The Queen's Rambles

I should be in bed right now, but I feel like I haven’t written in ages. Elsa has changed her poop schedule from a nice 11 am turd, to an awful 11 pm turd. Problem being, she won’t go to sleep until she poops. So instead of her going down at 9 and us having some quiet time, we have a little over-tired ball of energy zinging back and forth, climbing up on all the furniture, biting our arms and just generally living up to her Miss Menace nick name.

Thus, no writing.

We had quite an adventure tonight.

I was making Texas style chicken (slice tomatoes, lay in bottom of pan, sprinkle with chopped jalapenos and grated colby jack cheese. Cover with chicken tender. Sprinkle with ranch dressing powder. Bake until done. So good, so easy) and didn’t think to throw away the jalapeno seeds immediately. Erik loves to plant bell pepper seeds, which we often have laying on the counter while I’m cooking.

He grabbed a jalapeno seed and was walking all over the house with it. I didn’t think anything of it until the screams started.

If you’ve ever messed with a jalepeno and then touched your eye you know how bad it hurts. Imagine being 5 years old and not knowing how to handle that type of pain. He wanted to rub his eye, but I knew that would make it worse. I was grabbing his hands and he was screaming bloody murder. I tried to get him to the sink to rinse his eye out, but he wasn’t tall enough. I took my boob out of my shirt and started squirting milk into his eye because I knew the enzymes in dairy will help flush out the capsaicin. That didn’t really work, so I ordered Mike to take him up to the shower and try to flush his eye.

He was up there, screaming bloody murder and flushing his eye didn’t help. I did a quick google search and saw that it said to put milk in the eye. I guess I just needed confirmation from an outside source. With the horrific screams of pain it was hard to think straight.

I grabbed a glass of milk and went into the bathroom. He screamed even louder when he saw I had milk. He hates milk. He begged me not to pour the milk in his eye, but I did it anyone and there was instant pain relief. If you ever get jalapeno in your eye, flush with milk for pain relief. It was amazing.

Of course, it wasn’t simply a matter of pouring the milk in the eye and having him cured forever. We were in the shower for what felt like an hour but maybe it was only 30 minutes or so. I had to keep pouring milk in every few seconds until the pain finally subsided. The whole right side of his face was swollen up and red. It was so sad to see.

He has always hated milk, but the milk kept going into his mouth and he was drinking it.

After it was all over he decided he wanted to try a glass of milk. Then another. And another.

The boy drank three cups of milk!

He says he loves milk and it’s his favorite thing in the world.

Who knew? I guess I need to do extreme food therapy with other things he needs to eat.

Other than that, we’ve had a good day. Elsa and I went over to visit a good friend and had fun. She has a 3 month old that looks exactly like Elvis. Or at least, has Elvis hair. He laughed and laughed when I tickled his belly and told him he was Elvis.

Then the mom said it was time for his nap, took him to a room, came back five minutes later and the deal was done. How do moms do that? I’m so jealous!

Erik has been coming home a lot happier. I think he’s back to his old self. He’s gotten in a tiny bit of trouble yesterday and today (nothing the teacher told me about, just in trouble for being loud and not listening). Obviously I don’t want him to be a trouble maker, but I know him. He’s probably going to get in trouble sometimes. I think it is a good if a child can handle getting in trouble without a total meltdown. I was a perfectionist and still have horrible memories about the two times I was reprimanded in school. In fourth grade my teacher told me that my homework had food on it and I needed to be more careful and in 10th grade my English teacher asked me to quit talking.

I about died of complete mortification in each of those instances and didn’t go to school for three days after the fourth grade incident.

That’s not normal. A kid needs to know when they are in real trouble and when the teacher is just calling them out on something small that they need to improve.

My perfectionist behavior was pretty classic Child of Alcoholic behavior, so it’s not exactly a surprise. I am so glad I am more relaxed these days. I am still wound up tight, but since meeting Mike I am not ready to fling into the atmosphere over every teeny tiny thing. He’s wonderful at keeping me steady and keeping things in perspective.

So Erik. Trouble in school. Me happy about it because it probably means he is enjoying it a lot more and feeling like school is a comfortable place. I guess that’s all I’ve got to report on the boy.

Do we need a girl report? She’s the most hilarious kid I know. Right now she likes to tilt her head and really look at me in the eyes. You’d have to be here to see it, but it’s the sweetest thing.

She’s also talking a lot. I was startled when she said “I wan shoez” the other day. Sentences? Really? She’s 17 months. I was so happy when Erik did the sign for “bird” at 18 months because it was finally some communication.

She also refuses to wear a diaper, so I bought her some training pants and a new potty (we have Erik’s, but we have three floors so just one potty wasn’t cutting it).

So far we’ve had zero success and a lot of wet messes. I know I said I was going to have my mom potty train her, but if she refuses to wear a diaper I figured I might as well start the process. We are going to need new flooring after this is all said and done. I know she gets the point. She grabs herself and says “potty” but by then it is too late.

Ok, enough chit chat. I need to get to bed. Staying up late is no good when I have to get up and get Erik ready for the bus in the mornings. No more long lie-ins with the baby while he fixes himself a breakfast and gorges on video games.