at the grocery store and it’s always fine, but I am not sure how accurate those are.

Maybe it was high because I did Zumba before the appointment? I haven’t done Zumba in 3 years. The last few times I tried, my back started screaming about 10 minutes in and I had to leave. My back has been doing much better lately, and I was already pumped full of Advil for my jaw so I decided to give it a whirl. I made it 40 minutes before the first twinge hit! Whoo-hoo! I made it through the whole class and my poor calves are SORE today. I forgot just how painful it is for my calves the first few times.

I am hoping I can get back into Zumba and get back into BodyPump two times a week. I’ve been faithfully going every Tuesday, but now my schedule has opened up so I’ll be able to go Tuesday and Thursday. I’ve only been doing it 2x/week twice now and I have already noticed a major difference in my muscles. I’m going to be buff soon! Fat, but buff!

Now, if only all these classes and my childcare situation stays the same. Gold’s Gym bought out my local gym this morning. Everyone is in a panic, but I don’t have time for that. I’ll worry when we get official word about what they are doing. Obviously they bought the chain because it was doing well. The chain was owned by an old man who was just tired of running it; it wasn’t a move because the business was sinking. I don’t think they want to piss off their current membership. Right?

The living room ceiling is completely painted! I just need to remove the tape and the plastic sheets off one of the walls. Whoo-hooo!!!! All that’s left is the trim. Lots and lots and lots of trim.

Also, Mike needs to watch a YouTube video to learn how to replace outlets. He’s done all the light switches for me, but the outlets look a little more complicated. I’ll put it on his to-do list and see if it is ever done. Hopefully YouTube instructions won’t burn my house down.

School’s been out for two days and Erik is already bored and ready to go back, despite spending three hours at camp this morning. Apparently sitting around watching Elsa play princess while I paint is not very fun. Also, having your little sister wrestle you to the ground then demand over and over “giddy up, Purple Horse, giddy up, Purple Horse” while jumping wildly is not the stuff of dreamy summer vacations.

I was also super mean and made him do two math worksheets and the whole family sat around for 20 minutes of DEAR time (drop everything and read). He sounded like one of my high school students, “so what am I supposed to do? Can I just stare at the page? Do I actually have to read it?” They do DEAR every day at school so I’m not sure why he couldn’t figure it out. Well, that’s not true. I know why he couldn’t figure it out–he was trying to get out of it. No dice, son. We’ll be doing it every day. We’ve got to keep our brains from turning into mush.

I am extremely disappointed with his cooking camp. It’s through the county, so I didn’t expect it to be super fabulous, but I did expect it to be COOKING camp, since that’s what it’s advertised as. They only meet four times for three hours each, but that’s enough time to actually cook a few things each day. Instead, they are doing totally lame stuff that does not live up to my little chef’s expectations. Today they learned about the food pyramid (not even the modern healthy plate version), made their own food pyramid, decorated an apron and made ranch dressing. They didn’t even each make their own. Two of them went to the front of the room and “helped” make it.

To say I am pissed is an understatement. Erik didn’t even get to taste the dressing because they ran out before they got to him.

I wanted to pull him out and demand a refund, but he wants to go back. It’s only three more days, so I guess I’ll let it ride but the evaluation form I fill out at the end will be smoking from the heat of my rage.

The real reason I am angry? This was the only local cooking camp we could find, but it is not that local! It is a good 30 minute drive down to the school at 8:30 in the morning. I never would have signed up for such a far-away, early camp if I would have known it was going to be totally lame.

Also, they gave the kids free t-shirts, which I thought was a nice touch until I opened it up and saw it was just an ad for the childcare center that is running the camp. Bah humbug.

Thank you to everyone who commented about PTA fundraisers. I’ve been talking to local parents as well and I am really going to push for a Read-a-Thon or Run for Education type thing. I don’t know a single person in the world who wants to buy crap from a magazine. I really like the read-a-thon idea since the kids can feel like they have some control in racking up funds from parents (even though I know most people will just give a flat amount).

Of course, it is not my call to make and I am not the fundraising chair (hallelujah!). I’ve figured that we need each child to pull in around $20 to run all our programs. Sounds doable, until you consider that a lot of families have more than one child in the school (and at other schools). Hopefully the newsletter and directory sponsorships will pull in a lot.

We’ve been crazy busy, yet again. Same old song and dance, right?

We spent most of Saturday painting and cleaning, with an adult birthday celebration thrown in. The birthday celebration was very low-key–just our family and another family at the bowling alley and then at their house. It all would have been pretty good, but I was behind Elsa and she jumped really hard, knocking me in the chin with her head. It was such a good knock-out that I saw stars. I didn’t lose consciousness, but I was woozy enough to lay down on the bowling alley floor instead of trying to get up. I’m sure it was an attractive sight.

I let Erik finish my game for me (I was literally on the last ball of the last frame) and he was sad that he didn’t hit anything. He came over to me and saw tears pouring out of my eyes and thought I was crying because I didn’t break 100 and was mad at him. Poor kid!

I felt pretty off the rest of the day, but managed to eat a giant piece of chocolate cake in between wondering if I needed to go to the ER for x-rays. My ears were my main complaint–it felt like they needed to pop.

Today I have a tiny little bruise on my chin, but the whole area is swollen and sore. My jaw was really sore this morning, but seems to be ok now. If it still hurts tomorrow I’ll call my primary care and see if they want to see me.

Today was Father’s Day in the US, but our family is not big on celebrations so we didn’t do much except give Mike cards and pictures of the kids. And painted, of course. The painting will never end. Current job: putting the finishing touches on the ceiling. I’m trying to be careful and not get white paint all over my fresh blue walls, so I’m hanging plastic drapes all over the walls. It looks like I’m prepping for a bloody murder.

Erik brought home a birthday party invitation for today on Thursday, which should have been my first sign that this party was not going to be organized. It was for his best school friend and we didn’t have any other plans, so we RSVPed yes and went to the party. I’ve been a mom for 7 years so I’ve been to all manner of parties. Some are better organized than others, but this was by far the least organized party I’ve ever been to.

I was so confused when we first arrived because there was a Hispanic family using the reserved picnic shelter and I was 100% sure that the birthday boy was from a Middle Eastern family. I had no idea what to do, but finally I asked if we were in the right place for XXXX’s birthday party and a lady popped out from behind a pole and told me I was in the right place.

The Hispanic family was not supposed to be there, so they had to put out the two grills that they’d started and go find somewhere else to have a picnic.

It was really awkward because we were the first ones there and we were not even early. In fact, we were about five minutes late, which isn’t much I suppose. The mom was at the park alone, so Erik didn’t have anyone to play with. The birthday boy showed up about a half hour later, which was just weird.

The mom handed me some streamers and told me to decorate, then she also said I would have to think up party games for the kids to play. I hoped it was just a miscommunication, but maybe she really meant it. I don’t know!

We kept waiting and waiting for the party to start, but hardly anyone showed up. Even though we were at a park, the picnic shelter was set far away from everything so there was really nothing to do. At one point I took a few of the kids to the playground, but then one kid left after ten minutes, so we had to go back to the party to make sure he was with his parents and not kidnapped by a molester in the woods.

All the kids were complaining that they were hungry, but no food was being offered despite a buffet on the picnic table. No drinks were offered, either, until a mom finally went and asked if there was any water anywhere. They had two full coolers of drinks, just had not thought to share it with us.

F-i-n-a-l-l-y the dad showed up with pizza and cake. But! We were not allowed to give the kids the pizza because they wanted to cut the cake first.

There were four classroom moms, the celebrating family and then a bunch of their friends. The four classroom moms were getting buggy eyed and cranky because this was such a poorly executed party. It’s not like we were even all friends or anything like that. I’d never met them before. We were from four different countries with four different cultures. But we all had one things in common: we wanted our children to get a g-damned slice of pizza.

Someone decided that cutting the cake before serving dinner was a bad idea, so we were finally able to give the kids pizza.

But what about the buffet?

No, no. We had to wait another 30 minutes until some more friends arrived. This was about 20 minutes before the “official” end of the party listed on the invite, and 2 hours and 40 minutes into this never ending party with zero entertainment.

Finally they let us eat, though most of the food was so spicy that I couldn’t handle it. They didn’t have any forks, either, which was not the end of the world but was sort of a pain.

Eventually they served cake, but there was not enough to go around. Also: no forks or spoons, so if you wanted a piece you had to eat it with your hands (or face, as Erik chose to do).

They never did play any party games or let the kids do anything fun. The boys kept asking me to take them back to the playground, which I would have been fine doing if someone would have asked me to do so. I couldn’t exactly take off with the party guests without the hosts’ blessing. I told them to ask the mom or dad, but they were completely ineffective and disorganized (obviously). Their four year old son threw a Fanta can at my head. Good thing it was not as hard as Elsa’s skull. The other three school moms and I all boggled, but none of us knew what to do about it.

I spent most of my time talking to a lady from Slovakia. She has four kids and only does laundry once every three weeks. She says she can’t have Erik at her house for a playdate because the floors are not safe to navigate. Also, she tried to give me a “healthy” recipe that was basically smashing up avocados and sardines and spreading it on toast. She was a nice lady, but I’ll give that recipe a pass!

We left at the same time and as we were talking down to the cars she goes “don’t say a word. Not a word! The children, they talk! We should consider it an honor just to be invited since they usually never invite anyone outside their own culture.”

So yeah. That happened. I’ll never get those four hours of my life back. The lady kind of jokingly asked Erik and her son if they enjoyed the party and they were both enthusiastic about it, even though they didn’t get to do anything but run in circles around the picnic shelter.

I can’t even really chalk it up to cultural differences. I’ve been to several parties hosted by people of this culture and they were definitely not like this party! I was actually the only native American (not Native American, but you know what I mean, right?) but I was certainly not the only one completely irked by the lack of organization.

I’m sitting here, playing way too much Papa Pear Saga on Facebook. I’m over Candy Crush. What silly games we play, eh?

I figured an entry would be more productive than mindlessly shooting pears at vegetables.

I am kind of terrified of being PTA VP. The prez and I finally learned about the functioning of the PTA and we are basically completely hosed. In 2011 our district stopped paying for an activity bus, so our PTA took it on as their project. Any kids who live on a bus route can ride a late bus home on Tuesday and Thursday night. This costs about $25/day.

Problem? They have not really done much fundraising. They were just counting on their slush from previous years and that slush is G-O-N-E. We have $4000 that will go away the first week of school thanks to start-up costs. What the bleepity bleep are we going to do? Fundraisers, obviously, but our PTA is completely dysfunctional and I don’t know if the president and I will have enough determination and charisma to make everything happen.

What successful fundraisers has your school had? We do a book fair and this year we only did one catalog sale. It brought in $1700, but that is not enough. We were supposed to do BoxTops but the guy in charge of it never sent them in, so that’s about $1000 right there that we will eventually get.

I think we need to hit the BoxTops and restaurant night fundraisers really hard. I also want to start selling sponsorships in our newsletter and directory. We need a big fundraiser, though! Chocolate bars? First aid kits? Read-a-thon? Walk-a-thon? Mixed Bags? I hate the catalogs with overpriced junk and cookie dough. I send in a donation check instead of ordering something.

I’m really happy that our new prez is a working mom and says she refuses to take care of all the business during parent pick-up. This has been my biggest frustration. Instead of dealing with stuff during our PTA meetings, they do it all at parent pick-up and people who are not there have no clue what is going on. The prez and I are on the same page about the ridiculousness of that method. We also found out that none of the committee chairs have any oversight right now, which is why no one is doing their jobs. They are going to be shocked when the prez and I get in there and expect to be included and expect people to do what they signed up to do.

Hopefully this will end well, but I see a lot of drama in my near future.

Mike and I have been obsessively watching Orphan Black. There are only 10 episodes available, but we’ve breezed through 7 of them in three weeks. I know that sounds ridiculous to people without children, but for us that is a marathon. Love, love, love this show! It’s on BBC America, so you know it is a high quality production. I guess I thought it would be kind of lame because the main character is a clone and plays several parts, but she does an amazing job. It is hard to remember it is just one actress when she is switching between characters.

Time has really gotten away from me so I have to wrap this up. I’m dropping Elsa off at a sitter (yay babysitting co-op!) and going to the dentist. Luckily the sitter lives next to Erik’s school (yay MOMS Club for fostering hyper-local chapter boundaries!) so she can pick him up if the appointment runs late.

Hopefully it won’t run late.

I don’t want them to poke my gums with that sharp metal stick again. I hate that and don’t know why it is necessary.

My mom had a big secret to share with me today. My sister’s husband is not the father of her youngest child.

No shit, Sherlock. I knew that years ago. Child has brown eyes, both parents have blue eyes. I know genetics are not that simple, but I also know my sister. I’d be more surprised if the baby was her husband’s.

Anyway, apparently some program was offering free paternity tests and my sister and the baby’s father thought it would be hilarious if my nephew was really his so they went in for the test. Wham, bam, DNA proof, ma’am.

What will my sister do with that information? I have no idea. Hopefully sue the guy for child support, but I don’t know if that is possible since her husband is on the birth certificate.

My sister’s husband’s new girlfriend kicked him out so he rode the bus from New Jersey to Oregon and landed on my sister’s couch.

My sister is still with her loser boyfriend.

Is your head spinning yet? Apparently my sister likes to have two men to boss around and neither of them really care since they are getting a free government sponsored ride.

My mom was telling me all this because they are all getting along so well! Everyone is happy! No one is on drugs! I should go visit Oregon so my kids can see their cousins!

Does she not realize that telling me my sister is living with her boyfriend and husband is the opposite of showing me everything is happy and stable? I am glad I have grown enough that I can laugh in her face instead of running off to buy tickets and subjecting myself and children to two weeks of hell.

I’ve been a busy little bee this week. Yesterday I started taping for the next phase in my “paint the whole damned house” project and got a little carried away. I spent 3 hours taping, spackling, sanding, removing pictures and so forth and one hour painting. Even when I am in middle of a project I am still thinking “I can paint that so fast!” and not paying heed to the “yes, but it takes 3 times as long to prepare for the painting!” facts of life.

It was worth it though. I am so, so, so glad to get rid of all the crayon marks, purple address stamps, random paint chips and everything else that has been driving me crazy. It looks so clean and fresh! I’m still no where near done, but the worst walls are covered in new paint.

Afterwards, I went to our county wide PTA training with random paint splotches all over. I was worried it might be awkward because I recognized several names on the sign up list from one of the MOMS Club chapters I work with that completely imploded. One of them is the wife of one of Mike’s co-workers.

Never to fear. There were 300 people there, so I didn’t run into anyone except the people from my school and random people from the gym. People look so different in real clothes and combed hair.

I learned a lot about the goals of the PTA, which are not really the goals that our PTA seems to work on. The main point of the PTA is politically advocacy, which was a big surprise to me. They want members so they have a powerful block when they take education issues before the county, state and national politicians. The tag line is PTA: One Voice and they really mean that. If you are a parent you really should join your PTA, even if you never attend a meeting. Your name on that list adds strength to the people advocating for your children’s needs.

Of course, I also believe you should attend meetings and volunteer at the school if it works for your life. The more you are visible at the school, the more attention the principal will give you when you have a personal issue with your child’s education.

I was going to write more, but just realized I better take a shower if I am going to get Elsa to her MyGym class on time! This is our last official class, though I have a punch card for drop-in classes and we are signed up for six days of camp this summer. I am going to be sad to leave them, it has been such a great place for us. I will most likely be signing Elsa up for real gymnastics in the fall because she seems to have an aptitude for it. I can’t really justify preschool, MyGym and real gymnastics, even if MyGym is a wonderful program.

Before I start, I need to ask you if you have a good recc for a book about race. I need something to read to Erik and/or I need something to read myself that will help me know how to talk to him. I can talk about penis or vagina all day, even though it is awkward and embarrassing. I have no idea how to talk about race. We live in a minority majority county so this is a big problem. I suppose it would be a big problem anywhere, actually.

We’ve had some problems in the past with Erik being bullied because of his skin tone and with Erik saying racist things about other people. At this point I know we need to have a more in-depth talk because he has started asking why the characters in books and cartoon shows are white. Shouldn’t they be black? How can Judy Moody have two white friends? And how can that hot dog vendor be white? He is outside all day so he should be black because the sun will turn him black. And why does Erik have to wear sunscreen? If I would let him go outside without sunscreen he could be black like his friends.

Sooooooooo. . . .

Help me.

I am completely out of my depth here.

I don’t really understand why Europeans are white. I understand the whole melatonin thing, but then wouldn’t the native people of Canada also be white? But they are probably descended from Asians that crossed over the Russian land bridge. But how long does all this take? I don’t know. I need to find out. I need to start googling like crazy I guess. I would prefer a credible book.

Other than that, life is going full speed ahead. We have our last soccer game on Saturday, thank the good lords of Kobol. What a complete time suck. I feel like we never have a weekend anymore thanks to the Saturday games.

Though I should feel like we have weekends! Did I tell you that we saw Kenny Chesney on Memorial weekend? It was us and a Redskins stadium full of drunk girls. Lots and lots of drunk girls. They were making out with each other, random men, the security guards. The big, burly security guard in our section was not impressed with the fondling drunk girls trying to give him tongue.

The concert was really fun, other than that. I am not sure Mike would agree–I think he thought watching the drunk girls was the highlight. He is not really a country fan.

We celebrated our 10 year anniversary last weekend with the most expensive date we’ve ever had. We had a super yummy dinner at a local restaurant that focuses on sustainable farming. We finished off the meal with red velvet cake, which I liked! First piece of red velvet cake that I’ve ever liked. It usually tastes like food coloring and I’ve never been able to understand why food coloring is a flavor.

We also went and saw Star Trek at the Imax (it was the only showing that fit our schedule). I really enjoyed it. I’m not a Trekkie. I used to watch ST:NG and DS9 with my friend and Mike and I watched Enterprise together. I’ve seen all the Next Generation movies. I know nothing about the original series so the re-boot hasn’t bothered me in the least. I thought it was a fun movie especially seeing Sherlock as a complete badass.

Mike enjoyed it, but thought it was lame as a sci-fi movie. He thought there should have been fun aliens, not just a bunch of earthbound politics.

The thing that really made the date expensive: paying the babysitter $20/hour. Yikes! No wonder we never go out. We’ve gotten a little better now that we have a babysitting co-op, but we wanted to be free to not worry about getting back for one of my friends. Plus, no one in our babysitting co-op really uses it for evening dates so that would have been a little awkward.

Our other friends took our kids the weekend before, so we couldn’t ask them to do it again. I’ve practically begged them to let us take their kids, but they don’t seem to be interested in going out. They say it is too expensive, but eat take-out several times a week. I don’t really get it. I’d say it’s all good since they are happy, but it turns out they are not. I am trying to get my friend to understand that they NEED some couple time, but they are just not interested. Like I said, I don’t get it. I guess if they want to implode there is nothing I can do to stop them. Too bad everyone doesn’t want me to solve all their problems. I’d have the world lined out in minutes.

Erik has 8 more days of school. Last summer was a free-for-all. I didn’t make him do a single bit of school work after our awful year. He’s done much better this year and I don’t think it would cause hour long screaming fits if I schedule in some learning this summer. Right now I’m planning on doing 20 minutes of DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) time for the whole family. Elsa can easily look at her books for 20 minutes, so I think it would be good for the kids to see me reading as well. I’m also going to set aside 10-15 minutes a day for some kind of workbook for each kid. I already bought a workbook for Elsa and she’s been eagerly working in it. She’s not doing what she’s supposed to be doing, but I am not letting it bother me. Four years ago I would have been an insane person, wailing and gnashing my teeth about why this rebel child wouldn’t circle the correct fish. Four years ago I WAS an insane person when it came to this type of thing, come to think of it. These days I’m just happy she is trying to move her pencil around the page. It’s good to be mellow.

Ok, time to put the boy in bed. Yet another night slips through my fingers.