Whew!
With Erik home this week, things have been hectic. I’ve been to a MOMS Club event every single day, which is just nuts. But they were all fun! Well, the business meeting wasn’t fun, but since I’m the new president I couldn’t exactly skip it. I ran the first meeting and presented my overall plan for the year–mainly find new members. I see it like this: either the club gets new members who will participate or I’m done. I can just as easily e-mail my three friends that are willing to do things. I think the club provides invaluable support to mothers and I want to be a part of that, but I am going to cut my losses if we can’t get things moving in the right direction by next June.
Fun things: We went to a petting zoo on Monday and it wasn’t unbearably hot. I need to look at my photos because I have pictures of Erik riding the same pony he rode a couple of years ago. I love those pictures because he’s so happy in them. My mind did a complete roll around my brain when the guy in our old pony pics gave us a lecture on lemurs. I didn’t know him and I couldn’t place him, but he was so danged familiar. Doh! I see his picture all the time!
Today we went to a nature center about 30 minutes from the house. It was totally cool and I’ll be going back this summer for some free heat relief. They have a playroom with all kinds of old fashioned toys and pioneer type things; a big room with running water, caves, turtles and other stuff; a smaller playroom with snake and other wildlife in aquariums and a lot of modern toys; an aviary with rescued birds of prey; and who knows what else. I loved it. Erik loved it. Elsa loved it. Win-win-win.
They do birthday parties for $200 for up to 20 kids, you just have to provide the food and paper products. You know where Erik is having his birthday this year. I know that sounds expensive, but it is cheap for this area. I never want to be the party entertainment again. Been there, done that. Erik is way too social and I am way too tired. Plus, we can’t host at our house because this house is not set up for entertaining. We’ve done park parties, but those are always iffy with the weather.
Tomorrow we have a totally free day, so I am hoping we can slow down and breathe a little. I know I will be chomping at the bit to get out of here by 1 pm. My friend that I usually can count on for a last minute playdate went and had her baby the other day so that will be out. I want to go to the hospital and see her new daughter, but I don’t want to drag my two along. Erik would be fine, but Elsa is a true 14 month old menace. I love the sweet little thing, but she keeps me hoppin’.
I really need to get some structure in our days. There has been entirely too much screen time around here. I think we will say no screen time (TV or video games) after breakfast until Elsa’s naptime, then no TV until after dinner. It is impossible to get Elsa down for a nap when Erik is not 100% preoccupied. His priorities are not the same as mine. Imagine that.
I have changed out all the hand soap in the house, hoping that would help my hand rash. It seems to be working. Maybe? I don’t know. I am sure we are not actually allergic to humidity, but we are def. allergic to something here. I don’t know if it is environmental or something that is a key component of our diet here. I basically didn’t eat the entire time we were in Oregon due to stress and strep. You’d think I would have lost some weight. Maybe I have. My shorts are totally falling off. Perhaps now would be a good time to continue the no eating trend. It’s the season for fresh fruit. I should force myself to enjoy it.
I did try to make a strawberry cobbler yesterday, but it was a disgusting failure. I couldn’t remember Kisha’s super easy cobbler recipe. I know it is something easy like 1-1-1 with cups of stuff, but I don’t remember what the stuff is. So instead I looked up a recipe for strawberry cobbler and ended up with a gelatinous mess that didn’t taste much like strawberries and had biscuits baked on top. I don’t want biscuits baked on top. It was entirely wrong.
Then I went and ruined it even further by throwing raw rice on top of the whole thing.
Mike says I would be chopped if I was on Chopped. How sad that Chopped is the only show we watch as a couple. But yes, just adding a strange ingredient to the top of a done dish is a sure way to get chopped. Raw rice on top of cobbler is disgusting.
Why would I do such a thing? Because SOMEBODY (probably me) didn’t close the bag of rice all the way so I had rice from here to kingdom come. Probably a good three cups of rice was spread all across my kitchen and into my dining room. I guess it could have been worse (coconut oil in a glass jar), but it was not pretty and I was not a happy camper yesterday.
In fact, I was so grouchy that I was mean to the neighbor children.
Erik has some really cool toys, including this trike thing that’s on castors. Even though it looks like a hot wheels, it’s meant for older kids because it spins all around. The kids in the neighborhood love it and use my dear, precious son for his cool toys. Not like we are the only people in the neighborhood with cool toys, but whatever.
I honestly don’t encourage sharing with the older neighbor kids. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing, but why do I want our stuff all tore up? Sharing with guests? Absolutely. Sharing with older kids who are using you? Hells to the no.
So I let them take out this trike thing and this 7 year old boy was racing a girl on a scooter. She was not very good at riding a scooter and he kept cutting her off, causing her to fall. I got my grouch on and told him to stop cutting her off.
The little *#@$$% dared to give me lip.
Oh boy.
You are riding a really cool thing that I have ownership control over and you are going to back talk ME???? Really?
I don’t think so.
I told him he could either return the bike immediately or do what I said. He opened his mouth to talk and I told him to get off the bike. I didn’t yell, I just used my teacher voice. Which is probably even scarier than yelling. He shut his mouth and we didn’t have a problem the rest of the night. His mother is very permissive and thinks he walks on water while burping up gold bricks so he’s probably not used to that kind of talk. Luckily they are moving next weekend and he’ll be long gone.
Ok, best go to bed now after a full evening of rambling. Someone better send back-up tomorrow or there may be a full scale war in my living room. Erik has been on quite a defiant streak lately and it’s driving me nuts.