The Queen's Rambles

So what is it with wakey babies? Oh yeah. The whole baby thing kind of explains it all.

We seem to be on an “up till 1 am” kick, which doesn’t do nice things for me when I have a boy who is up at 7. Today he let me sleep in till 9 because our house was cold and he didn’t have any clothes on so he didn’t want to get out of his bed. That’s 8 hours of sleep, so what am I complaining about? I don’t even know. Except the hours don’t match my natural sleep rhythms.

I turned the heat on, so maybe my house will stop smelling moldy. All of a sudden all I can smell is mold, mold, everywhere. So gross. I suppose the heat will dry everything out and make my nose ache, but it is kind of nice to not be sweltering.

I offered to take Erik to the store and buy him a pair of pajamas and he looked at me like I was crazy. “Why would I want pajamas?” Indeed. He had a fit when I picked him up from school yesterday and the teacher made him put his coat on. She apologized to me later. She just thought she was helping, not realizing his Swedish blood makes him some weird ice viking.

Maybe she doesn’t know about his Swedish blood. I was talking to another mom about the teacher and we both were complaining that she talks too fast and our boys don’t listen so then the teacher says our boys don’t know how to sequence. The other mom is of Middle Eastern heritage but speaks perfect English. The teacher made a comment that maybe the boy didn’t understand the story because it was in English. The mom was pretty upset b/c the boy only speaks English. What a major assumption to make based on skin color! The funny thing is, two of the white boys in the class (Erik and one of his buds) don’t speak 100% English at home. What happens when you assume?

It is really cold and I don’t have any socks or outerwear for dear Elsa. I guess the prospect of winter never occurred to me. When Erik was a baby he was so small that I just wrapped him in blankets and that was that.

How do I not have socks for my baby?

We had friends over yesterday afternoon. I didn’t think they would come because the mom has been working through food issues with her son and our plans for the afternoon involved making cookies. I invited them anyway because the boys get bored and she is having a hard time adjusting to her son’s new schedule (he goes to a real school instead of daycare so he gets home at 3 instead of 5).

Erik. . . oh sweet Erik. As my friend said, the boy needs a shot of estrogen because he is the most competitive person on the planet. I don’t think she was exaggerating. He wanted the cookie making to be a contest. We kept asking him how that would work and he didn’t know, but he kept declaring himself the winner.

My original plan was to just have the boys work together on one batch of cookies, but as I was driving Erik home and talking about it I realized that plan wouldn’t work, so they each got their own bowl and made half a batch. I premeasured all the ingredients before his friend got here, so all the boys had to do was dump them in and stir. Erik was all over it, but his friend thought it was way too hard and wouldn’t do it. His mom did it and it was no big deal, but it is just amazing to me how different two children can me.

Ok, guess I better go and help Erik build a club house before he bursts. This is the first time he has ever requested use of his big Christmas gift from last year (big cardboard building panels). Maybe they weren’t a total waste after all.