The Queen's Rambles

Oh man. I am sick. Yuck yuck yuck.

I got a flu shot last week and now I have the flu? Or something like the flu? I am not against vaccinations and don’t like to feed into the “the shot gave me the flu!” but it certainly feels like suspicious timing. I know it is not a live virus, so it can’t actually cause the flu.

Thankfully I have not been feverish today, just achy and having problems with my tummy. Yesterday I couldn’t get out of bed, so this is major progress.

I’m so glad Elsa is such a calm, happy girl. She is content to play by herself and wander around talking about her hair. She’s obsessed with patting her head, saying “hair, hair, hair, hair, hair.” She loves her mommy, but she does not feel the need to be attached to me every second of the day. If you have to be a mommy when you’re sick, Elsa is the perfect child to have around.

Not really looking forward to the bus coming in 2 hours. Erik forgot his lunch box at school, so he had to eat the school lunch. He is always grouchy-hungry when he gets home on the days he eats school lunch. I plan on feeding him the second he gets in the door and giving him a major gift: unlimited video game time. Hopefully that will let us survive the afternoon.

I want to thank you all for your advice and insights regarding my new neighbor. Most of you know that I cross-post to livejournal and my queenoframbles.com blog. I had some really great insight from commenters on both sites and I really, really, deeply appreciate it. The poor girl has herself in quite a pickle and I’m certainly not going to be able to fix that. I will be able to lend her support if she needs it, I hope. I am guessing she is under 25. I’m 37. I’m totally wrapped up in my kids. She wants to go shopping and do make-up. She says her 2 year old only drinks Coke. My six year old has never had a soda. We are very different.

But I am going to let her show me how to do my make-up. I’m going to invite her and the kids on some adventures (I have enough car seats–just have to install them). I printed out a list of English classes in the area, so maybe she will be able to do those. They all have weekend hours, so maybe her husband will be able to drive her.

I can’t become her whole support systems–I have a very busy life of my own. But I can definitely relieve a little bit of her loneliness, in my own clunky way. I’d really love to get her hooked up with people who have more in common with her. I think she and my Indian neighbor would be a great friendship match. Too bad her politics won’t allow that.

I invited her over for a bit the other afternoon and it was fine, if awkward. She commented that it is so hard to be herself in English and I tried to tell her I understood since I was an immigrant once myself. It is hard. So very hard. I guess we’ll see what happens. Not that it is any of my business, I suppose.

Her eyes did about fall out of her head when she saw the amount of toys we have in the living room. I didn’t even tell her that our living room hardly had anything. The majority of the toys are in the basement. And we have a lot less toys that many of my friends since we don’t have any family members buying toys as presents. My mom does buy toys, but only if she asks us first and we talk about what would be useful for the kids to have. She doesn’t go overboard, like many of my friends’ parents an inlaws.