The Queen's Rambles

I don’t know if it is my e-mail or LJ, but I only got a couple of your comments in my e-mail. I just logged in and saw that there were a ton of other comments. Thank you, everyone! I think you are all right in several ways.

Yes, this winter is never ending. Living in the DC area for 8 years, I’ve gotten very used to mild winters and a lot of time spent outdoors. People here generally won’t go out if it’s below 50, but I just bundle the kids up and out we go. I find it more enjoyable than the muggy, buggy summers. This winter has been much too cold and snowy. Now that the snow is melted, we still can’t really go outside because it is a muddy mess. I almost fell on my butt when I checked the mail, the grassy area was so muddy and slippery. When 19 inches of snow melts over the course of just a few warm days, it leaves a lot of water.

Physical therapy has also caused a lot of this depression, I think. For the past month I’ve had absolutely ZERO me time. I drop Elsa off at preschool, head over to physical therapy, hang out with a bunch of weirdos while doing some seriously sexual looking moves for two hours, barely have time to run home and grab a bite to eat, then pick Elsa up again. No time to relax, work on a project, or enjoy those precious hours of freedom.

Plus, it means I wasn’t going to the gym, thus I was not getting my endorphins. I’ve discovered that I really can not function well if I am not getting those endorphins.

I am finally done with physical therapy, so hoping to get back on track with my free time and my gym usage. I have got to get this body moving!

Yesterday I somehow found some motivation (the toilet flooded, so I was very motivated to clean that up right away) and as long as I kept moving and didn’t sit down, I accomplished a lot and felt better. I just need to keep applying that lesson.

If I can’t get myself back on track by next Friday, I’m going to schedule a therapy appointment. I’ve never had therapy and it makes me nervous, but I really do not like feeling the way I’ve been feeling. If therapy is the kick in the pants I need, so be it. I’m open to the idea. . . just hoping I can get myself on track before then.

****Several Hours Later*****
Well, maybe it was just sunshine, fresh air and socialization that I needed. I spent about 3 hours at the park with the kids today, sitting on the park bench and talking to one of my best friends. What a difference it made!

The playground was not too muddy, but there were huge mud puddles in the grassy areas. It was 60 degrees out, so my friend and I let our three little ones (Elsa and her two boys) jump in the puddles for over an hour. You should have seen the side eye we were getting from other park people. It was mostly young families with their first babies barely walking, so they are not quite at the point of throwing up their hands and saying “oh well, that’s what plastic bags and washing machines are for.”

By lucky happenstance, our old neighbors showed up to do work on their house today. We took their daughter (Erik’s age) to the park with us and they had a great time playing together. Erik generally does much better with girls, which is kind of funny. He really is a gentle spirit, compared to many of the boys I know. He enjoys rough housing a little bit, but not like the boys around our neighborhood, who have no limits and leave bruises.

I am completely unmotivated. I’ve been completely unmotivated since before Christmas. I can’t seem to take care of myself, my children or my home. Yes, we are all alive and trucking along, but I can’t seem to pull myself out of my chair to do the nitty gritty chores not absolutely required. I don’t vacuum every day like I used to (sounds obsessive, but we have a carpeted dining room so it really needs to be done daily). I don’t interact with Elsa the way I’d like to. I can’t seem to stick to a diet and have completely given up on pretending that I care.

I don’t know.

I need a gigantic kick in the pants, but I don’t know what that kick might be. Mike says I just need to get a job, but nope. Not gonna happen until Elsa is in kindergarten.

I think a huge part of the problem is that I am not socializing all that much anymore. Now that Elsa is in preschool I don’t have many MOMS Club events to go to and I’m getting lonely. I never thought of myself as an extravert, but as I grow older and learn to know myself better I’ve discovered that I am an extravert if I’m with the right crowd. It’s just a matter of finding that crowd. My crowd is slowly moving away and I’m not sure how to replace it.

I feel especially bad that I have been so short with Elsa. She is in the stage that I really can’t handle very well–constantly telling me she doesn’t like me, wants a new mommy, wants to live somewhere else. Yet, she is also constantly pulling at my clothes and sticking her hands under my shirt to grope my belly and boobs. She even tried to nurse when I was getting in the shower and leaned over to put my towel down! Talk about a surprise! Today her preschool teacher pulled me aside and said I needed to work on having her not grope the teacher. She didn’t say it quite like that, but that is what she meant.

I am in a bad cycle with her and I have to change up the game. I am patient, patient, patient, patient, then blow up, then apologize profusely and sometimes give her what she wanted even though I know I am completely undermining my own parenting. I have to start preventing the blow up. I have to get control of myself.

This is a really hard age and I know that. We will get through. I just hope we get through with minimal psychological damage. She is such a different child than Erik. In some ways she is so much easier, but in other ways she is infinitely harder. He was not sensitive at all. Basically you have to yell at him to get his attention and even then he just looks right through you or says “oh, come on.” She melts down at a raised voice. Yet she doesn’t listen to a normal voice. So I yell. And then she wants a new mommy. Is it any wonder?

I really need to do something to refresh myself–my parenting skills, my eating habits, everything. If I was a robot, I could be re-booted. Maybe even refurbished. As it is, I am feeling stuck and don’t know what to do to unstick me.

We ended up having a really nice family Valentine’s Day yesterday. I am so proud of Erik–he is getting to be so thoughtful and mature. It is really nice to see all the blood, sweat and tears we’ve put into making him a good citizen pay off. Elsa is still in the feral animal stage, which can be so disheartening, then we look over at him and see that yes, indeed, thoughtful parenting will eventually create a thoughtful kid.

When I went to bed the night before, I left a Valentine’s gift out for each family member (excluding myself). When Erik realized I didn’t have a gift he was very, very upset and immediately started making me cards, giving me his chocolate, and telling me how much he loved me. He sacrificed his chocolate for me! That’s huge! I also got a card from a secret admirer, so I told Mike he better watch out! Haha! It was fairly obvious who the secret admirer was–the handwriting was very Eightish.

We spent Friday morning making Valentine’s for the kids’ parties (they were delayed till Tuesday since Friday was a snow day) and Erik spent a long time thinking about the cards for each individual child. It was pretty cool to have a “boy” pack and “girl” pack of Valentines so he could semi-customize each card. He gave most of the girls a card from Frozen, but the girl he hangs out with got a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle card. I was amused (and yes, we did have a talk about gender roles and there not really being things that are for boys and for girls, that anyone can like anything).

I know this sounds silly, but I am just so proud of him for recognizing that not every body likes the exact same thing he likes. He’s getting empathy! It’s a long road for a child to develop empathy, but it’s a beautiful thing when it finally happens.

It was also funny because I told him we had M&Ms to tape on the cards and he was coming up with all kinds of crazy schemes to tape them on individually. He didn’t realize they came in single serving bags.

Later, when Mike came home with flowers and a card, I pointed them out to Erik to show that he didn’t have to feel sad for me. He was quite put out and wanted me to know that his gift was much better than his father’s gift. We were definitely getting some Oedipal vibes.

Then!

Then!

Last night he declared he was going to sleep with us, and wouldn’t get out of my bed until I rather forcibly kicked him out. That never happens, so I was wondering how much he realized about Valentine’s being the holiday of love and if he was subconsciously or even consciously trying to prevent some lovin’.

I made Mike an origami fortune teller (more commonly known as a cootie catcher) with date nights listed on the inside. We didn’t have a babysitter scheduled and the roads were crap, so going out was not in the cards for us. I hate going out on Valentine’s anyway. I find crowds very overwhelming.

He ended up picking fondue night followed by chocolate, so we did a family fondue night. The original idea was some sexy chocolate time, but let’s face it. We are old, have little children that might interrupt us at any moment, and had just washed the sheets. We made chocolate fondue and had regular vanilla sex after the kids were in bed. With kids, that’s about as exciting as we get (and it is plenty good enough for me).

My mom is talking about coming over in April, so I’d really like to plan a date night while she’s here. I want to go into DC and either do a walking tour or see a show, then go to a fancy restaurant and stay at a nice hotel for a relaxing evening of fun. Nothing says relaxing like listening for little footsteps out of one ear.

It snowed!

Isn’t that the only thing anyone has to say these days? Unless you live in my hometown, and you can say “It hasn’t snowed and the farmers are crying.” I would love to pack up this snow and send it to the farmers, but it doesn’t work like that.

Like most of you, we’ve had a crazy winter and are going stir-crazy. This was the worst snow yet with 19″ being the biggest number I’ve heard. Thank goodness our neighbors have a snow blower and spent the day helping our little section get cleaned up. It’s supposed to snow some more tonight, but not nearly as much.

You all remember the Dutch lady who is rude and weird? She’s still hanging around my MOMS Club and causing trouble. As venues were cancelling and shuffling events, she kept trying to make plans. People kept saying “ummmmm. . you realize there’s going to be 13 inches of snow? No one’s going anywhere” and she kept saying “I don’t believe them.” Because she is suddenly a meteorologist? The governor of our state called a state of emergency, but she has better information than him?

Yesterday I had PTA drama that I was complaining about at our MOMS Club event and I said “and we won’t even have school Thursday or Friday so it doesn’t even matter!” and she looked at me like I was nuts. “Why on earth wouldn’t we have school on Thursday and Friday?” She completely scoffed at me when I mentioned the snow and the impending doom. “There’s no way we’ll even get an inch,” she told me.

In yo face, bi-atch.

That whole interaction makes the snow a gleeful experience (plus, our power didn’t go out and we have plenty of food and we are all home, so no worries).

Also gleeful: I decided to splurge and buy myself snow pants in middle of the Polar Vortex. They arrived too late to be useful for that cold spell, but they were the best thing ever today. At least as an adult I can use them for years. I certainly hope I don’t outgrow them*!

I went to TJMaxx the other day, which is a rarity for me. I think that’s the third time I’ve ever been in there. I was hoping to score some clothes for Elsa, but they didn’t have anything worth buying. However, they did have glassware! I am in love with fancy glass containers and little cupcake stands. I restrained myself and only bought one, but if the snow ever ends I’m going to go buy a couple more. They are so fancy for a party! As an adult I should have some fancy things. I really love being able to pull out nice serving trays, casserole dishes with covers, and various other items that I consider “adult.” I’m going to be 40 in six weeks. I think the novelty of being an adult should wear off soon.

At any rate, the fancy glass container I bought needed something pretty, so I baked some more Cherry White Chocolate Shortbread cookies, which are totally amazing. They are perfect for Valentines and look so pretty in the jar, but the challenge is keeping them in the jar when everyone wants to eat them. My plan was not well thought out. I should have filled it with conversation hearts. Elsa found an old box of them from last year and declared that they are “nasty.” Which is probably why there was a box in the old craft box. Those thing are nasty.

Hmmmmm. . . I should go make my kids some Valentines for them to wake up to! And maybe my husband! That was the one thing I didn’t prepare for before the snow storm. I was going to get stuff on Wednesday night, but somehow that didn’t happen.

*I watched part of a documentary on a lady who weighed over 1,000 pounds. I just can’t imagine. How do you let yourself get there? Though I suppose there are people who look at me and ask that same question. But at least I can get up and take care of my family and myself. The documentary was kind of vulgar since she was too big to wear clothes. It showed her husband cleaning her body. Doctors estimated that each butt cheek weighed over 100 pounds. I felt so bad for her because she seemed like a nice lady, except that the whole reason they even knew she existed is because she went to court for murder, so she wasn’t that nice of a lady!

Erik refuses to eat his lunch at school. He refuses to eat the school lunch, which is totally fine with me because I wouldn’t want him eating that crap anyway. But he now refuses to eat anything I send him either. Sandwiches get squished. Cereal bars get crumbly. Cheese, vegetables, fruit, pepperoni, etc gets “dried out.” Whole fruit like apples and clementines get a turned up nose. He won’t eat nuts. Go-gurt (which I hate on principal because it is disgusting to slurp food out of a plastic tube) is “probably bad and will make me sick” even if I freeze it and send it in with an ice pack and it’s still cold. At least he knows something about food safety?

The mac and cheese and pasta that he used to eat every day with no problems is now “just not good.” Which. . . .ok, I was not happy that all he was eating was carbs. I want him to eat some carrot sticks or apple slices!

I’ve tried sending in leftovers of meals that he’s gobbled up the night before and said was the “best thing I ever ate!” Those come back with nary a nibble taken out of them.

I ask him “aren’t you hungry in the afternoons?” and he admits he is. I hate thinking of him sitting there, starving. I know it makes him grouchy, so he’s probably a real pleasure to deal with.

I asked him what I could send and he gave me completely unrealistic responses: A box of cookies, a whole loaf of homemade bread (I would be more than happy to send him slices, but he says slices get squished in his lunch. And a whole loaf wouldn’t? Is he just going to tear in to it like a neanderthal? They wouldn’t let him have a metal fork in his lunch box, how are they going to let him have a big ol’ bread knife?), or steak. Because every 8 year old needs a steady diet of steak. I would not mind sending him steak in his thermos sometimes, but who can afford a daily ration of steak? We’re not living in Downtown. If we were we’d have private tutors.

And now Elsa is having a complete meltdown tantrum that I can’t even deal with. She handed me the packing from a band-aid, so I threw it away. And now she is screaming and crying and going through the trash saying “I want garbage! I want garbage!” What a cruel mother I am.

Woke up with morning with a yucky cold and a world covered in ice. School has been cancelled, again. I know this is the same story in half the United States. Climate change, eh? The world is about to get really scary, really fast.

We’ve actually had more school than a lot of places, but we’ve used up all our snow days and will now be going extra. That doesn’t really matter to me since I don’t have any big plans. We had originally tried to book a camping trip to Jellystone right after school let out, but the timing didn’t work out so now I’m glad to not have a non-refundable trip on the books.

I really hope the Airborne does it’s magic and kicks this cold to the curb sooner rather than later. I am already feeling slightly better, but I think that’s just because I took a handful of Advil for my sore throat. By the way, you do know that Advil is great for a sore throat, right? It is a pain killer and anti-inflammatory, so works better than a Sucrets ever could. My mother still doesn’t know this even though I’ve told her at least 20 times. I learned this from my school nurse when I was in college. I wish my mom would have known because I always had sore throats as a kid. Life is just so much better these days–colds don’t drag on for days and noses don’t get sore. Thank you Airborne and Puffs Plus!

I went back to the gym for the first time in over a month yesterday. I am feeling it today! I had PT after the gym and didn’t think that would be a big deal, except they upped my PT workout so I was a little shaky. I did have to laugh, though. They wanted me to do 10 minutes on the bike and had it set at the lowest possible level. The guy kept coming over and asking if I was ok and if I would be able to do it for a full ten minutes. Ummmmm. . . yeah. I think I can handle 10 minutes on a bike since I regularly do an hour on the elliptical. I can’t even call the bike a cardio workout because the setting was so low that it didn’t raise my heart rate. The only part that hurt was my ass from sitting on that tiny little seat.

I do a lot of leg lifts during PT, which always makes me feel like I’m in a Jane Fonda video. Yesterday they added ankle weights to the leg lifts, so I really felt like I needed a braided sweat band and leg warmers.

My Read-a-Thon is wrapping up and it seems to be pretty successful from a financial standpoint. The money is due next week, but we’ve already gotten in about $1,000. I was worried we wouldn’t make anything, but the families who love the idea of the Read-a-Thon really love it. We had three families give $100 each. I’m so glad, because the PTA president and the principal thought it would be a total fail. I feel like saying “in yo face, yo.” I’ll just think it instead.

It’s funny–people either love the idea (and value reading) or completely don’t get it. The people who are contributing are the people who never buy random crap and the people who buy random crap and generally not the ones contributing to the read-a-thon. I suppose it’s just two completely different mindsets. I have learned that I will never understand that mindset of the majority of people, which is why I get so frustrated in life. Things that are so clear and self-evident to me are obviously not self-evident to many. Somehow this does nothing to convince me to change my viewpoint, despite being in the minority.

Just today on the Ask Moxie FB page, a page that is generally full of involved, thoughtful parents, there is a big thing about homework. I was shocked by the number of parents who said they don’t go over their young children’s homework. They were making some remarks about the homework is for the child; they’d been to school and don’t need to re-do 2nd grade homework; it’s the teacher’s job to check the work. I feel like they are missing a vital purpose of the homework. No one is suggesting you do the homework. Absolutely not. But how can you not check over your first grader’s homework and make sure s/he understands the basic concepts? There is really not a lot of individualized attention at school, so going over homework is a parent’s chance to make sure their child understands what’s going on. Heck, even with an older child I would check over the work if the child was struggling in school. As a former teacher, I can tell you that a parent’s involvement is often the key to a child’s success (or at least lack of failure. I think true success has to come from a deep desire within the child and a parent can only do so much to keep a child on track).

If you have a young child, get yourself some kind of reminder system and have this little note e-mailed to you about six months before your child’s 8th birthday “DO NOT HAVE AN 8TH BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!!!!!!” Instead, plan a one or two kid sleepover or movie/bowling/Chuck E. Cheese event. Seriously, do not plan a party for more than three children.

We went to the worst party today. It wasn’t that it was poorly planned, lacking cake or anything else (I went to the most poorly planned birthday party in the history of the world last June). It was simply that a big group of eight year old’s can’t seem to function as a group. I’ve been to a lot of kiddie parties and never have I seen so many crying meltdowns. Nor have I ever seen such a brawl as the one we had to break-up. It was in-freaking-sane.

It was our good friend’s birthday–Irish Lad, the little boy Erik has been besties with since they were two years old. We spend a lot of time together and are in a good place right now, so Mike and I hung around to help manage the party. It was a home party with pizza, cake and a variety of board games. But nobody wanted to play any of the board games. None of the kids could agree on anything And eight year olds? They are big. Shrieking, running, jumping and all of that rambunctious energy that is annoying in four year olds becomes something all together different in eight year olds.

Erik’s eighth birthday was back in October and it was definitely the last big party we will have. We noticed at the time that bringing together kids from different areas of his life simply doesn’t work anymore. At this age they are much more aware of their social setting and less willing to include people from outside of their circle. They tend to have a couple of good friends and don’t want to include people outside of that clique. I need to read a book about 8 year old development to see if that is really what’s going on. Erik’s party was not a complete fail, but only because we only had four guests show up (which was sort of a fail in itself).

After the party today I went and met up with one of my long time friends who moved to Virginia last year, which means I never see her. She just had her son’s 8th birthday party last week and she said the same thing–never again. I guess their party went pretty much the same as the party today–the kids just couldn’t get along. However, I don’t think there was actual physical violence at her party.

So I’m taking these three separate parties and coming to one conclusion: never host an 8 year old party.

More about this party: Erik was one of the kids having a complete meltdown. All the other guests go to a different school together so they don’t know Erik. He is one of the popular kids at his school and the ring leader of a lot of games. He has respect and is known for having good ideas. The kids at this party did not know about his awesomeness and completely ignored him. He is not used to being ignored.

They were all really bored and didn’t want to play the board games the hosts provided, so I taught them a more active game called Alien Invasion. The game requires the kids to work together, but they couldn’t manage to pull it together and come up with a plan to defeat the evil aliens (Mike and Irish Lad’s dad). Also, they were being super wimpy about it, which was frustrating Erik. We had to stop the game after he came downstairs and was legit sobbing and saying he wanted to go home. Not at all appropriate behavior, which we talked to him about. But I didn’t really blame him because two of the kids were being super jerky.

Then the kids all went outside to get out some energy and that’s when the brawl started. I don’t really know what started it, but there was a pile-up of three kids, including the birthday boy. He wanted everyone to leave, and I don’t blame him. The whole party dragged on way too long and the kids were sniping at each other and fighting.

I told my friend that we should get the kids in their shoes and coats and have them waiting at the door when the parents showed up. She thought I was joking, but I was dead serious. Those kids needed to get out of there.

So yeah. . . . long day, and not even a party for my kid. We really needed to break out some booze during the party.