The Queen's Rambles

It’s been one of those days. I am PMSing hardcore, which means every little whine from my children feels like someone is using my spine for a guitar string, leading straight to a brain explosion. I can’t stand the whining. Or the crying. Or the arguing. I can usually tolerate it to some extent, but not on days like today.

Of course when mommy is upset, it makes the kids more upset, so mommy gets more upset and around and around she goes.

Yesterday Elsa fell off Erik’s bathroom stool and smacked her face into the toilet. She bloodied her lip and was in obvious pain yesterday and today. This threw my whole day off. She loves to sleep when she’s not feeling well, so she fell asleep for a nap at 11 am. I wasn’t prepared for it. What kind of toddler decides to take a nap that early in the day?

I didn’t have my laptop, a TV, or any reading material handy. As usual she was on top of me. I know, I know, I know. Stupid napping arrangement. Every time I try to fix the problem, my strategy fails completely. It wouldn’t be so bad, but I have to go fetch Erik from the bus at 3:20 so I don’t have a lot of flexibility in my afternoon schedule.

Back to today.

I finally decided to try to change locations because I was being driven insane by the boredom, but it didn’t end well. She woke up and never did go back to sleep. Instead she whined and fussed and cried and acted crazy all. day. long.

I felt those nerves being plucked.

When she’s overly tired she throws herself off things, she bites, she falls down, she pinches. It’s pleasant

There were positive moments in the day. Elsa thinks it is her job to carry Erik’s lunch box down to the bus stop. Woe betide any one who dares get between her and that danged lunch box.

Every day it is a fight to take it and give it to Erik.

Today I totally forgot the fight, until the bus was pulling away.

I tried to chase the bus down, but I was in my jammies and Birkenstocks and I’m a fat chick who can’t run. Wasn’t happening.

My neighbor grabbed it from me and took off running. He had to run all the way down to the stop sign to catch the bus. What a nice, nice neighbor! He seemed to enjoy being the hero. He never brings his daughter to the bus, so I guess it was just his lucky day.

.

Today was an early release day and I kept reminding myself that I needed to get Erik at 12:45. Around noon I completely forgot about early release day and that was the end of that until I heard the bus pulling out at 12:50.

I ran outside in my barefeet with a naked baby on my hip and my heart sank. There was no way in hell I was catching the bus.

Does it seem like a lot of my stories involve a naked baby? Why don’t Possums like clothes?

My nearest neighbor pointed and said “There he is!”

Thank dog my other neighbor, the wife of the morning runner, had picked Erik up from the stop. They don’t let kindergartners off the bus unless there is someone to claim them. They take them back to the school. I know it would have been traumatic for Erik. He was already sort of crying because I forgot him.

My failings as a mother did not make my day feel fantastic, but it is a wonderful feeling to have neighbors help me out. I’d do the same for them (maybe not running, because that’s not my talent, but you know what I mean). I love my neighborhood. I really do. I decided I should make the neighbors a pie for rescuing me twice in one day, but then I saw the big pile of rotting Costco bananas on my counter and made them banana bread instead. I will deliver it tomorrow morning.

Why does Costco keep their bananas wrapped in plastic? I took the plastic wrap off as soon as I brought them home, but it was too late. They were ruined.

The problem with the banana bread? It spilled over the pan and started burning on the bottom of my oven. I was already wound too tight, and the sound of the smoke alarm going off over and over and over and OVER and OVER AND OVER AND OVER did not help matters. It is somehow wired into the house so you can’t even pop the batteries out when you make a stupid cooking error. But gosh darn it, we are safe from a fire! Don’t ask what happens when your electricity has some weird thing happen at 2 am and you can’t get the alarm off. It’s not fun. But I suppose it is a lot more fun than not having an alarm and burning up in your bed, or having an alarm and running out of the house so you can watch all your worldly possessions burn to the ground.

Luckily, we were in no danger of that happening. I opened all the windows, but it was cold, as it should be in mid-November, and Elsa kept trying to jump out the window. They are really low and I’m afraid she will be able to make her escape into the rhododendrons if I don’t keep an extremely close eye on her. I’m scared to open the windows on the top floor. If she decides to do some climbing and peek out the window she’s a goner.

On top of all the kid antics, my brain deficiencies, and a smoke alarm blaring for an hour, I had to deal with people I didn’t want to deal with.

Erik hasn’t been eating his breakfast this week and it’s been driving me crazy. He’s been asking for scrambled eggs, and I’ve been obliging even though I know he hates them. I also provide him with his usual waffles but he won’t touch them. This kid needs to eat something. They don’t get lunch until 12:50. He is like his mother: a complete nightmare to be around if he gets grouchy-hungry. Not eating breakfast is not acceptable. Waffles are barely tolerable for this purpose. They are whole wheat and I sprinkle them with flax seeds to try to boost the nutrition a little. I’d love to add peanut butter or something with protein, but I’ll take what I can get. He’s picky.

This morning he tells me the dentist (I think he meant hygienist) told him he’s not allowed to eat waffles for breakfast. He’s only allowed to eat eggs.

I’m sure she meant well. I know it is her job to educate. Erik may have twisted her meaning all around; he is not the most reliable witness.

But I was seeing red. You know I’m pissed when I pick up the phone and make a call. I never make calls, but I called the dental office and had a little chat with the receptionist. She was apologetic and said she was sure the hygienist only meant to be helpful. I agree. I’m sure the hygienist didn’t mean anything bad by it, but she needs to understand that her words have power. Little kids see her as an authority figure. A few well-intentioned words on her part ended up making my last few days quite hellish since I had to deal with a cranky, hungry boy. If I can’t convince Erik to eat his waffles (or something else), I’m going to take him back to the office and have them tell him he can eat waffles. GRRRRRRRRR!!!

Then I got an e-mail from one of the teachers at the school about a mistake I made with my volunteer paper grading. They have a program called Basic Facts, which is a once a week school wide math test. It’s a whole complicated thing. I agreed to grade the papers from Erik’s class, but then they already had a volunteer so I’m grading papers from the special needs kindergarten class. I only have six papers to grade, so it’s no biggie. Except the paper work and procedures are a time suck and fairly complicated for a new person.

They know that I don’t go into the school and that they have to send everything in Erik’s backpack. I told them right up front that I would not be able to go into the school twice a week and they said that was fine, we can send everything back and forth with Erik. They seem to be back pedaling on that a little and want me to go in to write a name down on a specific piece of paper.

Ummmmm.

No.

I can write it on a sticky note and someone else can write it on the paper.

So today I got an e-mail written in total “bitch speak” about a mistake I made. I somehow recorded a score for a student who was absent and it was a horrible, horrible mistake. There are only six kids, so either I wrote a score in the wrong column and then confused myself or someone is messing with me/this kid’s score. I’m sure I just wrote the score in the wrong column, but I specifically remember being really surprised that this kid got 100% on the test because last week this same kid didn’t get a single answer right. I don’t get it. There’s no reason for someone to mess with the kid’s score. They are not a part of the child’s grade in any way. Most of the teachers don’t even look at the tests or the results according to the person who trained me. Don’t ask me, I don’t know.

Remember, I’m PMSing. I’m not very rational, so this e-mail upset me. The tone was so patronizing that I wanted to punch someone and then rub math sheets all over her face.

Instead, I wrote back a very nice e-mail with some humor and an explanation that it was an honest mistake. I also let them know that if it wasn’t working out for them to use me as a grader for this program I would be happy to let someone else have the job.

The next e-mail was a complete 180. Ha! Of course I am wonderful! Of course simple mistakes are easy to make! Of course it’s no biggie!

Somehow we all managed to survive the day, just barely. I feel so bad for Mike. He is having a horrible week at work. The big guns are in to check out what’s going on, so he’s wearing a suit and tie every day. He gets home and has this crazy woman shove a grumpy baby at him before he can even remove his tie and jacket. The house is a mess. There’s a naked six year old complaining that he’s cold. There’s me yelling for people to just put their clothes on and quit whining.

Wouldn’t you want to come home to all that? Where’s my pearls and Mike’s slippers?

But there were good things:

Erik was still really excited about his scarecrow, so he finished it up and it looks pretty good. He glued chocolate chips on it. I have no idea why. He also did some embroidery on the face, so that was neat. I wouldn’t recommend teaching a person to sew using paper instead of fabric, though. It is very unforgiving.

Dinner turned out really great (beef stirfry).

Erik did all the mashing and stirring for another batch of banana bread. Hopefully I can bake it tomorrow, but I have to clean the oven first.

Unfortunately things ended on a bad note. Elsa is so cranky and crabby and uncoordinated–a typical toddler response to sleep deprivation. She refused to listen when I told her to stop climbing on the couch and tossing around the laundry I was trying to fold. I was about to blow a gasket, but then she did a head dive off the couch and landed on her face. Her mouth was spurting blood. There was lots of screaming. I didn’t even have much motherly devotion in me. My nerves were so shot by that point that I just handed her over to Mike and didn’t even feel all that guilty about it. She likes him better anyway.

Let’s hope tomorrow is better. Is there something you can take to lessen the effects of PMS on your mood? I need something. I hate being so tense and on edge. It’s almost a physical thing, not just an emotional thing. I swear every muscle in my body hurts from being so keyed up all day.