The Queen's Rambles

*My son takes after his father. He looooves me. Loves loves loves me. So much he must leeeeeaaaaan on me. Constantly, constantly lean on me. Mike generally does this when he is bored out of his gourd in a store. Erik just does it. I’m glad he loves me. I hope he continues to love me. Does he really have to be in constant physical contact?

I should put a positive spin on it. In the past year I have taught him two things that are absolutes. He can’t blow in my face and he can’t touch my head. He hasn’t blown in my face in a very long time. Progress!

*There is no school today because the roads are an icy mess. Normally I kind of laugh at the crazy over-reaction people in this area have to snow, but today’s closures were warranted. It wasn’t snow. It was a mix of rain, freezing rain, snow, and freezing fog. All that means a total mess on the roads. Mike even went in to work late.

Certain neighbors started pick-axing the road around 5 am. I’m exhausted. The pick-axing has continued all the live-long-day and my head is about to explode. If I take any more Advil I’ll probably give Elsa that disease babies get if they have too much Advil. Is that even a thing? Or am I misremembering my soap opera ailments? I think Kendall, Erika Cain’s daughter, had it when she was a little kid. I probably shouldn’t base any sort of medical decision based on a soap opera that I saw when I was a kid.

*We decided to get out of the house yesterday and were all sniping at each other in the car when we realized. Duh! We’re all grouchy because we forgot lunch. We were headed to a specific retail location that didn’t have much in the way of eateries so ended up at a Chinese restaurant. I have never been a huge Chinese fan, though the two times I’ve had good Chinese food I’ve loved it. I’ve had Chinese from several area take-out restaurants and it has all been disgusting. Basically all they do is fry up tiny pieces of chicken, then coat it in overly sweet sauce and call it good. Greasy, grody, not even recognizable as food.

This place had promise because it looked a lot fresher, so we gave it a shot.

Guess what!

It was good! And cheap!

Mike and I both enjoyed our meal enough to add it to the “we’ll be coming back” list, which is amazing considering my dislike of the genre.

Is it a genre if it’s food?

They also serve sushi and some guy tried to give Elsa a piece because she needed to acclimate her palette early. Ummmm. NO! You are not going to give my baby a piece of raw fish! You don’t know me. You don’t know my baby. Just no!

*Speaking of her eating, she’s doing it now! She even swallowed some non-puree stuff! She had real turds. Not that exciting, actually, but I learned that diaper liners really are as awesome as people say. The turd gets caught in the liner so you just flip it into the toilet and call it done.

Now, I know a lot of people who use disposables just turned up there nose, but you know what? Even if you use disposables you’re supposed to be flushing the poop down the toilet. It says so on the diaper package. I know, I know. “But no one really does that!”

Guess what? I really did that. Really, really. I didn’t even know that I was supposed to be doing that, but I knew that there was no way I was keeping turds around in my house (even in a garbage bag) when I could flush them down the toilet.

*Speaking of diapers, and the sewing of them. Ugh. I was dumb. I thought it would be great to make Elsa a naked mat to air out her little butt, so I bought some PUL (a type of waterproof fabric) and had great plans for a pretty pink fairy doll mat. It never got made. She is on the verge of walking. It would be useless to make her something like that now. So now what? I guess either sell the fabric on e-bay or try to make some diapers for her. Maybe I should hang on to it and try to make training pants in a couple of years?

*My mother is crazy. She called yesterday, so excited I thought she was going to enter orbit. She found a job for Mike in my hometown! Whoo-hoo! The job, as expected, is nothing he could do or that he knows anything about. He just knows enough to know there is no way he could do it. But she doesn’t care! It sounds smart and fancy so he should apply for it! Then we’d all move to Klamath Falls, I’d start teaching again and she’d babysit our kids all day and we’d all hold hands and sniff tulips and sing Kumbayah.

This is never going to happen. Never never never. It will be dire straights indeed if we ever find ourselves moving to Klamath Falls. I would love to be closer to family, but that’s way too close. My mom currently worries about us being murdered in our beds by terrorists or other unsavories. If we lived in KF I would be worried about being murdered, robbed or assaulted by my brother-in-law, my sister, or some of my sister’s hoodlum friends. They think Mike and I are rich so we clearly have money to spare and are mean because we won’t supply them with everything their hearts desire. We are absolutely not rich, but Mike goes to work every day whether he wants to or not. Our needs are met. We are comfortable. We won’t be comfortable if we give all our money to people who feel like they are so super-special that they don’t need to work.

Though Maryland is not a place I ever thought I would end up, it is actually a really great place to raise kids. There’s lots of money for educations, lots of services and activities, all kinds of great parks and programs, and lots of diversity. Of course things could go wrong, but there’s no need to borrow trouble. There’s nothing in Klamath Falls but over-crowded, impoverished public schools. The one private school is pretty nice if you don’t mind your kid going to a very Christian school and I do very much mind that. Imagine, if you would, that your only two choices were an impoverished public school or a private school that espoused a belief system that you didn’t believe in any way, shape or form. There’s always home schooling, but have you met Erik? He is not a kid who should be home schooled if there are other options.

Here, he will be slightly above the pack, but find school challenging. There? He would be way, way beyond anything the teachers could handle. He comes from a home with two educated parents who take an interest in his learning. I am always shocked, SHOCKED, when I go back and my niece and nephew can’t do some of the simple things that Erik has been doing for years. And they are both intelligent and at the top of their class. If they lived with parents who gave two flying figs they would be able to do just as much as Erik can do.

All that to say. . . no. We wont’ be moving back to KF. I would be more than willing to move to Oregon, say Eugene or Portland or . . well. . .lots of places. But not KF. Too much baggage. Being raised with a grandma right down the road would be awesome, but in this case I don’t think the advantages would outweigh the disadvantages. Now that Erik is old enough to understand things I really don’t want him exposed to the lifestyle my family chooses to lead.

*Last bullet: olive oil! I’ve been cooking out of a low-fat, low-cholesterol book. Thanks to some of your guidance, I’ve discovered I don’t have to give up olive oil! This makes all the difference. I won’t have to totally ditch all my dishes and will be able to adapt recipes we know and love into something Mike can eat. Five meals of low-fat and I was ready to cry. There was no flavor. Even though the recipes often called for a medley of spices, they still didn’t taste like anything. Why bother to cook if you aren’t even going to enjoy the fruits of your labor? If anyone has any other ideas I’m all ears. As Bethany mentioned, I could use a backseat cook. That’s one area where I’m open for any and all advice you’re willing to give me.

Other good things: cocoa meringue cookies! Very low-fat, and very tasty.