The Queen's Rambles

What a week we’ve had! My tooth started hurting on Monday–completely unbearable pain. I was taking so much Advil that I was afraid I was going to start vomiting blood (I read the warning label). I was kicking myself for not filling my Tylenol 3 prescription from when Elsa headbutted my chin. I could have used some codeine power.

Mike walked in the door Monday afternoon and announced that he’d had a root canal that day. Was that ironic or just a weird coincidence? Was I having sympathy pain?

I finally got in for my root canal yesterday. It was unpleasant, of course, with a big handed fellow sticking his fingers in my mouth and up my nose. The pain relief, though. Ahhhhhhh. . . I’ve only had about four advil since then and don’t feel much pain at all. If anything, the injection site on the roof of my mouth is more sore than the tooth.

I guess we just blew our August budget on dental work. We know how to party!

The kids had their first swim lesson on Wednesday and it went great. Erik was totally into it and even put his face under water. Shocking! Elsa got bumped down a level, so she and Erik are in the same class. There was supposed to be another little boy in the class, but he screamed and sobbed and threw the biggest hysterical fit you’ve ever seen in your entire life and never managed to dip his toe in the water. I thought it would be nice to go to swim lessons and sit in the observation room for a half hour, but I was so wrong. It was a complete nightmare with that kid screaming and some lady undressing her older preschoolers right in middle of the room (they have changing rooms! No need for me to see naked kids!).

Erik and Elsa are being taught by a tiny, tiny little teenaged girl so I was a little worried when big ol’ Erik was supposed to jump off the edge and into her arms. He is a lot shorter than the teacher, but definitely a lot bulkier. I thought she was going down, but she managed to stay standing.

I would really like to find a place that does classes every single day for two weeks. Doing thirty minutes once a week is not going to teach these kids to swim.

What else?

I met with the PTA prez last night and we are simpatico with everything, so I’m hoping we have a positive and productive year.

But. . . I am livid. LIVID! The treasurer and former prez sent our budget into the state PTA for approval without telling us, asking us or anything. I can not believe it. I’m simply stunned that they would think to plan the budget without letting the current prez have any input whatsoever.

In kid news, there’s only three more weeks of summer! Yikes! I haven’t done any back to school shopping, but will hold off until both kids are at camp next week. I’ve talked to Erik about it a few times and he says he doesn’t want to go, he doesn’t care what I pick out, just get him something and don’t make him go to a store. I am 110% ok with that, but wish he would give me some input on what backpack he wants.

He’s such a good big brother and is finally starting to get the hang of tricking Elsa into things instead of just yelling at her. Not to say they are always nice to each other, but they do much better together than a lot of kids I know.

Elsa is still completely fierce with him and we are working on the pushing, hitting and pinching. It doesn’t help when he encourages it.

Her public and private personalities are polar opposite of each other, which is interesting to see. Our gym was bought out by Gold’s Gym and one of the new childcare rules is that children are not allowed to bring in toys from home. My mom sent her a plush Curious George yesterday and she is completely obsessed. She wanted to take it to the gym, I explained the rules, she didn’t care. I let her take it into the room because I knew we could stuff it in her cubby and they weren’t exactly going to kick us out. I was so surprised by the way she acted. She was hiding behind me, wouldn’t look at the workers (she’s known them ever since we started going there and she likes them) and she was hiding her monkey behind her back. After I put George in the cubby she was just fine.

It’s nice to have a child who cares about right and wrong, but I do worry that she fears authority too much.

Not that Erik is completely oblivious to right and wrong, but he is definitely not a rule follower, at least not until he argues a person to death to get to the exact reason a rule has been created.