The Queen's Rambles

I may be wireless, but I’m feeling very de-wired these days. I can’t hold a baby, a four year old and a computer. I’d like to kick off the four year old, but what kind of a mother would that make me? “Sorry dear, the computer is more important than you!” Which, of course, is not true. It’s just that the computer is more entertaining. I do not need to hear all the gibberish Erik shares in his every waking moment. Here’s a perfect example of why my computer is more brain stimulating than my four year old:

E: Mommy, mommy! Name my flower!
M: How about Petunia.
E: No. You can only name it the name I want to name it.
M: Ok, what name do you want to name it.
E: I’m not telling you. You have to name it yourself. But it has to be the name I want.

And around and round she goes.

We’ve done lots of stuff since I last posted, some of it even sort of post worthy.

I was really excited a few days ago when I learned about a charter school that some people are trying to open up just down the road from Erik’s preschool. A lady I know is on the board and she is all sorts of awesome, so I thought the school would be all sorts of awesome. It would be nature based, meaning the kids would spend a lot of time outside. I think Erik would totally thrive in an environment like that.

I contacted the main person and was invited a a Founders’ meeting the very next day. I had to go, of course! It was perfect. They are planning on opening the school in Fall 2011 and if you are a founding family (meaning you do a lot of volunteer work) you get preference for admission.

So off we went, through a major rainstorm (I couldn’t even see the road), with the two kids in tow.

What a joke.

I was really disappointed. The lady in charge had no idea what she was doing. Or rather, she had just enough of an idea to make it seem like she knew what she was doing, but once you really listened to her she had no clue. There were only 8 people at the meeting. Five of us had barely heard of the school and were just trying to get information, but she broke us into two groups and started trying to assign us tasks. Luckily I was not put with my friend. My friend’s group was working really hard on planning academics and I could hear that they knew what they were doing and they could make their part of the plan work.

Somehow we ended up on Facilities and Finance, which we know nothing about. I do, however, have a few idea. A) Thinking that Extreme Home Makeover will come out and renovate the school building you want to use is not an actual plan. B) Saying “I’m sure we can just rent out a few rooms from (name different places that you’ve never talked to and probably wouldn’t actually have the space or desire to rent out from a school) isn’t really a plan either.

There were people who actually knew stuff, but the lady didn’t really want to hear what people knew. One lady was asking about how they would handle the sewage since the current prospective site is on septic and would not handle a large load. The lady was not at all interested in solving that problem, but those are exactly the kinds of problems she is going to have to solve. She also mentioned something about school lunches and said she thought we could probably just serve whatever we wanted and not worry about it. Uhhhhh. No. I actually have some expertise in this field since I’ve worked in schools and food service at a senior center. There are very serious rules in place to meet USDA standards. She didn’t really want to hear about that, either.

I was really disappointed, and not pleased at wasting our Sunday afternoon but at least we learned not to get too excited. As soon as Mike and I were back in the van we looked at each other and started laughing. I believe our one word response was simply “No.” I don’t believe there is any way they are going to get their school approved for a Fall 2011 opening, if ever.

We were back to the daily grind today. The daily grind being playdates and such. I have a rough life. I have several pool playdates lined up for the month. I don’t know if I even need to get a pool membership for our family if all our friends keep inviting us to their pools.

We met up with friends we haven’t seen in forever, so that was really nice. Plus, my across the street neighbor was there with her two kids so that was a thrill for Erik as well. Her son is five days older than Elsa, but such a tiny little thing. Or maybe just normal sized? Elsa is gigantic. I still don’t see her as an Elsa. I try to call her Elsa, but generally I call her “sister” and that seems to work for now. Mike will never let me change her name. She’s named after his mother, plus he thinks I’m crazy for wanting to change it anyway. If we ever have another child (totally not in my life plan), I will not settle on a name until I actually see the baby. Lesson learned.

Anyway, our friends include a boy about Erik’s age who also enjoys being crazy and boyish. I love the mom because she likes to let them figure it out on their own and not yell at them to be nice. If they cry, they cry. It’s a very refreshing attitude and not one you see very often. We let the boys beat the crap out of each other and they loved every second of it. They never did cry. I was laughing because they are obviously children of their times. They would be rolling around on top of each other and one would say “No thank you, I really don’t like that” and the other would hop off and attack in a different way. Such polite little hooligans.

Speaking of hooligans, I did a bad thing today.

When Erik was taking his exercise class at the gym the teacher took pictures of each child and posted them on a board in the hallway. During the fall session someone stole Erik’s picture, which was very upsetting for him. I have no idea who took it or why, but it kind of freaked me out.

I was happy to see his picture from the spring session was still up, but I was sad because I didn’t know when it would be taken down and what would happen to the picture. It is an adorable picture and I NEEDED to have it. He’s my son. Rationalizing, yes, I know. You are guessing where this is going.

No one was looking, so I stole the picture. I don’t feel a bit guilty, except that I didn’t realize it was taped so it ripped a bit of the paper and kind of made it look bad. I’m going to have to scan it in in my copious amounts of free time so you can see exactly how adorable it is. Once you see it you’ll know I had no choice but to become a thief. As far as I know it’s the only thing I’ve ever stolen. I did accidentally steal a jolly rancher fire stick when I was a little kid (two were stuck together) and I wanted to go back and pay for the second one, but my mom wouldn’t let me because it was too far away. I am no longer consumed by guilt over that, especially since it was an accident.

I’ve been re-watching Veronica Mars lately. Sigh, sigh. Oh how I miss that show. Castle sort of fills that void, but not really. Anyway, I was laughing today because Veronica was supposed to send her dad a picture, proving she was where she said she was. I just expected her to whip out her phone and send a picture, but no. She had to use her camera, then hook it up to her laptop, then send an e-mail with the picture. Is that how things were done four years ago? I personally have no idea how to send a picture with my phone, but I’m pretty sure Veronica would have had it figured out.

Any of you watch Lie to Me? I had a big thrill tonight because Logan (Jason Dohring) was playing the part of a smirking psychopath. Ah, sweet, psychopathic Logan.