The Queen's Rambles

Elsa so very kindly passed along all her nasty germs. I feel like hell and just want to crawl under the covers and sleep it off. Not gonna happen with my two kids buzzing all around me.

We took out Guitar Hero a couple of days ago, and now Erik is obsessed with it. Problem? He is not very good at it. I have it set up on practice and he can do a couple of songs on Beginner, Slow, but he wants to do better. He can’t do better without practice. He doesn’t want to practice, he just wants to be perfect. Ahhhhh. I know the feeling well.

Sometimes I feel like the sun. No matter where I’m standing, or what I’m doing, I have two little people rotating around me like needy, talkative little planets. Erik wants to tell me all about his video game triumphs, which is about as interesting as . . . well. . . what’s the most boring thing you can think of? But I do my good mommy best to act interested, cheer and give out high fives even if I can barely stand to listen.

Elsa is very much into her twos. She used to be a great little talker, but now she just screams and cries and whines and throws herself down. She might have a thirty minute temper tantrum (Erik was never that determined, he’d give up after a minute if I didn’t respond), then finally sit up and say one word, usually “cookie.”

Really, most of her fits revolve around her love of junk food. It was so easy to keep it away from Erik because he didn’t know it existed, but it is harder with her since we have a lot of crap around here for both us and Erik. I need to clean it all out and sign up for Weight Watchers and institute a much healthier diet for the kids. I buy the “healthiest” options when it comes to junk food–whole grain, organic, all that jazz–but I know it is not actually healthy.

Anyway, what was I saying? I’m miserable? Yup. I did manage to finally get Erik out the door and to his summer camp. He wants me to pick him up as soon as the mailman arrives, but that’s not going to happen. He used his allowance to order a new (to him) game, and he thinks it will get here today.

I am loving his summer camp. Have I told you guys about it? It was super cheap and is very low key. It isn’t some super fancy theater/art/sports/whatever special thing you can think of camp. It’s just a very basic camp at the community center. They have all kinds of games and lots of high energy college aged counselors. They do crafts and other fun stuff.

It is called a drop-in center, so you pay for the six weeks and the kids can be there any time from 8am-6pm. There is no pressure to get there on time. It was so cheap that I don’t mind pulling him out to do fun things with him. Missing a day is not a crisis. Most days he begs me to leave him there until 6. I told him we need to have family time together and he told me “that’s what the weekends are for.”

Ok, I have to go give Elsa a bath. Maybe the steam will be good for me.