The Queen's Rambles

It hasn’t been a bad day, just an unexpected day. Nothing went as planned, which always throws me for a loop because I schedule things pretty tightly. All’s well that ends well, though. I guess?

We got a late start to the gym, then someone at the gym was incredibly stinky. INCREDIBLY. I thought I was going to puke, and I couldn’t figure out who it was. I even got paranoid and thought it was me, but finally about 10 minutes before the end of the workout the smell disappeared.

I had it timed perfectly so that I could take a shower and we could eat lunch before we went off to eat charity cupcakes with the MOMS Club.

Then I got a phone call from the Campfire lady and that plan went out the window. She never answers e-mails, but she calls and talks and talks and talks and talks some more. I need her information so I can’t ignore her calls. I can never get her on the phone when I try to call her, so if she calls I have to pick up. So there went my chance for lunch and a shower.

I put on a hat (something I never do) and tried not to feel too grubby. I reminded myself I was having these cupcakes for charity. Greater good trumps greasy gym hair.

And then no one else showed up.

Everyone involved would have been better off if I slapped a $5 bill in an envelope and mailed it to the food bank.

There were a bunch of mean looking geese (doesn’t that describe them all?) down by the cupcakery and Elsa kept trying to hug them. She’d yell “DUCKIE!!!!” and take off running. I was sure one of them would bite her, but I managed to catch her before she got too close. I pissed her right off, but better than having her be geese bait. She is just so big that picking her up and carting her away during a tantrum is no mean feat. I need to get a scale so I can weigh her. I’m guessing she must weigh at least 35 pounds. She’s already in 3T clothes. Her toddler years are going to be physically exhausting, aren’t they?

After we got home, she refused to go down for a nap. This is becoming typical. She stays awake until 20 minutes before the bus is due to arrive, then wakes up and is cranky the rest of the day. This time was much better! I laid her on the couch and she just kept sleeping! After I fed Erik, I had over an hour to myself! He went out to play and I was able to do a lot of house cleaning with no child coming along behind me creating a bigger mess. I hope this means we are moving into a more independent sleep stage.

Mike wasn’t due home until a god-awful hour, so I decided it would be fun to take the kids out to dinner. Yes, I am an idiot. Mainly, I didn’t want them in the house messing up my clean floors.

We ended up at Pizza Hut (gag) and Elsa was pretty much a nightmare of a toddler. I was really proud of Erik, though. He helped me out quite a bit and was being an excellent big brother. I like to see that side of him. He really can be an amazing little boy when he wants to be.

Afterwards, we went to the dollar store to see if they had any black poster board. They didn’t, but they did have giant fly swatters and toilet plungers. Those are the things my kids just had to have. Fly swatter for the boy, toilet plunger for the girl.

The whole time we were there Elsa wanted to hold Erik’s hand. He was not keen on the idea, but did it anyway. It was so sweet. She just loves her big brother and always wants to hug and kiss him. He is not much of a fan of his little sister, but will sometimes throw her a bone.

Tomorrow is the last day of the month, which means Erik’s homework notebook is due. He’s supposed to do 4 homework assignments each week, out of a list of 20 possible assignments. Guess what? He did 12. And I’m ok with that.

Ok, so I’m not really ok with that. My super teacher pleasing self is kind of freaking out. But my mama bear self is saying it doesn’t matter. If the assignments were things that he needed to practice, I would make him do them. When he brings home papers that are all wrong, I make him sit and correct them (he started purposely answering every single question wrong on his worksheets to be funny or aggressive, not sure which). Other than that? The homework is pointless. There is absolutely no need for our evenings to be completely hellish. Yes, it would train him to do homework each night, but I honestly don’t believe that’s important at this age. Why does a six year old need a work ethic? His teacher basically refuses to do anything to motivate him to do well in class, so why am I going to bust my chops to get this homework done when it does the opposite of motivate him? I feel like he deserves to have some time to just be a kid, so I’m going to give it to him. Even if that means my whole body is screaming at me “DO THE HOMEWORK! FOOL! MUST PLEASE TEACHER!”

Obviously it would be stupid to use the lack of homework as a way to get back at the teacher. She doesn’t give a shit, I’m sure. It is about what is best for Erik. No one has demonstrated to me that doing homework benefits him in any way (other than reading homework, but we read more than the required amount and don’t call it homework). I’m trying to make sure I am doing this rebellion for the right reason. Maybe it is not even really a rebellion. Maybe it is not a big deal at all. I don’t know. I just know it has been nice to not have hour long screaming tantrums every night.

Instead we do fun things. We went swimming one afternoon. It was pretty hilarious because I didn’t have a swim shirt for Erik so he was freaking out about people seeing his belly button. This is an ongoing issue with him. Question of the day: why is it ok to show your belly button but not your penis? He doesn’t understand.

I know that Erik started swimming independently with a life jacket when he was much younger than Elsa. Once I put the life jacket on him he was g-o-n-e. I always stayed within arm’s reach, but I don’t recall him ever tipping into the water or having any problems. I have always known that he is unusually athletic, but I guess I just take it for granted. I just assumed all kids could run up a slide and float around in a pool at 15 months.

Elsa is not so athletic. She can’t run up a slide. She definitely can not float around in the pool without a lot of help. The life jacket was pushing her face down into the water and seemed quite dangerous. She’s a great climber and a total daredevil, but she just doesn’t have that body awareness and control Erik has always exhibited. I don’t know if this is good or bad. I don’t know how Erik has managed to avoid an ER visit in his short little life *knock on wood*. He doesn’t have a clumsy bone in his body and is quite agile, so I guess all his daredevilry isn’t as likely to end in broken bones. This worries me. I guess Elsa will be my child that ends up in a cast?

We also spent a fun evening creating a piece of “art” for the Campfire art show. I feel kind of bad because I did more of it than I would have liked, but he was directing me. The theme of the show is “fibers” so we made a picture collage out of fabric. He wanted a hedgehog climbing rocks. He was having problems cutting the fabric, so I cut out the body for him. He arranged it all himself and came up with a big story about it. It makes no sense to me, but it made him happy. It was a lot more fun than writing numbers up to 100 in his notebook. He used to do that obsessively, but since it was his homework assignment he refused to do it.