The Queen's Rambles

For the past few months our morning routine has been very predictable. Mike wakes me up at 7:15, then he goes in and wakes Erik up, gets the boy dressed and kisses us all goodbye.

This morning?

I woke up to the sound of the school bus pulling away. At first I thought it must be the bus for the deaf girl, but then I realized it was super light in our room. Why would it be so light at 6:30 in the morning?

Oh.

8:13. Bye bye bus!

I started looking for Mike, sure he was dead in the shower or something. No Mike. I called him and he was a-ok at work. He wanted to go in early so he could come home earlier. I guess he forgot to set the alarm clock.

Erik was downstairs watching TV. He said he was scared because no one came to wake him up, so he thought everyone just left him. I guess it would have been too much to ask for him to come in and check to see if I was in bed.

Thankfully he was in a good mood and didn’t fight with me. I brushed my teeth, got us dressed, and had us out the door in about 10 minutes. He had to eat breakfast in the van, but we managed to get him to school before the tardy bell rang. We’ve never done a car poll drop off, so he completely freaked out and wouldn’t get out of the van because he didn’t know where to go. The principal had to come over and help him (the principal runs the carpool lane, not like someone had to go get the principal to deal with him).

Whew!

The school is right by Target, so I took my unbrushed, dirty diaper baby to Target because I had to get a couple of things. It is very peaceful in there at 8:45 in the morning.

As I was coming out of the store, I pulled my keys out of my pocket and a piece of paper trash fell out. I was going to bend down to pick it up, but there were cars coming at me from both directions and I had Elsa in the cart and was afraid it would roll away. I felt guilty for leaving a piece of trash on the ground, but it just didn’t seem safe to pick it up.

As I’m putting Elsa in the van, an old woman comes over with this piece of paper and completely reams me for being a litter bug. Thanks, old woman. I needed that to start my day. I hate litter bugs. Truly! I know I should have picked it up. But. . . at the risk of getting myself or my kid run over in the parking lot? I don’t think so.

It’s been a fantastic week for getting reamed out by strangers and non-strangers.

The other afternoon I took Elsa out to the park. Erik had been playing outside for awhile. There’s an old Hispanic couple that lives next to the park. Their daughter seperated from her husband and is now living with them. She has two kids, a 6 year old boy and a 9 year old girl. The old man does not let the kids out of his sight. They have a hard time playing with the neighborhood kids because their grandpa won’t let them go anywhere or do anything. He came up to me and started telling me that Erik is going to get kidnapped. He saw a movie about it and it only takes 3 seconds for a man to come out of the woods, grab a kid, and be off again.

Just what I want to hear. Obviously I don’t love my son and am just waiting for some creeper to come out of the woods and drag him off.

And three seconds? Seriously?

If a guy is coming out of the woods, it is going to take him a hell of a lot longer than three seconds. He’ll have to climb over the fence of a very protected government campus. He’ll most likely have security guards on his ass. If there is a man coming out of those woods we have a lot bigger problems than child kidnappers. We need to alert CNN. The “woods” are not even very woodsy. They are a patch of trees smaller than my backyard. I live in a townhome. You can guess how big my backyard is.

At the time he was telling me about my horrible negligence I counted 12 kids, 4 toddlers and 7 adults in the immediate area. This is not counting anyone who might have been sitting in the house, looking out the window. We have a whole lot of houses in a very small area. We are all up in each other’s business. How the fuck is someone going to nab my kid in 3 seconds and not have kids screaming, adults calling 911, and the cop neighbor pulling out his gun? It’s not like I’m letting him play out there all alone in the dark.

We also had a horrible time at Campfire on Sunday. I started our Campfire group because Erik wanted to do Boy Scouts and I can’t quite stomach Boy Scouts for our family. I was pleased to have the Campfire option.

Campfire has a lot of things they believe strongly in. One of those things is lots of recognition for the children. They earn emblems pretty quickly and we are supposed to do a recognition ceremony every time. They earned their first emblem, so it was time for a ceremony.

Problem? They don’t really give you much to go on when coming up with this ceremony. They want it to be meaningful for your group and they want the kids to have a lot of input in it.

That’s great and all, but our club has children aged 3-6. They are not all that helpful in putting together a ceremony.

I went through a bunch of Campfire websites and created a ceremony. The older kids would each get to hold a candle and say a little line. It was supposed to be fun!

I called the older kids over to practice and Erik refused to come over. I told him if he didn’t come over that another girl would do his part and he didn’t care.

And then he proceeded to FLIP HIS SHIT when it was time to do the ceremony. He was screaming, crying, breaking my heart.

I didn’t know what to do. It is supposed to be a fun and positive experience, but he has to learn that his actions have consequences. So I turned the ceremony over to another leader and took Erik far away from the action and just held him and let him cry. I still don’t know if that was the perfect solution but I was absolute not going to reward his behavior.

Sometimes I feel like I am running so hard, and it is all for naught. I am feeling pretty tired and beat down this week.

Ok, must focus on the positive.

Elsa is looking very pretty in a little pink sundress today!

I got an extra hour of sleep this morning! It was much needed because poor Elsa was very restless last night. I finally figured out that she was hot, so pulled off her fleece PJ bottoms and things improved greatly.

Erik is getting along much better with his new teacher!

I am going to be the newsletter editor for the PTA! I know that doesn’t sound super postive because it just means more work, but I am happy. The newsletter is currently done by the president’s middle school son and it really hurts my eyes every time I see it. This newsletter will be much, much less involved than the MOMS Club newsletter. I won’t be creating any content.

I am going to be a Big Sister for MOMS Club! Apparently the state and regional coordinator have been talking about me and hoping I would do this job! It is nice to have my hard work noticed, even if it means I will be doing more (voluntary) hard work. I do like to have my ego stroked and I am kind of looking to the future. I am going to be entering the work force again in a few years and I’m going to need something on my resume.

Elsa can wear Target brand diapers! I was so tired of paying top prices for Huggies that I decided to take a chance on the Target brand. I’m so glad I did because they actually work better on her than Huggies! Diapers are so dependent on each kid’s body shape and skin sensitivity that I can’t recommend you run out and buy them for your kid, but I’m happy with them. The velcro is a lot stronger and they have polka dots instead of Disney characters.

Now, how do I find diaper covers for a child in 3T clothing? I am so sad that her little dresses no longer come with diaper covers. I think it’s nasty to see a diaper hanging out of a dress.

Erik came home from school in a wonderful mood! Yes, I’ve been writing this post all day. A leprechaun visited his school and made a mess last night, so he was pretty excited.