The Queen's Rambles

I can’t believe my little baby is six years old!

It was like this was yesterday:

Zero

I must admit, today was much better than that day six years ago. There was a lot less crying, there was no bleeding. I didn’t have a bad reaction to drugs.

I’ve been looking all through my Flickr stream to find pics for this post. I can’t believe how fast the years have gone by. A total cliche, I know, but true. Of course, when I’m in the thick of it, it feels like things will never end. What’s that old saying? The days crawl by, while the years fly?

One

Two

Three (with Evie, Kisha’s daughter)

Four

Five

His birthday was everything a child’s birthday should be. He got cupcakes at school, a trip to Chuck E. Cheese and he got to stay up late. He was one very, very happy boy. He was so excited that he literally could not stop jumping up and down. I wish I was a better photographer and could have captured his pure joy. Looking through the flickr stream shows me that I really need to take a photography class. Every picture is blurry.

I’m just glad that today went well. I got to Safeway and the cupcakes weren’t ready because the decorator was out. The panic started growing in my chest because Erik knew these cupcakes were coming, but they finally got them done and they were fine. I think the baker frosted them. Wasn’t like I needed anything complex.

When I was at Safeway yesterday I noticed they had Halloween themed sugar cookies on sale for $2.99. I decided to make my life easier and buy two packs to donate to the cake walk at Erik’s school tomorrow night (they encourage store bought instead of homemade anyway). They rang up as $3.99, so I said something and the lady gave me one pack for free because of their price scan guarantee. I don’t know the exact details of the guarantee, but when I went back today I decided to buy another pack because they were still $2.99 and the school needs more donations.

Again, they rang up as $3.99. They must be making a killing on these cookies.

I told the cashier and she told me I was wrong. Finally, with a great put upon sigh she asked if I’d like her to do a price check.

Gee, ya think?

Instead of calling, like a normal cashier, she went all the way back to the bakery. There was a table with the cookies right by the registers, so I don’t know why she had to traipse all over the store.

After ten years she finally came back and told me they weren’t ringing up because the sale was expired but since they didn’t have the signs down they would give them to me for $2.99. She seemed to think she was doing me some huge favor. Is it my fault someone was too lazy to take down the signs? She acted like she’d never heard of the price guarantee. I should have gone back and got ten packs and insisted on getting them all free.

I took the cupcakes over to the school and thought I was going to have to punch the school secretary in the face. We have to ring a buzzer and smile for a camera before we are let in the school. I suppose we don’t have to smile, but they check us over before we go in.

The secretary acted like I was there to cause a ruckus or kill the children or maim the teachers. I just wanted to drop off green frosted cupcakes! Is that so wrong?! I had already made arrangements with the teacher, so I don’t know what this lady’s bleeping problem was. Grrrrr.

The day went much more smoothly after that. I have all the favors prepared for Erik’s party. I have food. I have drinks. I just need to make the cake tomorrow. I have a new plan to ease my panic. Instead of a giant-giant cake, I’m going to take Bethany’s suggestion and do a cake supplemented with cupcakes. I have all day tomorrow to take care of it so I shouldn’t be under too much stress. Party planning is not my forte. These things do not come easily to me. I always feel like the socially awkward teenager who doesn’t know how to be gracious or inviting. I don’t know what’s expected. I’ve been to enough of these parties that I should have it figured out by now, but the sad neglected/rejected teen comes out to play when I have to host anything major. I seriously hope Elsa is not such a social butterfly and doesn’t want to invite everyone she’s ever met to her parties. We had to institute a rule: you can only invite people if you know their names. We had a 20 kid limit, so that helped keep the guest list under control.

We all went to Chuck E. Cheese tonight for a lovely family dinner. Erik believes that you can only go to Chuck E. Cheese if someone is having a birthday and we haven’t disabused him of that notion. I hope we can keep that scam up for several more years.

Surprisingly it was pretty empty in there tonight. Possibly because we are under a tornado watch and having severe thunderstorms. I didn’t know about the tornado watch when we left. Doh!

When we got home, Elsa got into my mom’s drawer, opened her pill box and took a Paxil. I guess that’s one way to get a mellow baby.

I called poison control about 30 seconds after it happened and they said it is going to be fine. They gave me some warning signs to look for, but said it was a really low dose and well tolerated in children. My mom’s pill box has been moved and she feels terrible. No one ever thought Elsa could get into a childproof box like that, but she’s very smart, very strong and very stubborn.