The Queen's Rambles

January needs to end. It has not been kind. And here I thought things were going to turn around in 2012. What happened to my positive attitude?

Mike, Erik and Elsa all had the stomach flu. Erik was out of school two days. I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything because I was too busy wiping up puke and cleaning stinky butts. Gag gag gag.

As all this was happening, my laptop started acting weird. Then it stopped booting up. Nooooo!

Happily, Dell sent a very dashing African gentleman out the very next day. He called me ma’dame, and now I must insist that everyone call me ma’dame (pronounced very differently from a brothel owner madam). I will wear a turquoise ball gown and fancy shoes. It will be super practical.

Now I have a new keyboard, new motherboard and new hard drive. Problem: hard drive had nothing installed on it. I couldn’t even get online until we got some drivers on it. It was driving me insane. I couldn’t connect to the internet. Oh noes! How do people LIVE LIKE THIS????

I was getting stir crazy and ready to explode by yesterday afternoon. When Mike walked in the door I growled that I was leaving, then took off for parts unknown. I hadn’t been outside in daaaaaays.

Thankfully I was able to get out of the house today because I pretended I was completely healthy. By 1:30 pm, though, I could no longer ignore the fact that I had a raging cold. I’ve been sneezing so hard that my back and shoulder muscles are all locked up. It’s going to be a long night. Hopefully Nyquil will knock me out.

Erik is all better. Mike is all better. Elsa is having issues. Every time she eats solid food she starts choking, gagging and puking. I don’t know if it is a stomach issue or a gag reflex issue (remember her gagging issues from age 6-12 months?). I guess I’ll give it a couple of more days, but then she’ll have to go do the doctor. It was so sad when she took a bite of cookie, started gagging it up, then started crying for her cookie.

This problem means she’s been exclusively breastfed for five days straight. She weighs over 30 pounds. She needs a lot of food. I am freakin’ exhausted. I really want to get her back into cloth diapers, because she’s back to having breastmilk poo explosions. It’s all really pleasant.

On the other hand, she is starting to really thin up and look like a girl. She even fit into a pair of jeans today. I should not be talking about my 1 year old like this. Let’s just say the poor dear won’t be starving any time soon.

We’re supposed to go to Elsa’s baby gym class tomorrow, but I guess it would be pretty rude to go and sneeze all over the other babies and equipment. Erik already puked in their garbage can (there as no school on Monday, so he went there for an open gym. He didn’t stay long). They will really love me. It’s disappointing because her class is one of my favorite parts of the week. She’s so joyful when she’s climbing on the ladders and swinging on all the equipment.

At least I have Carbonite, an internet computer back up system. Thank you, Beck! It is still working on restoring all my files, but at least I am not having a total panic over losing all my pictures again. They are all backed up and safe. Well worth the money, since we all know I’m a procrastinator and wouldn’t have kept up with it on my own.

So what ever happened with Pottermore? I was looking forward to it, but it never really got going I guess?

And how do you deal with a child who can’t correctly answer a true/false question about a story because all the questions are obviously false because the story is fiction, therefore the story itself is false so by definition none of the answers can be true? Did that make any sense to you? Because it seriously hurts my brain. Erik is literal in the extreme and sometimes I just don’t even know what to make of him. The only bright spot is that I can call my mother and she can understand what he means. She is also extremely literal. That’s why she and my dad or my sister can having screaming, raging fits at each other and be talking about the exact same thing and hold the exact same opinion. She doesn’t understand metaphor or simile or most other literary devices. I hope Erik’s super logical brain is just the result of being a child, not something he will have to struggle with all his life. It truly has been a struggle for my mom.

I wonder if I should ask his teacher about it. I haven’t seen any true/false tests come home from school, so maybe it is not something that is developmentally appropriate. We have a set of early reading books from the library that have true/false quizzes in the back. Maybe the publishers just don’t understand kids or intend the books to be used with slightly older children.

I guess I should go and find some Nyquil and try to get some sleep. Here’s hoping no one starts dry heaving at 1:30 am, like last night. At least there was no clean up involved.