The Queen's Rambles

We finally went to see The Hobbit today. We’ve been trying to go for a couple of week now, but between a snow storm and a sick babysitter it hasn’t happened. I didn’t think it was going to happen today either, because the babysitter was late. I’m glad I told her to be here 30 minutes before the show started. She was 15 minutes late (she got lost), so we got to the theater just in time. I was shocked at how crowded it was. I was not shocked to see small children in the audience. I should have been, but that shock has long since worn off. Do people not even care if their young children are terrified and suffer from nightmares? Apparently not. There are always young children at inappropriate movies.

Many of you know that I am a major fantasy fan, but my little dirty not-so-secret is that I don’t care for JRR Tolkien. I need action, not 100 pages of singing a song about a tree. I did enjoy the LOTR movies, but this movie? Ugh. I was squirmy and wiggly and just wanted to be home, reading Flame of Sevenwaters, seeing if all my predictions about the plot were correct (almost all of them were, of course). I do love me some Juliet Marillier.

There were a couple of interesting movie previews. There was a Tom Cruise sci-fi movie that looked pretty good–Oblivion. I haven’t seen a Tom Cruise movie since he went crazy and was jumping around on Oprah’s couch. Maybe the time for my boycott has passed, especially since I can’t really remember why I was so dead set against him. Something to do with Scientology, I think. He must have got me good and riled, but that was ten years ago.

Maybe I’ll boycott the Stephanie Meyer movie instead. Is it a boycott when it’s something you wouldn’t want to watch anyway? Is there a rule that actresses in a Stephanie Meyer movie must look completely lifeless?

Our MOMS Club just started a babysitting co-op, so maybe we can start going to more movies. Who can afford a movie and a sitter? And really, what kind of date is a movie? You can’t even talk. I guess if it was a really bad movie you could make out. But who wants to pay for that? I like the idea of the babysitting co-op in theory, but in practice I don’t really want to babysit anyone’s kids. Except I already occasionally babysit several of the children in the co-op, so it will be nice to have some official recompense I suppose. Currently we just trade in a topsy-turvy fashion when we have medical appointments.

I guess I better wrap up this totally disjointed entry and take Erik up to bed. I hate our bedtime routine. He’s a seven year old boy. He doesn’t want to go to sleep. He wants to play hide and seek, jump all over me, hide under the blankets, hold me down when it is time to leave. It can never be a simple “read, kiss, bye bye.” I try to remind myself that I am his mother even when I am tired. It is not fair to be cranky about him being him and doing what is fun for a seven year old. But man. I sure could be cranky (and often am). Ugh.

I should have named my daughter Clementine. You know that old song? Oh my darling, Clementine? It would suit her perfectly, even though it is awful. I’m sure someone loves the name, even though it’s up there with Gertrude and Bertha in my estimation. Of course, my mom told me the name Elsa sounded like a cow’s name so what do I know?

Why the sudden desire to change her name? The girl will NOT stop eating clementines. She has eaten three box fulls in the past three days. That’s something like 60 clementines! Craziness.

At first I was concerned about what it would do to her. . . output. The only problems seem to be incredibly stinky farts and an increased need to pee. She even wet her bed one night. Thankfully it was early in the night while she was still in her bed.

The first day I was peeling the clementines for her, but now she peels them herself and gleefully throws the orange bits all over the floor. Don’t you wish you lived here? It’s a citrus jungle. Maybe it will make my house smell fresh. Silver lining, right?

Happily she thinks it’s great fun to pick them all up and throw them in the trash, so maybe I won’t have to have a vein burst in my forehead.

Subject change: This summer I was in Gymboree and randomly decided to start an eBay business selling Gymboree clothing. Apparently I am the only fool willing to part with way too much money for last year’s Gymboree collection because my business is not the money maker I was dreaming about. I think I broke even on the batch of clothing I invested in, which was obviously not the goal.

Perhaps a business plan needs more than a whim to buy super cute fleecey pink elephants?

The fleece elephant went quickly, but I can’t sell a cute purple penguin sweater to save my life. Purple! Penguin! What’s not to love? I would buy a whole purple penguin wardrobe (and did, last year) if I could find it in Elsa’s size. People have told me I have unusual taste in girls’ clothing, so maybe that is the problem. I don’t think I have unusual taste. I’m not shopping at. . . I don’t even know. What would be a strange place to buy toddler clothes? Hot Topic? Just shorten the hem and a lot of those teeny tiny teen clothes would probably fit Elsa just fine.

Anyway, I shop at Gymboree, Kohl’s and Penny’s for the most part. I usually make a rule that I am not going to buy anything pink. Not because I have a war on pink or hate pink. The reason is two fold 1) Elsa looks terrible in pastel pink and 2) I love everything girly so have to have some discriminating factor that helps me save money. Having a no pink rule makes it much easier to not buy every single item in the store. I hunt for the blues and purples. It is not always an easy or successful hunt, which seems so wrong. Why can’t girls wear blue and purple? I literally danced with glee in Crazy 8s when they had a couple of the most beautiful turquoise colored items last week. The clerk probably thought I’d lost my mind when I started jumping up and down and clapping.

Ummmm.

I’ve got issues.

And my issues are getting even bigger now that Elsa insists on picking out her own clothing. For some reason the idea of being my little doll doesn’t appeal to her. She won’t let me do her hair either. Imagine that!

I guess I better stop writing and start chopping up some potatoes. I’ve been torturing myself with the most delicious smelling Colombian beef stew in the crockpot today. I don’t like my potatoes to fall apart, so I put them in a couple of hours before we eat. I should have done it an hour ago so I can go snarf on this stew sooner rather than later. My period started yesterday and my whole “I will track points and not eat M&Ms!” big push for the New year has gone straight down the gutter. I need to fill up on real food or I’ll turn into a chocolate bar.

I hope you all had a wonderful New Year’s Eve and are looking forward to a great 2013! I don’t know what this year holds for me, but I’m hoping we continue on the upward trend! Both 2010 and 2011 pretty much completely sucked for me, health wise. I got a baby out of the deal–the sweetest, roliest-poliest, bestest little baby in the world. But it still sucked.

The past year has finally delivered a lot of healing after I had emergency surgery to remove a teratoma from my ovary in April (though my back is still killing me), plus life has just improved significantly. The newborn stage makes life tough. We’re quickly approaching three years old. True, three is much more hellish than two, but so far even two hasn’t been that bad (let’s forget the four weeks that I was prepared to sell her to gypsies given the right price). These days we are mostly getting enough sleep, our life doesn’t revolve around nap schedules, no more diapers are involved and we can expect the kids to be pretty well behaved and listen when we go places.

We also had a really, really wonderful family vacation. We took a road trip up to Mystic, CT and I’ve determined I never want to travel by air again. Nor do I ever want to stay in a hotel again. Private rented cottage is the way to go!

I also let go of the guilt of not spending all my vacation time with my family of origin. I need to focus on making myself and my little family happy. Freedom from guilt has been a beautiful gift. I am not and can not be responsible for their happiness.

I finally found a weight loss program that works for me. I’m tired of it and I don’t want to do it, but I know it works. I’ve lost 24 pounds since August. Could have been more if I would have stuck with it, but it definitely feels good to have those 24 pounds off!

Erik is enjoying school much more this school year (not all of 2012), so that’s a huge HUGE relief. We just have to cross our fingers that his second grade teacher clicks with him as well as his first grade teacher. *mutters darkly about inflexible, pregnant kindergarten teacher*

I’ve immersed myself in volunteer work, which I usually love even though it overwhelms me sometimes. I’m an Area Coordinator for MOMS Club International and really enjoy that role. I communicate with 8 chapters and try to help them stay on track. I appreciate MOMS Club and think it does so much good for stay-at-home moms that I’m happy to give back.

I must admit I am tired of Camp Fire. Our Council is not well run and it drives me crazy when people are not dependable. It is also very draining to do everything and plan everything and not have the children really enjoy it. I think they will enjoy it next year when it is more focused on camping, but I am not sure if I even want to continue next year. Erik is not all that into it and it’s a helluvalotta work.

Oh! We also saw the Rockettes! How could I forget that? It was so much fun to see all the iconic New York sites, but it was also a place that I did not find attractive other than the “gee whiz” quality. I have no need to go back.

I don’t know what 2013 has in store, but here are a few resolutions:

1) Stick to Weight Watchers. TRACK MY POINTS!
2) Buy nothing new in January and February (except consumables, obviously) [wildly successful resolution last year!]
3) Use weekly and daily to-do lists to make myself more productive
4) Make my photo book spreads for the previous month by the 7th of each month (major, major fail on this last year. I didn’t make a single spread. Still haven’t started the 2012 book)
5) Go on one date night a month. Elsa is potty trained so we can drop the kids off at various Date Night babysitting services or we can hire a babysitter now that I have interviewed a few. (Failed big time with this same resolution last year)

We also have our 10 year anniversary this year and we want it to be great! I don’t know the budget or the plan, but surely we can come up with something. Originally we wanted my mom to come out and watch the kids while we went off somewhere warm and exotic, but I don’t think that will happen. My mom is not that dependable thanks to my sister. She needs to be on stand-by to make sure my niece and nephews are cared for.

Maybe a family cruise that has babysitters and kids’ activities? The thought of a cruise is not all that appealing because of my intense fish phobia. Are there resorts that have babysitters and family activities? And I don’t mean Great Wolf Lodge. Ha.

Ok, I just looked it up and there are resorts with daycare provided. We’ll have to look into that.

So did any of you do anything thrilling last night?

I made a little appetizer dinner with cheese, crackers, cocktail wienies, chips, etc. We had our bonus child, her brother, and our little family. I don’t usually let the brother in the house since he is a pill, but we had a MOMS Club hot chocolate party earlier in the day and I couldn’t very well tell this one kid he wasn’t allowed in my house when I had 10 other kids running around, eating cookies, drinking hot chocolate, etc. He behaved himself just fine, I think. I forgot to have him turn out his pockets when he left, but all of Erik’s DS games are locked away in my room so hopefully the sticky fingers didn’t stick on anything too valuable (or anything at all, really!)

The little girl refused to eat the cocktail wieners because she thought they were literally wieners of the penis variety. I’m not sure if she thought they were from an animal or little boys, but she was NOT going to eat them even after reassured they were not actual mini-penises.

That certainly gave me a good chuckle. Reminded me of when I was a little kid and was also soooooo embarrassed on Wednesdays because the radio station kept going on and on and on about it being “hump day” and I didn’t think little children should be hearing about that sort of thing. We lived in a small town close to lots of cattle ranches so we would often see cows or dogs humpin’ away. I guess sex is not quite the same mystery when you have that visual.

I’m from the mountains of Oregon where snow is just another thing that happens for a lot of the year. Nothing to get too excited about. There was ONE snow day in 12 years of school. We couldn’t even take advantage of it because the snow was so deep we literally couldn’t open the doors to our house. I think in the end my dad had to climb out an upper story window so he could shovel us out. That doesn’t really seem like something he would do, so maybe I’m remembering it wrong. I guess when you are literally snowed in you might do something out of character.

We’ve had a few snowflakes this year, but today was our BIG! SNOW! DAY! Cancel everything (except it’s Saturday, so what are we going to cancel), bundle up the kids, and go sledding! Wheeeeeeeee!!!!

Even though we don’t get a lot of snow here, we did get two huge snowstorms two years in a row, which was insane. Luckily the first year we were planning a winter trip to Sweden so I had everything we could possibly need for outdoor snow play (except a sled). Snow play is so much more fun when you are warm and snug in water proof clothing. The funniest part? I dragged that crap over the Atlantic and had no need for it in Sweden.

Ever since that year I make sure we are fully prepared for snow, even if we don’t get any. Last year we didn’t get any, but I figure it is worth it to spend a little cash on a cheap Target snowsuit and boots. I am lucky to have that luxury. If we can’t use it I can donate it (of course I save Erik’s and eventually they will fit Elsa).

Which explains why we were able to have a great snow day with a fun sled, warm clothes, and lots of giggles. Minimal crying about cold hands, feet, and legs.

The next time I’m at the store I’m buying a few more cheap disk sleds so we don’t have to share so much. At one point there were over 20 kids at Big Hill and maybe five sleds. There was a lot of sharing going on, but it would have been nice to have a few more sleds. Not that it is my responsibility to provide for the whole neighborhood, but if it means my kids get more turns on the sled I bought for them and it doesn’t hurt our family finances, why not?

Btw, you can click through the pictures to get to the Flickr set. I know you have nothing better to do than look at pictures of my precious snowflakes.

If you want to see something that I find amusing (your mileage my vary), you can click through this one:

and flip through my futile struggle to get a picture of Elsa’s smiling face. She would not cooperate, despite Erik’s best effort to make her laugh. This little series is all you need to see if you want to understand Erik’s hammish nature. I don’t know if he will be a scientist or an actor when he grows up.

We had a super, super bad night last night. Back in July or August we had a glorious two weeks of Elsa sleeping through the night in her own bed. GLORIOUS, I say! I thought she would be like Erik and just. . . . be done. Once he slept through the night once he was sleep trained and all was well.

Nope. She ends up in our bed most nights these days. Sometimes Mike brings her in (she does NOT want to see me in middle of the night. She slams the door in my face, screams like a banshee, throws things at me, etc. Lucky me, I don’t even have to get out of bed) and sometimes she just appears silently and the first you know about it is a foot in the spleen. It’s not good, but it is not the most terrible thing on earth.

Last night though. Yikes. Poor girl had gas (my theory) and was up at 1 am, 2 am and 3 am screaming and writhing in pain. I gave her gas drops; we bicycled her legs; massaged her tummy. Each session lasted about 20 minutes (my theory is it took that long for the gas drops to work), but what a 20 minutes! Every nano-second is a lifetime when your child is writhing in misery and nothing you do seems to help.

I’ve suffered from gas pains since I had my gallbladder out, so I can really empathize. Gas pains are excruciating. I can’t imagine being a little kid and not having a clue what it was or how to manage it. Thankfully my gas attacks are few and far between these days. I’ve had to give up onions and fried food, but it is well worth it to not suffer that kind of pain. And, of course, I always have a Costco pack of Gas-X in my medicine cabinet or suitcase! Don’t ever want to get caught without those.

I sure would like a deep fried burrito covered in enchilada sauce, chili, sour cream, onions and melted cheese. Haven’t had one in years. It would kill me dead.

Despite Elsa’s bad sleep habits, she has one VERY good habit. She’s potty trained! Can I say that now? She hasn’t had an accident in over two weeks. I never thought this kid would get trained because she’s so different from her brother. She can hold her bladder for-freakin’-ever, so I could never catch her to put her on the potty. Then we had several weeks of being naked-trained but refusing to leave the house without a diaper.

We ran out of diapers and I was terrified.

She had two nasty accidents; I told her that was yucky and she had to go in the potty, she said “ok, me go in potty now” and that was that. No more accidents. I have even stopped harassing her about it and she just goes when she needs to go. I still have to harass the seven year old.

I hope posting this doesn’t cause a major backslide. That’s why I haven’t done a dance of glee on here sooner.

Ok, time to get the boy to bed. He should be tired after a day of playing in the snow, I hope!

I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting and WAITNG for LJ to load. Over 24 hours of waiting! I finally decided to try a different browser since FB wasn’t going crazy with anti-LJ protests. Low and behold, LJ is alive and limping along without me. Firefox suddenly hates LJ and Pyramid Solataire, it seems.

So now a post! But what was I going to say?

Elsa is at such a fun stage in her development. She makes motherhood feel like I thought motherhood would feel like, if that makes any sense. She plays lots of pretend games, tries to tell stories “Pon time, fairy-princess-queen, dragon run roar! Da end!” She manipulates her little toys and makes them live out their little fairy queen fantasies. She examines my tongue with her flashlight. She is generally very happy and content. Her vocabulary has exploded and she almost always tells me exactly what she wants, when she wants it.

So, so different from her brother. He was such a fire ball and still doesn’t really like fiction or pretending (though he’ll give it a go if he can shoot, stab or slay someone). And forget about telling a story. Why would you want to LIE about something that’s NOT EVEN REAL? Gah! His only means of entertainment for years and years was running. He wasn’t happy unless he was running, usually away from me, though circles were ok if that was the only option. Just like a puppy chasing its tail.

Of course, the irony of his whole “hates pretend things” is the gusto with which he embraced Santa this year. The kid BELIEVED. I thought this might be the year he figured it out, but he scornfully looked down his nose at all deniers, because he knows it is real. He has evidence! How else would an elf come into our house and write things on our activity count down? And he KNOWS mom and dad never, ever would have gotten him a mini-tablet computer. Only Santa is that nice. I hope he can beleive one more year because it is so much more magical when the children believe. Elsa didn’t really get the whole idea this year. Maybe next year.

In other news, I had the worst two nightmares last night. I won’t recount them detail by detail. I can’t even remember all the details. The first one was so upsetting that I’ve been discombobulated all day and finally had to call Mike at work and have a chat. In the dream he randomly decided to divorce me. To add insult to injury he stole my van! It was awful. I’ve never been so happy to hear the alaram go off at dark o’thirty and break me out of that loop of horror.

I went back to sleep, only to have another nightmare about loss–this time we were homeless and someone had kidnapped the kids.

What’s up with all the crazy thoughts about loss? I don’t know, but I hope I don’t have another night like that. Maybe it was because I had an upset stomach. I don’t know what the deal is, but my belly has been acting crazy since Christmas day. I would have expected it on Christmas since we stuffed ourselves silly, but I was really careful about my food yesterday and my stomach was still rolling. I used an unfamiliar ingredient in the gravy (a spice called savory) and I wonder if I am allergic to it. That’s all I can think of. I have been eating left over gravy every day. Today I am going back to points counting and familiar food, so hopefully I will recover.

And now I have to go pick Erik up from Pump it Up Camp. He has been a video game zombie the last two days, so I was very glad to be able to send him for six hours of jumping. I just hope Elsa is awake. She’s been curling up and falling asleep around this time the past few days. She is recovering from a pretty nasty cold. It’s so weird to look over at her and realize she’s fast asleep with zero help or prompting on my part. Girl loves her sleep.

It’s been quite a ride these past few days. I was all prepped and ready to go to a party. I had an outfit picked out; I was going to bring some fudge and/or divinity. It was going to be fun! I love Christmas gatherings with friends, but am rarely invited (not that I am left out, most people just don’t host them. I think I’ve finally learned that life is not a sitcom). However, Elsa developed high fever and awful cough on Friday. I thought her fever broke today, but it was back this afternoon. I hope the ped’s office is open tomorrow, because I really don’t want to take her to the ER. I don’t think she has anything that can be treated with prescription meds, but it worries me. I know we’ll get in there and they will just tell me it’s a virus and to wait it out. Ugh. But what if she has something that needs treatment? I hate making the call, because I always make the wrong call.

The good news is she’s a happy little patient. She’s lethargic right before her next dose of medicine, but once it kicks in she’s a wild woman, running and jumping and playing.

Mike has been a cleaning machine the past two days. He’s steamed the carpets, shuffled around piles of junk and decorated the dining room. I’m so glad! The piles were getting to me, but I never know where to start so I just ignore the whole problem. It is going to be lovely to set a nice, decorated Christmas table. It will feel like a holiday instead of the same ol’ “find a place to eat around the junk.”

I’ve had a major shift in thinking this year. I no longer think I owe anything to my family of origin. I mean yes, of course I want to help my niece and nephews, but I would want to help any child in their situation. However, I no longer feel like I need to go “home for the holidays.” I no longer feel like we are missing something by staying in our own home and creating our own traditions. We are having exactly the holidays we want to have, with the food we want to eat, the traditions we want to encourage and the people we care about most. We are not going to a place where we must defend ourselves, defend our choices, wait for passive-aggressive comments, deal with rudeness, worry about drug addicts stealing our stuff. It’s nice. Really, really nice. I don’t want to brag, but I’ve got a pretty spectacular little family right here in Maryland. I am absolutely loving making the magic happen for my kids.

We did Christmas cookie cut-outs today and I planned a little too well. I found a great recipe for someone who doesn’t really like cut-outs. They taste like shortbread, are SUPER easy to make, and roll out really smoothly. You can find the recipe HERE. They don’t make a huge lot of cookies, but I figured it would be perfect for our small family. How many sugar cookies does a family of four need?

It would have been perfect if my bonus child wasn’t here. Erik’s little friend loves doing all this decorating and crafty fun stuff with us and I’m thrilled to have her. We still would have been ok, but her brother knocked on the door and wanted to play. Normally I don’t let him in the house because he steals things and has perturbed me in the past, but how am I going to slam the door in the face of a nine year old kid when he can clearly see we are having fun making Christmas cookies?

The kids had fun and I didn’t break my diet, so what’s the problem?

Santa! That’s the problem! What are we going to leave for Santa? Should I whip up some dough and make some more cookies tomorrow?

I’ve already decided I am not making a pie for Christmas. I’m going to make peanut butter blossoms (hmmmmmm. . . guess we could leave those for Santa) and fudge. I tried to make divinity but that was a soupy failure, despite using a recipe that promised it was no fail every time despite the weather. There are worse things in life than spooning up big globs of warm, fluffy, sugary soup.

I hope I have everything ready for the big meal. We actually have two big meals–a Swedish Christmas Eve and a turkey Christmas Day. I was in the store for chips on Friday and realized it was the last non-weekend, non-Christmas Eve day to buy groceries for the big day. I scrambled around to buy everything I thought we might need, which was dumb because I was at the wrong store (Safeway–more expensive than my usual store). I somehow managed to get almost everything we need for a small Christmas dinner. With only four of us, I am not going overboard which helped a lot with menu planning on the fly. I am only making the things I know Mike and I enjoy the most. I’ve asked Erik what he wants and his answer is predictable: bread. Elsa. . . well. . .who knows. She just likes sugar (and I HATE that I have let her get to the point where she eats so much sugar. I always vowed my children wouldn’t know what sugar was until they were at least three, but with an older brother I lost a lot of the control I had when Erik was young).

As soon as I stood in the check-out line I started crying and had a hard time paying for my purchase. They had People magazines all over the place with pictures of all the Sandy Hook victims on the cover. How will those parents and that community ever start to heal? I wasn’t there; I know none of the victims; my heart is still breaking in a million pieces.

I’ve had a couple of people on my FB page make their aggressive “I’ll wish you a Merry Christmas and you’ll god-damned LIKE IT” posts, which set my teeth on edge. In light of this recent tragedy, though, they make me go through the roof. This horrible, horrible thing happened and you are worried about whether or not people say Merry Christmas? I know that is a stupid thing to latch on to, but if I latch on to the bigger details, the bigger problems, my brain will explode and I’ll need to go to a mental institution.

Seriously, though, the only people I know who make this whole “merry Christmas” thing a problem are the aggressive, Fox News Christians who make their wish for a happy holiday sound so spiteful and bitter. I’m an atheist and will wish you a Merry Christmas and be glad of any kind greeting I receive in return. I don’t get people. I really don’t.

I guess it is time to put Erik to bed. He thinks he is going to get to open Christmas presents in the morning despite being told a hundred times that it isn’t happening. I’m just glad I had the foresight to keep all the family presents locked up until last night. We put them out last night after the kids went to bed. I didn’t need Elsa ripping into them before Christmas and I also wanted to keep the begging to a minimum. I can handle two days of begging. The anticipation is part of the fun, right?

I am still holding my kids tighter, very literally, and I’m also trying to embrace life. I’ve got to have more fun and make more memories and enjoy enjoy enjoy! Don’t sweat the small stuff.

My main problem with parenting is my sense of . . . I don’t even know what it would be called. Propriety? But not like “ohhh, don’t wear your skirt too short” type of propriety. Just basically a lack of fun in my brain. I skew toward the legalistic, but have mellowed with age. It’s a personality flaw that probably comes from being the eldest child of an alcoholic. I can’t seem to tell the difference between fun that is pure fun and fun that leads to harm so I just ban all fun. Don’t you wish you were my kid? You’ll poke your eye out!

I have mellowed out considerably these past seven years, but I still have to be mindful of the fact that the answer to any question doesn’t automatically have to be “no.” That was a huge struggle my first few years of motherhood. It took a lot of reading and talking to other parents to realize that it wasn’t my job to deny all fun things. I wasn’t going to turn my kid into some sort of spoiled rotten little brat by saying “yes” when he asked for something that would cause no harm. Anything from, can we go to the park to can I have a cupcake to can I crack an egg. I do limit sweets, but everything else? Why not?

I am still bothered that my knee-jerk reaction is to say “no,” but at least I’m aware and try to temper myself.

Erik was pretty surprised when our elf left the message that we should use balled up socks and have an indoor snowball fight. He thought the elf would be in big trouble and that I’d never let such a thing occur. We spent a wonderful 45 minutes lobbing socks at each other. Happiness and fun can be so simple. And did it cause any harm? Other than a couple of pairs that are now firmly wedged behind the couch, nope. I’m so glad I am loosening up.

Any other ideas for whole family fun? Last night we did a holiday day dance party that the kids loved. I want to spend more time together as a family. Instead of retreating to our computers after dinner, we need to plan at least 30 minutes of active, engaged family time. Very hard, when the whole day has been active, engaged parenting for me and work for Mike.

I’m sure I had more to say, but I started this post hours ago and have no idea what I might have been thinking. Elsa was pretty grumpy today, probably because she ate way too much sugar. We did cookie decorating at MOMS Club, which meant she ate a metric ton of frosting. It could have been much worse, actually. I have learned how to handle toddlers these past few years. When Erik was this age I had visions of everything being perfect (my expectations were insane) and did not really understand the limitations of two year olds. I hosted a cookie decorating party at my house, complete with big bowls of icing in every shade, several big bowls of sprinkles, and an overload of cookies. And somehow I thought seven two-year-olds were going to make world class decorations? See above: Insane expectations.

This year’s party was super simple: two cookies per kid, one scoop of frosting (offered in one color) & one scoop of sprinkles, disposable tablecloths. D-O-N-E. So much more sane and stress free!

Guess I better wrap this up and get back to reading. I finally got smart and searched out “best fantasy novel of 2012” to see if I could find a half-way decent read. I was whisked away to a top ten list of most anticipated books, all of which were later books in a series. I looked through all of them and found a series that sounded promising and now I’m addicted. Lucky me, book 2 came out yesterday. The first book is Merchant of Souls by Anne Lyle. It’s set in an alternate Elizabethan England. Very alternate–Columbus didn’t find Native Americans in the New World; he found non-humans. So far the main characters are intriguing and the writing moves along at a rapid pace. I was a bit worried b/c it seemed to only be available as an e-book, which usually means self-published. I refuse to do self-published, unless it’s my good friend Jolene Dawe. I have no idea if this book is self-published, but the price was right and the reviews were good and it was on that top 10 site. I’m so glad I decided to take the chance! I really need to bookmark the list of books so maybe I can get some more ideas on what to read. I am so out of the loop these days.

I just did what felt like one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I took Erik to the bus stop, let him get on the bus and ride off to school. I seriously considered keeping him home this week, but what good would that do? I can’t put armour plating around my house and never leave home again. I can’t protect my children from random evil in the world. I can only hope that the random evil never touches us.

That’s an awfully big hope.

I can’t really write much more about it. It’s too big, too painful. I know every parent in this country, if not every single person in the entire world is reeling from the pain of the events. I don’t have much to add, except that this country has a serious, serious problem with treating mental illness. The mentally ill have to commit a crime before anyone will do anything, even when parents, teachers, friends and neighbors are BEGGING for help. I don’t know if that was the case with this young man, I just know it’s the case with my sister (my God, you people will not believe what she’s done. She will most likely be going to jail for a long, long time if she is not murdered by the criminal element first [the last I heard her own children are safe with their father. He is filing for custody and talking to children’s services about keeping them in a safe house until my sister is arrested.])

So . . . what to say? Terrible, terrible weekend. I haven’t been able to sleep. Erik is a first grader. That could have been his room, his teacher. I couldn’t stop crying when I heard the news, and then I cried even more when I heard about the heroics of Victoria Soto, the quick thinking teacher who saved her class of students but died in the process. She was so young. That’s the name I want to remember from all this. Not the name of the man who snapped.

I want to keep Erik home on Friday, 12/21, the day of the end of the world. I don’t think the world is going to end, but it seems like a day that people might go crazy. He should be home with me. Except they have a special science day planned and he is completely excited. They are going to have all kinds of big magnets and other special equipment and they are bringing in a special science education program to put on a show. Do I give in to fear and keep him home and hope I’m wrong, or do I refuse to be paranoid and send him off to the unknown?

There were only 8 kids at the bus stop today. There are usually 16. I wonder how many were ill and how many parents decided to just call this week a wash and enjoy the heck out of their kids.

Why do some lessons in life never stick?

Lesson 1: sexy underwear makes you feel sexy.

DUH! It has been so long since I’ve felt like my body was worth clothing in anything remotely sexy. Pregnancy, nursing, fatness. . . it all does me in. My order came in today and I have new underwear that is the right size, looks cute, and isn’t hanging all over the place. My old underwear was at least 2 sizes too big. How did I not notice how uncomfortable that was?

I also tried out some different bra sizes and am thrilled to discover I’m down to a D cup! Maybe even a C cup because the D cup is sagging a little! I’ll go to the brick and mortar store to exchange the bras that don’t fit and I’ll try on a C cup while I’m there. Unless you have big boobs, you have NO IDEA how exciting this is. After I had Elsa I was wearing a GG cup. My boobs were entering the room a full 30 seconds before the rest of my body.

After my little shopping excursion today I’m feeling much better about myself. I also found a black shrug that works perfectly with my sleeveless purple dress, so I’m all ready for tomorrow. I bought some sparkly silver jewelry and some black nylons. I have some fancy shoes from a couple of years ago. I will not be dowdy or frumpy. Whoo-hoo!

You know what I hate? Dress Barn has good quality clothes that are usually cut perfectly for my body. But they are all frumpy! Lane Bryant has the type of clothes I want, but they are all really poor quality and aren’t cut in the most flattering fashion. Bah. Why can’t they trade goals (or whatever it is that causes them to carry those types of clothing).

But we were talking about life lessons.

Life Lesson #2: I can accomplish so much more when I have a list to check off.

I can’t believe how much crap I got done today. I started with a huge 20 item to-do list and got through 14 items. If I wouldn’t have written it all down and had the pleasure of marking it all off, I probably wouldn’t have accomplished anything.

[Three hours later. . . wow! Got even more done. Wrapped a bunch of presents and was really smart this year. I’m still not sure exactly what we have, so I put post its on each present so I’ll know what’s in it and can divvy it up a little better when I have everything. For the past several years we’ve used fabric gift bags, but I can never resist buying clearance wrapping paper. This year I am going to try to use some of it up. I’ll still use the gift bags for awkward gifts. I’m kind of tired of looking at them.]

I think I just destroyed my sensitive, eczema ridden hands. Our elf told us to make cinnamon ornaments today so I was kneading out cinnamon, applesauce and glue. Cinnamon is crazy painful on sensitive hands. I should have known.

I’m doing all the fun little projects and guess who is enjoying them with me? Would that be my children? No, of course not. The neighbor girl loves arts and crafts and adult attention, so she and I are having a fine time doing these projects while my own children wander off. Erik is simply not into any of this stuff that doesn’t involve immediate sanctification with chocolate or math. Elsa is a little young to enjoy all this stuff. I have high hopes for our eventual mother-daughter bonding activities. At this point I’m just letting her enjoy the process, even though it is not really much more than her smooshing stuff around and poking holes in it.

Did I ever mention that she’s almost potty trained. She’s had a dry diaper every time I’ve checked for several days now. We only have two diapers left in the house and when those are done. . . we’re done. I am terrified.

We went to a friend’s house for dinner Saturday night and Elsa had a major, disgusting accident. I need to remember to show her exactly where the facilities are because I think that was the big problem–she just didn’t know what to do.

Did I mention that I’m terrified?

Update to the purple cart problem: I think I’ve solved the tantrums and it was much simpler than sewing a purple shopping cart cover. Whenever we are going shopping Elsa starts telling me she’s going to ride in a purple cart. I’ve been telling her, “sorry honey, but Target only has red carts” (or whatever fits). Crazy idea, but it works! When we get to the store she says “Elsa’s red cart!” and that’s that. She is really making some big cognitive leaps lately and her sentence structure has exploded into real, grown-up sounding sentences.

[Back after a 15 minute homework break]

OMG. I do not understand first grade math. How hard can this be?

Problem: 9+4

You’d think the answer would be a simple 13. Erik thinks the answer is a simple 13. WHY OH WHY is the answer not a simple 13?

Instead the whole thing should look like this:

9+4 = 9+1+3 = 10+3 = 13

I guess this is prepping them for learning how to re-group? I don’t know. All I know is, I’m with Erik. Why do we have to do the middle work when we already know the answer?

I just sent his teacher an e-mail. Maybe she can explain it. Erik had some issues with his report card and this method of doing math was one of them. I can see why he has an issue. Who wants to do two extra steps when you know the answer?

Guess I better wrap this up and do my mommy bedtime duty.