The Queen's Rambles

It’s been crazy here today. We were supposed to go to the park this afternoon, but the morning bus stop gossip said there would be thunderstorm, hail and tornadoes all day.

They weren’t lying.

I haven’t seen any hail, but the tornado warnings started about a half hour before school dismisal. I searched all over the web for information about how the school would handle the situation since the actual tornado was east of us and heading in an easterly direction. You’d think with all the technology at their disposal, someone could post a quick note on the school or county website. But noooooo. . . we had to rely on Facebook messages from other parents and sporadic phone calls to the school to figure out what was going on. I hate to call a school with 500 students to find things out because I know the secretaries can’t handle the call volume, but what else could we do? The staff was pretty short with us and didn’t really know what was going on. They told me they would only be running about ten minutes late. About 30 minutes after the bus should have arrived, another mom was able to find out that our school bus wasn’t even at the school yet because it was still transporting middle school students.

I am very glad they kept the kids home during a tornado warning. I would have been pissed if they would have sent them off on a bus in unsafe conditions. I just wish there had been better communication. It’s not like there are not resources available.

My main issue was that I didn’t want to be hanging around on the main level of the house, waiting to hear the bus. I wanted to be hunkered down in the basement in case things took a turn for the worse.

Erik got home about 45 minutes late and all was well. Unfortunately there are going to be thunderstorms all night, so I feel like we need to stay up and monitor the weather so we can move everyone downstairs if necessary.

How about a lighter topic?

I bought Erik a couple of new hermit crabs. They are social creatures and I felt sorry for his pal, Speedy. He started with three, but Slowy died within days. Switchy buried himself in the sand and has only been seen when I dig him up. I later found out that I shouldn’t dig him up–he’s preparing to molt and I am stressing him out. I put an isolation thingee around him (the top of a liter bottle) so that no one will eat him and I’m hoping for the best. That left a very lonely looking Speedy.

Now we have Lightening and Sunny. Lightening has buried himself, so maybe he’s going to molt too. All I know is, food has suddenly been missing from the dish. I don’t think the original three crabs have eaten a single bite since we brought them home in April. The crabs are such a mystery to me.

I really don’t understand how Erik can be completely terrified of spiders yet like these hermit crabs. They look like gigantic spiders to me.

What else?

Poor, poor Elsa. I took the kids in for a haircut this week and the lady butchered my baby. All her curls are gone. I want to cry.

I just wanted a little trim to even things out, but the lady gave her a total pixie undercut. I suppose it is cute, but it is not what I wanted.

Erik has been begging for a mohawk, so I decided to bite the bullet and let him get one. I told the stylist that he wanted a mowawk and Erik got a total look of horror on his face. Turns out he didn’t really want one after all. I guess he just liked arguing with me about it? Big surprise there.

He has actual been being a really good kid this week. We’ve never given him an allowance because he always has a lot of money from my mom and from scrounging around for change. My mom hasn’t sent him any money in a long time and he was whining about never having any cash. He thinks it is highly unfair that school is his work, but no one pays him for it. He doesn’t understand the concept that it’s for his own good.

At 6 1/2 it is probably time to start an allowance, so we gave him some chores and he’s been doing them. I told him he would get $5 each week if he did whatever chores I needed him to do and cleaned his room on Saturday morning. He forgot the amount and got the idea that he would be getting $100 this week. Did you hear the peals of laughter from my house?

He’s been very gung-ho about doing chores, which played in my favor yesterday. I had him help me pick up the house so I could surprise Mike with a semi-cleanish house as an anniversary present. We really know how to be romantic around here. Nine years of marriage and we didn’t even go out to dinner. It’s too hard to find a sitter around here.

Next year is our ten year. We already have plans to have my mom come out and babysit while we go to some kind of resort in the Caribbean or maybe take a cruise. We will have romance one of these days!

Our toddler is no longer in our bed, so that should help in that department anyway. Just what you wanted to know.

Elsa hasn’t had any boob in almost two weeks, but she is still asking for it. She even tried to stealth nurse when I was changing my clothes earlier tonight. She’s not sleeping through the night, either, but even with a couple of wake-ups each night I am still getting a ton more sleep than I was before. I think the black bags under my eyes might even be shrinking.

Ok, time for me to go to bed. I’m going to cuddle up with my Kindle and read more of the latest Flewelling. I always like her books, but I’m enjoying this one even more than I liked the last two in the Nightrunner Series.