The Queen's Rambles

As a SAHM, I didn’t realize what a luxury it was to be able to go to the mall in middle of a weekday and take care of Santa pictures. With Erik in school full time, we had to join the rest of the world for a weekend Santa visit.

I have a friend with autistic twins. She posted her game plan for her Santa visit (show up a half hour before the line opens to be very near the front) and it sounded good. We did exactly what she did and it would have been a major success if the Santa people would have been prepared. Their camera wasn’t working, so we ended up standing in line for over an hour. How do you have a business that depends on a camera and then not have the camera work?

I had already bought my picture package via Groupon a couple months ago, so there was no way I was leaving if my kids weren’t crying. Thankfully my kids were quite happy. Mike looked like the one most likely to break down.

I wanted the kids to look half-way decent in the picture, so I had Erik in his Christmas sweater. I knew it had a little wool in it and might become itchy, but I wasn’t planning on such a long wait. While in the line I noticed he was lifting his shirt up and licking his shoulders, arms and other parts that he could reach. Children are so. . . . gross. Licking. Really?

I told him to stop, but he said he was itchy. I am allergic to wool, so he had my full sympathies. I would have been throwing a full on major fit if I was wearing a wool sweater for more than sixty seconds. I left Mike with the kids and ran into a store to buy him a t-shirt. We did a quick change in middle of the mall and avoided a meltdown. One of the ladies in the line thought I was spoiling him. I guess so, but so? I am not going to allow my child to be in pain if I can help it. And it kept him happy. Why do I want a miserable child when we are in a potentially miserable situation?

We were next to a lady with a 12 year old and 5 year old, so Erik had fun playing little guessing games with those kids. The 12 year old was great at keeping them entertained, which I appreciated greatly. We were in the worst possible spot in line–this tent thing that was getting really, really hot. Apparently someone passed out from the heat the day before, so they kept telling us to make sure to drink plenty of water. Visiting Santa was starting to sound dangerous!

No one fainted and neither of my kids cried. Elsa was perfectly content with rolling around on the floor and looking behind the curtains. Erik was perfectly content blabbing away to the neighbors in line.

Our luck almost changed when it was finally time to see Santa. I was holding Elsa and tried to put her on his lap, but she did the full body stiffening and made it quite clear that there was no way in mother truckin’ hell she was going anywhere near the man in red without her mama.

That’s why I’m in the picture. Ugh.

All that hassle for a crappy picture. But I love it just the same because it is a picture of my babies and it is all about holiday memories. I like pictures with a little character anyway. Plus, I got to hear Erik’s Santa list and am happy that it is what I thought it would be. He is really struggling with Santa belief this year. I refuse to confirm or deny. I don’t want to lie to the kid, but I love Santa and don’t want to kill the magic for him either. Let him be confused. It’s more fun that way.

I’ve been trying to do Elsa’s hair in ponytails when she’ll let me. My neighbor just now started doing her 5 year old’s hair in ponytails. She says last week was the first time she’d ever made a ponytail. I don’t want to smack talk a little kid’s hairstyle because there are so many more important things in life, but let’s just say that it made me redouble my efforts to practice doing little girl hair. I know it looks like crap right now, but hopefully I will be adept at making cute kid hair by the time she enters school. Yes, I care way too much about appearances. I have worked in the schools too long. Kids with sloppy hair are often the victims of bullying. Of course, that sloppy hair usually stems from a lot of other issues, so it is not really the sloppy hair that causes the bullying.

Enough of that.

Let’s talk fun!

I am feeling so free now that we’ve decided we are going to have a summer vacation that pleases absolutely no one but ourselves. Mike wants to do a road trip and I agree. Neither of us know much about the east coast, but there is so much to see and do if we just get out and explore. We’re currently thinking about heading up to Boston. We’d take a couple of days to get there and a couple of days to get home. Could be a lot of fun, I think! If any of you live on the route from DC to Boston, give us a shout. We’d love to meet-up with some friends along the way. Or give us advice about places that are worth a visit. The last time we planned a road trip we got a ton of welcome advice from you guys and it made our trip so much better. We loved exploring Virgina, a place we knew almost nothing about. My only regret is that we stayed in the same hotel the whole time. It was a great hotel and served our needs well, but it would have been even better if we would have done a small bit of driving every day and explored different places along the way. We could have made a big circle, but we didn’t realize that until later. Live and learn, right? I always forget we are on itty-bitty east coast geography instead of huge Oregon mountain geography. It’s about time we start taking advantage of it.