The Queen's Rambles

I need someone to come and carry me up the stairs. My poor muscles feel like they are made of jelly, thanks to a brutal BodyPump class. It’s always bad when I miss a week and it’s always bad when they have a new release, so guess what happened? I missed a week due to my beach vacation and when I came back it was time for the new release, so it was a double whammy.

BodyPump is a group weight lifting class set to music and based on endurance. Every twelve weeks they have completely new choreography that the instructors must use for a few weeks. After awhile the instructors can use any choreography that they choose from the current or past release. The new release is always tough b/c you don’t have the muscle memory to go with the songs, so it feels like you are working harder.

The chest track is usually just straight up chest presses, sometimes with some push-ups thrown in for giggles. I started doing the program during release 54 I think and it’s now at release 89, and I’m always surprised that they can come up with new things when it feels like it is just the same thing over and over. This release has a few new things, one of which was the fly for the chest.

Holy crap!

The presses? They burn out my shoulders, but I’ve never felt anything in my chest. I didn’t really believe I had muscles under my boobs.

Today? Today I thought I was having a heart attack! I had a deep burn under my left boob and was wondering if I should call 911. I finally figured out it was my chest muscle. Learn something new every day! I have a muscle under there!

In other news, Erik is off at a sleep over. I am so thankful that he has grown into a good kid. He was such a pill as a toddler and preschooler that I never thought we’d get to the point where he is polite, kind, thoughtful and just all around pretty terrific even if he does drive me crazy on occasion.

It is so much easier parenting Elsa because I look at Erik and see that all this typical three year old business will go away someday. Right now she is in the “saying awful things” stage where she regularly tells us she hates us, she doesn’t like us, we aren’t her best friend, etc.

When Erik went through this stage it made me crazy and really bothered me. I thought I was a horrible mother, that my son would tell me he hated me. I thought he was some kind of psychopath that he would say such horrible things. I stressed and worried and spent all my time trying to control the uncontrollable. No one can control the things that come out of a 3 year olds mouth*.

Now I just shrug it off, make sure to tell her it isn’t nice and hurts our feelings and don’t let the words of a three year old send me off the rails. I have proof positive that she will not be like this forever. I am not raising crazed hyenas. Three year olds become seven year olds and one day we’ll have a reasonable conversation.

Speaking of conversations, here’s Erik’s latest. “So, mom, how did the first two people ever figure out how to make a baby? Why would they ever think to try that, thing? That’s just so gross. How did they know it would make a baby if they did it?”

I tried to tell him that they saw animals doing it and thought they should try it, but he didn’t think that was a very good answer. Then I told him I didn’t really know, so maybe he should ask his dad.

*Obviously you can and should try to keep them from cursing, but there are only so many battles I am willing to fight.

I’ve had this Post an Update window open for days, but nothing seemed worth writing about. Could I finally be out of words? From 2002-2010 I wrote an entry, often a long one, every. single. day. That ended when Elsa came along, and now I just can’t seem to care about writing at all. I find new blogs and read about people’s children and think “why do I care? I don’t give a flying flip. I don’t even know you, and your kids is just a kid.”

Of course, though, I do care about my friends that I’ve known since 2002 or even since 2010, or even the friends that I’ve just met recently who post on LJ. I just don’t care about the people on my Feedly who have “real” blogs, except the select few who have had real blogs forever and feel more like friends than random people trying to sell their experiences for free samples of Greek yogurt and movie tickets.

Part of the reason I’m so quiet is that I am so unhappy with myself. I look in the mirror and see a person who looks like a clay golem. I have food issues, no doubt. I probably should see a counselor. When I hate myself the most and am feeling the worst about myself, I eat more to punish myself which makes NO SENSE. I know it, you know it, this has been happening since I was nine years old and my mom would put me on all kinds of diets and always poke and prod and tell me how fat I was. So around and around we go. Last fall I dropped 24 pounds, but I’ve since gained it all back plus some. Yay me!

I started WeightWatchers again on Sunday and hope I can stick with it awhile. I know I will never be skinny, but I definitely felt a lot better after dropping those 24 pounds. It all becomes so hopeless to me, though–always eating these super boring foods that feel gross in my mouth (veggies and fruits are so wet and slimy. Ugh). Knowing that it has to be a lifestyle choice FOREVER sends me off the rails.

That’s life, though, right? I’m at an age where the best I can do is maintain. I have lost all hope of ever being physically attractive. I shouldn’t care, but it is just a part of being a woman I guess, to care so deeply about these things. Obviously not as deeply as people who take diet very seriously, though. Guess if I really cared I would stop eating.

I’m not mentioning exercise because I exercise all the time. In fact, I need to go get ready for my BodyPump class in about 10 minutes.

Soooooo. . . that was totally not what I meant to write about. I was going to write about our trip and this ingenious thing called a packing cube. So those bloggers who write about yogurt and movie tickets? A whole bunch of them also wrote about packing cubes, which is something you must go out and buy immediately if you travel. They basically help you organize everything that you pack, then you stack them into your suitcase. When you get to your destination you pull out the cubes, stick them in drawers, unzip them and viola! You are not living out of suitcases and everything is organized.

I bought four sets for our family, color coded of course. I probably didn’t need a set for Elsa–in fact we only used one of her cubes because I used gallon baggies to put together several outfits for her. Each baggie had a top, a bottom and undies. This was the other great idea! It was so easy to get her dressed and make sure she matched each day.

Anyway, back to the packing cubes. I packed each of our things in various configurations in our correct colored cube. When we got to the beach there was no digging around the suitcase for the underwear or bathing suits. Everything was organized and quickly went into drawers so we could put the suitcases away for the week.

We even used one of the small packing cubes as a way to store our snack bars and other important items at the beach (Kindle, phones, wallet, etc). It had a little handle and was perfect for keeping close.

So there you go. Those bloggers who work their brands and network and all that finally hit on something that people actually need to know about.

Are you still curious about our beach vacation? It was simple. We got wet, got hot, got sandy, ate a lot of ice cream.

And now I really do have to go get ready for BodyPump.

We made it to the beach house! When we rented a beach house last year, it was not that nice. It had that old lady smell, lots of doilies, dusty fake plants and a hodge-podge of furnishing–clearly a rental place with minimal effort put in.

This time we are staying at a semi-wealthy friend’s house who has totally decorated the place in Pottery Barn. I should have known that if someone can afford two homes, they can afford to do it up right. My friend says she would live here if her husband could make a living at the beach instead of in DC–the townhouse is much nicer than their house in Germantown. It really shows. The place is amazing. Even though it is a townhouse, it feels like a regular house inside. I think the smallest bedroom is the size of our master bedroom.

She has guests constantly, and clearly knows how to accommodate them. Tons of beds, tons of personal little touches meant to make guests feel at home (extras of everything you might need, a guest book to sign, etc). We are totally loving this place and I don’t want to go back to reality.

We stayed in almost all day yesterday. Elsa woke up with a slight fever and diarrhea. We had instructions to contact a doctor immediately if either of those things happened. I can’t believe how serious this whole bug bite turned celluitis is. And of course if any child would get it, it would have to be Elsa. I am just glad it is something treatable. She seems to get all the weird problems, which worries me in a way that I won’t even mention.

By the afternoon she was doing much, much better so we decided to stay on at the beach. This morning she seems 100% recovered. Not a single bit of redness around her eye and everything else is good. Of course we will continue the course of antibiotics, but things are looking much better than yesterday.

Since Elsa couldn’t go anywhere yesterday, I took my chance to go alone to the outlets while Mike held down the fort at the house. I always think the outlets are going to be so great, but they never are. The prices are not cheap. The selection is not that great. This particular outlet mall was really run down and felt kind of ghettoish. I don’t know why I bothered. I did get Erik some school clothes, but they weren’t a great bargain, just practical. He only wants pants with elastic waistbands, preferably in camo. Yes, it hurts the part of me that longs for the day of cute little jeans and snazzy button down shirts, but he is who he is and he is camo and sweats. They are not all that easy to find, so when I see them I snap them up.

We hit the beach today and wore the kids out. The beach here is not like the beach from last summer. That beach was perfect for playing in–extremely shallow and mild. This beach has a big drop-off almost immediately and is pretty rough. Mike got knocked over by a wave and lost his hat and sunglasses. Elsa is still freaking out over it, even though we tried to convince her that a mermaid took them to her treasure chest.

Elsa is my little fish child and was having a ball out in the ocean. She was swimming (with a puddle jumper on) and swirling all around, not needing to cling to Mike for dear life.

Erik insists on wearing a puddle jumper even though I can barely close it on him and he won’t go out into the water. He finally went out and clung on to Mike for dear life. I thought he might take Mike down if there was an emergency and was hoping someone near them would help out (lifeguards go off duty at 5 pm–so strange!). I can’t bring myself to go out there. I would if I had to save the life of one of my family members, but I can’t say I would be particularly useful because the ocean completely terrifies me. I got hit by a wave that went up to my knees and thought I was going to have a panic attack about it touching me that high. People saw a stingray right up near the shore where we were playing! A stingray!

At least the sun, sand and surf wear the kids out. Head meets pillow and it’s light out!

Not sure how much beach time we’ll have tomorrow. There’s an amusement park on the boardwalk in the next town over that is supposed to be super cheap. We’ll go there and see what there is to see.

And with that, I am signing off. The kids aren’t the only ones who are worn out.

Does an ER visit take hours because the hospital staff is all off plotting murder and romance, a la soap operas and medical dramas?

Elsa woke up with a bright red eye this morning, and I immediately knew we were in for a long day. The doctor had told me that if there was any increase in redness it was an emergency and I had to take her to the ER.

I didn’t really think it was a proper emergency and tried to get her back in with the ped. The bug bite was clearly infected (bright red, warm to the touch), but I didn’t believe it was going to damage her eyeball. I figured a round of antibiotics would take care of it.

The ER doctor seemed to agree to me. We were examined by both an attending (or resident?) and her supervisor and they both seemed surprised that the ped sent her to the ER this morning without taking a look at it herself. The ped said she wanted imaging done on the eye, but the ER docs said it was not necessary. We caught it early, so at this point the best treatment was a course of antibiotics. It was not time to panic just yet.

While I am very glad it is not time to panic yet, I am not at all happy that we had to sit around in the ER for four hours. And, of course, the ER staff all told us cheerily “You caught us on a good day! There’s hardly any wait time at all!”

Now we just have to hope the meds do the trick and we don’t end up in the ER at the beach, though the supervisor told me he’d be at the same beach so if I find him on the beach he’ll look at her eye. I find that almost a cruel joke to make. At least give me your number, if you really would be willing to look at her eye! How am I going to find you on the beach? He’ll probably be at the old man golf course.

Thankfully I was able to take Erik over to a friend’s house for the day and she took them to a bouncey place for a couple of hours–except a kid rammed into him and his little pinky is swollen. he can bend it, so I don’t think it is broken.

I knew Elsa wouldn’t go blind if I spent 15 minutes getting Erik to a sitter, and it was definitely a good investment in time. I can’t imagine trying to keep both of them entertained in the ER. Elsa was very curious about all the moving parts of her bed. If Erik had been there they probably would have been racing a hospital bed down the hall, while I screamed like a crazy person.

We finally got home around 1 pm. I made lunch, took a shower, and thought I had plenty of time to fill Elsa’s prescription before the next dose was due.

Little did I know that we were about to start a trek into hell.

First, I hate going anywhere alone with both kids. I’ve finally figured it out. Erik is a touchy, feely boy who loves his mother and wants to be in constant physical contact if he is not in front of a screen. When we go out and about he inserts himself between myself and Elsa and she gets away from me. I need her to be right by my side so I can grab her when she darts away. She is only three–she’s obviously not aware enough to be trusted to dart through a parking lot like a little Frogger. Erik’s seven. I don’t feel like I need a hand on him, but he gets right in there and gets his body between me and Elsa and I lose control of the preschooler.

Also, the whole time we were in the stores he was touching me–patting my belly, head butting me (gently, but still annoying), rubbing my legs, putting his head up the back of my shirt. I wouldn’t mind holding his hand, but the head butting, shirt lifting and belly patting were about to send me into orbit.

And yes, I did says “stores” plural. First pharmacy didn’t have the particular drug we needed. Second pharmacy didn’t have the drug. THIRD pharmacy didn’t have the drug and I started crying. I could not bear the thought of hauling my kids back to the car, driving somewhere in the now rush hour time of day and then hauling them out of the car and traipsing across another parking lot. And how many more times was I going to have to do that? Did this drug exist anywhere in Germantown? Was my daughter’s eye going to fall out because we couldn’t find the prescribed antibiotic (clintamoxilyn or something like that)?

Fourth pharmacy, Safeway, had it! Whoo-hoo! I cried tears of relief and the clerk probably thought I was a loon when I thanked her over and over again. She said it would be 30 minutes, so off we went to entertain ourselves.

We started by looking at the cake book in the bakery (Erik’s choice), but had to leave when the kids started fighting over what cake to get. We were not even getting a cake. But the fight must go on!

Then we went to the very nice, quiet private pharmacy waiting room but the kids wanted a book to read. We found the book section and both kids picked out a completely lame book with lots and lots of noisy buttons to press.

I took my blood pressure and it was through the freakin’ roof. I think I need to re-visit the blood pressure question with my doctor. It was fine when I went in by myself, but I am not usually by myself.

I went back to the pick-up line after 30 minutes and they did a bunch of fiddle-farting around and announced they hadn’t started it yet b/c it was $210 and did I really want it?

I about fainted.

My insurance brought it down to $140, and of course I wanted it. My daughter’s sight could possibly depend on it! But still. Yikes. Glad we don’t really have to worry about it that much. I’m just incredibly grateful that it wasn’t a choice between the medication and groceries for a week.

We settled in for another round of waiting. The kids were starting to go wild. Erik was dancing and singing to Living on a Prayer way too loudly. A creepy redneck hick was staring at the kids and kept telling me how beautiful they were and wanted to know why Erik knew Living on a Prayer.

We didn’t get home until almost 6:30. It was such a grueling day, and I didn’t get a chance to prepare anything for our upcoming trip, so I guess we will be leaving later than we intended. Good things accommodations are free and flexible! We need to pack and clean the bathrooms before we go. Also, maybe do a dump run. I totally forgot to take the garbage out this morning (wonder why?) and I don’t want it sitting here another week while we are gone. It already smells bad enough. Ugh.

*I’m trying to be a good mom and pay attention to the things Erik is interested in. This means I am playing Social Empire and Dragon Cities on FaceBook. Sorry friends. However, I have to say I am getting just a weeeeeeeee bit obsessed with my empire and may need to cut this entry short so I can go make sure no trolls are attacking my village. Also, I need a shit load of gold so I can build a cool castle.

Only problem? Now my computer is acting really funky and I’m worried the game put a virus on my computer.

*I just signed the kids up for swim lessons! They will be taking them at the same time, though Erik will be Level 1 and Elsa will be level 2. Hope that doesn’t freak him out, but she is willing to go under water and he refuses to get his face wet, so them’s the breaks. This is a new place in town that just does swim lessons. They leased out an old restaurant and put in a special teaching pool. The parents sit outside the pool area behind one way glass. This is going to be so much better than the lessons I did with Erik when Elsa was a newborn (I hope).

*Poor Elsa just can not catch a break. Last week she fell and scraped half her face off. Luckily she is only 3 and has amazing baby skin that healed super fast (with the help of some Neosporin). All that’s left is some shiny pink scar tissue below her eye.

Yesterday she woke up and I noticed her eye was looking a little pink, like maybe she had a mosquito bite. She was scratching it, but the eyeball itself was clear so I didn’t think much of it. I would have liked to put something on it, but what can you put that would be eye safe?

Last night she woke up screaming in middle of the night and when I turned on the light I recoiled in horror. Her whole eye was swollen shut. I tried to give her Zyrtec, the only allergy med I had in children’s strength (I know I had Children’s Benedryl at some point, but it was never used and I couldn’t find it) but she refused to take it.

It was looking really bad this morning, so I had Mike run to CVS before work and get some Children’s Benedryl, then I called the doctor to find out the correct dosage the moment they opened. When they heard my story they asked how fast I could get to the office. Ten minutes later they were examining her and making sure she wasn’t going to go blind. Apparently they take any swelling of the eye very seriously, which is a good thing.

They gave her a Clariton and told me to give her Benedryl tonight. If it goes above her eyebrow or if it starts streaking red I am supposed to take her to the ER immediately because there is a possibility of infection, especially if she is scratching it. Infections that close to the eye need to be controlled immediately.

I went and bought some more children’s chewable Clariton and about had a heart attack. $22 for 20 pills!?!?! I need to get over to Costco and see if they have a version. I paid $18.99 for my year’s supply of Kirkland Claritan.

I’m really glad I thought to ask for a note so she’d be cleared for all activities. As soon as I walked into the gym daycare they told me she had pinkeye and couldn’t be in there. I whipped out my note and stood my ground. Bah. There are some really great things about the daycare (excellent level of care, consistent employees), but some of their administrative non-sense pisses me off. Obviously a child with pinkeye should not be in a daycare setting, but do they even know what pinkeye is? Her eyeball itself would be pink, I think.

*Poor Erik had his share of trouble yesterday. We were at the library Discovery Room, a playroom you can reserve for an hour. He went to the bathroom by himself (I could see the door from the playroom window) and never came out. I was getting pretty worried, but figured he must be pooping. I was waffling between going and finding him or just waiting it out when the librarian opened the bathroom door. It looked like he had been puking or something, he was white as a ghost and had super red eyes.

I feel so, so bad. He was locked in the bathroom and had apparently been screaming bloody murder, trying to get out. The librarian says the door sometimes “catches” and can be hard to open. Now he refuses to go in any public bathroom alone, but he won’t go into the ladies room with me so he’s got a big problem.

*The kids had MyGym camp today which meant I had three hours of free time! I went to Trader Joe’s for the first time in 7 years and finally figured out why people love it. The snacks! Super cheap, interesting, organic snacks! The last time I was there Erik was a little baby. I didn’t need praline pecans or alphabet cookies. Now? Now I could do with cheap organic snacks!

The parking situation is terrible and it’s in the trashy part of the next town over, so it is not a place I would normally think to go to. My friend talks about it constantly and the kids loved some of the snacks they had at her place, so I decided to give it a go. I got three huge bags of groceries, including fresh hydrangeas for less than $90!

I also went to Jo-Ann’s fabrics just to enjoy the atmosphere. It’s not a real quilt shop, but it will do. I ended up buying fabric for Elsa’s story quilt!

You get a plain background and a contrasting fabric for the lines, then put together a bunch of novelty fabrics. The children are supposed to follow the novelty fabrics via the lines and put together a fun story. Erik has never used it in such a way, but I have high hopes that Elsa will get a kick out of making up stories. She already exhibits much more imagination than Erik ever has. He is much more grounded in reality.

Her quilt will be purple with hot pink lines. I hope the contrast is enough to make the lines really pop. I did a quick search on Flickr for my quilt and several others popped up. One was aqua with red lines. Gorgeous! I would do that color combo for myself! Btw, who hates the new Flickr? What the heck happened?

I also want to make her a quick purple princess quilt for her bed. Just gotta finish up the fabric purchases and find time to sew. The story quilt will have to take a back seat because it will take a whole heck of a lot longer to make. I’ll probably not get started on it until Elsa starts preschool in September.

*And now I should probably do something productive like make dinner or fold towels. Probably make dinner. I’ve been eating too many chocolate covered almonds today. I need to get back to Weight Watchers.

*Elsa ended up screaming bloody murder for an hour, so there is no dinner tonight. Mike is home now and I just popped some of my Trader Joe purchases in the oven. I meant to have them for lunch since I usually do dinner from scratch, but this works since it is almost 7 pm. Did you know Mulan is on Netflix? It’s my favorite Disney movie! Now the kids are down watching it and I am up here listening for the timer. Boooo! I guess I should play it on my laptop. I didn’t know they had Disney movies on Netflix, though it seems like Mulan is kind of the red-headed stepchild of the Disney princess series. She is rarely included in anything even though she is the most badass “princess” of all.

We have a small sum of money set aside for house repairs or a mini-vacation. I was advocating for ceiling fans in the bedrooms or new medicine cabinets, but Erik and Mike are advocating for a small vacation.

I started looking into beach rentals yesterday and we could swing a couple of nights on the Maryland shore. I was talking about it with a friend today and guess what? She has a beach house that is available for FREE for two weeks. Free always fits the budget! Of course I offered to pay her, but she refused to take any money. We will leave it cleaner than we find it and be sure to stock up on groceries and leave her wine or beer or something. We won’t go a a full two weeks, but it is going to be a longer trip than we could otherwise afford. I am so happy!

Speaking of vacations, Mike wants to go to Sweden next summer. At first he asked me if he could take the kids to Sweden since I always tell him he can go and I’ll stay home. Moment of truth, though, hit me like a brick. No way are my kids going to a foreign country without me. I trust Mike 100%, but my babies need me.

Mike has a year to figure out accommodations. Surely there are vacation rental homes in or around Klippan. I absolutely refuse to stay at the family farm. I wouldn’t mind staying with one of the nieces or nephews if they had room for us, but it would be weird to invite ourselves into their homes.

Mike’s sister-in-law has it out for me and I am not even sure why. Before I found my Dealing with the Inlaws forum I tried to make excuses for her or thought she made some mistakes, but after much reading I know that she purposefully does shit to piss me off. Why else would you make octopus pasta for someone you know hates seafood and chop up the octopus into such tiny pieces no one can see it, then gloat about it? Sorry Mike, but that is just bat shit crazy. If I have a guest in my home I try to accommodate their likes and dislikes, as do all normal people. Normal people don’t trick others into eating food they don’t like. I’ve never hidden olives or beans in my dishes and tried to get Mike to eat them. I’ve tried to get him to eat both, but never through subterfuge.

Normal people don’t try to sell their guests their old fat clothes. And they really don’t get offended when their guests don’t want to spend a shit ton of money on said fat clothes. She was selling her old clothes for more money than I pay for new clothes!

So I guess we have a big trip to look forward to next year. I can see a Swedish summer vacation being really fun, but not with the family element mixed in. If anyone has any tips on travelling with kids around the Klippan/Angelholm area, I’m all ears. Mike’s family* has never met Elsa (I was six months pregnant the last time we were there). There are also three new great-grandbabies and another one on the way that we’ve never met. At least that means Elsa will have someone to play with.

I guess I should wrap this up and go take a shower. We went to the splash park this morning, so I was planning on going to the gym this afternoon. Elsa was up super early and managed to fall asleep during Tangled. She’s going on 2.5 hours of sleep and I don’t think I’ll have time for a workout before I need to cook dinner.

*For newer readers, Mike is much younger than his siblings. I am closer in age to his nieces and nephews than his siblings. His niece has two children and his nephew has one and one on the way.

This is the first full week that I’ve had Erik with me 24/7 for the summer. No camps, no playdates. Just mommy, Erik and Elsa all trying to keep it together.

I’m not keeping it together very well. I am not being the kind of mother I want to be.

What do I want to be?

Loving, patient, kind. Using words to solve problems, never violent or nasty. Allowing children to help with things (cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping) so they learn how to do them and are a part of the family. I want to act interested in the things they are interested in so they will talk to me when they are teenagers, even if that currently means listening to video game/pokemon/princess talk for an hour. I want to encourage learning and reading and figuring things out. I want to be a hard ass about them doing things themselves and solving their own problems, while always being available to help them figure out how to do it or lend support when it is a problem they can’t handle on their own.

What am I actually like?

Screamy, arm-grabby, and lecturey.

I do some things right. I listen to their never-ending talk about the latest kid thing that I don’t give two flying fips about. I make them problem solve. I have their back when someone causes trouble. I spend a lot of time letting them help me cook and clean and do other tasks that would be much quicker if I sent them on their merry way and did it myself.

But I have got to stop with the screaming. I scream because they are screaming. I scream for them to stop screaming. I scream because they will not. stop. making. noise. Wonderful example I’m setting, isn’t it?

Yesterday I completely lost it and did something I’ve never, ever done before. I started yelling “Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up.” at Erik, which was awful and I still feel terrible about. I have never told either of my children to shut up. I have apologized several times and feel even worse because Erik says “I don’t care. Why would I care? People tell me to shut up all the time at school.” Breaks my heart!

So yeah. Summer is driving me bonkers. Why did I scream for him to shut up? Elsa got in “his” side of the van and he wouldn’t stop screaming about it. I am so over this “my side” thing. I know that is just what siblings do and I wouldn’t care if they talked about it, but the screaming sets my teeth on edge.

Erik has also developed this charming habit of making a scream like a dying robot* at random times. It makes me want to slap him across the face (for the record, I have never slapped my children nor will I ever slap my children).

I’m very sensitive to sounds and the yelling and screaming and random robot noises are pushing me over the edge.

It also doesn’t help that Erik is 7, the age of judgement. He thinks he’s the boss of everything and Elsa is only three, thus she can do nothing right. Of course she can’t do things like a grown-up does, or even like a 7 year old does. She can’t scoop out the cookie dough and line it up correctly. She can’t slice strawberries correctly. She can’t put puzzles together exactly right without doing a little testing. She’s THREE. She is learning and we must give her room to learn.

But he’s SEVEN and he doesn’t care. He’s a bleepity-bleepin’ drill sergeant and doesn’t care about gentle parenting. He’s not a parent and it’s not his job to care about such things, but it is also not his job to police every move made by his little sister. It is driving me in-freakin’-sane. I know it is pay-back, because I was exactly like that when I was a kid, but it has to end. I need him to chill.

______

Several hours later:

This afternoon was so much better! Probably because I threw away my “no screen time from 10 am-6 pm” rule and let them vegetate for much too long this afternoon. Later when I instituted DEAR** time, I pretended I didn’t notice when they banded against me and silently did a puzzle together instead of reading. I am sort of a control freak and have a hard time letting them purposefully do something that goes against something I’ve specifically instructed them to do (read a book), but I am trying very hard to get over that and view it as a positive that they were able to use their sibling bond to silently thwart me. Silence was the key, here, by the way. Sometimes I just need a little silence.

We went to my friend’s house for a BBQ yesterday and my friend made some Rosemary Ranch chicken, which Erik thought was totally delicious. He’s completely obsessed with this chicken. Today at the library one of my friends mentioned my chicken friend and Erik lit up “Did you say Amy? Chicken! Chicken! Let’s make chicken! Amy makes delicious chicken!”

Also, he’s in love with Amy even though she’s pregnant, and has two children and a husband. I’m sure that has something to do with his chicken love.

Our MOMS Club was doing our monthly picnic-in-the-park family night this evening and Erik was dying to take the delicious chicken, even though I didn’t want to go.

So guess what we did? Off to the store we went and we bought a gigantic amount of chicken thighs, rosemary and ranch dressing. Since this was Erik’s obsession, I made him mix the marinade, which he was quite happy to do. We then took the whole she-bang to the park and grilled it. I must admit, the chicken was totally amazing and Erik was floating away on cloud 9 since people were paying attention to him for his mad chicken making skillz. He is so in love with my friend, though, that he told her that her chicken will always be better than his. He is such a charmer (when he is not driving me crazy with the sibling rivalry).

I need to sit Mike down with a calendar and figure out when he can take some vacation days. He needs to bond with his children this summer too. I can’t be the only one bonding the hell out of these kids. I love Erik dearly and would do anything for him, but his personality is just a little “extra” and takes a lot of mental energy to keep up with. Plus, he totally loves me (which is great) and wants to be on top of me all. the. time (not so great). This has always been true, but when he’s at school seven hours a day I don’t notice it. I kind of liked having my body back. Elsa will jump on me and have fun, but she can also spend lots of time by herself, playing independently. We have our own groove during the school year and it has not been easy integrating Erik back into our days. Doesn’t that sound terrible? It is not meant to be a complaint about him, just a complaint about the general difficulty of having the structure of our days completely changed because of summer break.

Right now the majority of my friends are people who have young children. Irish Lad and his family are out of town most of the summer and Erik’s other pea-in-a-pod friend is in camp for most of the summer. That means Erik is not having a whole lot of fun when we go places because he doesn’t have anyone to run around with. I know it is not easy and I try to make sure he gets to play with his friends, but I can’t put our whole life on hold because he has joined us for the summer. We have places to go, people to see, things to do! We’re going swimming and splash parking and BBQing. Fun stuff, but not as fun as it could be if he had a kid his age along for the ride.

Six more weeks. We can do this! But can we do this with the TV and computer turned off for most of the day?

*If you are familiar with LEGO Star Wars you know the noise R2D2 makes.

**Drop Everything And Read