The Queen's Rambles

After waiting all morning for the flowers on Friday, guess what happened? I called at 11:59 am to see where the heck they were and got an “oh, things are crazy here, we won’t be able to make it.” I was beyond livid. You don’t make a person wait all morning and not even bother to call. Plus, these are flowers we are talking about, not freakin’ Girl Scout cookies. I’m supposed to deliver dead flowers to my customers who are probably already pissed that they spent triple the regular retail price on their Christmas poinsettia?

Yesterday they called at 10:41 am and said they were leaving. It should take about 45-60 minutes. They didn’t get here until almost 1 pm. Again, I was livid. And hungry. If I’m hungry, I’m always livid. I think I have hypoglycemia.

When they arrived, did they have my whole order? Let’s take some bets.

Nope. No full order. They tried to gaslight me and make it sound like it was my fault that they didn’t bring all three flowers. I stuck to my guns because I know I’m right. Why would I say two when I need three?

Today someone else is supposed to bring the final poinsettia. Has he called yet? Hell no. I am so done with Camp Fire right now. Our local council is completely disorganized and Erik isn’t even into it. Why am I spending so much time and energy on this activity? I seriously doubt we will continue next year.

Let’s think happy thoughts, shall we!

Our invisible elf told us to make pinecone bird feeders the other day. It was pretty hilarious. Elsa sat down with a spoon and the jar of peanut butter and had a grand ol’ time with her “snack.” I didn’t even know she liked peanut butter. Erik spent his time crying about getting his hands yucky from the peanut butter, so he ended up being the official hanger-upper. The only kid around here who never complains is our neighbor girl, Lucy. She ended up doing all the work. She’s a super sweet kid and practically lives over here. I would totally adopt her if I could.

Elsa discovered she could stick her peanut butter spoon in the bird seed and have a crunchy snack. If you look at Lucy’s lips you can see she gave it a whirl, too. Erik hung the all pinecones pretty low, so it was like some kind of inappropriate string apple bobbing with Elsa out there trying to lick the peanut butter and seeds off the pine cones.

The squirrels have slowly made off with all of the pinecones, which I expected. Poor birdies! I now have a jar of peanut butter sprinkled with bird seed, so I guess we can make a few more. I certainly won’t be using it to make Elsa sandwiches (though I don’t think she would mind! Crunchy!) I put it up in the craft cupboard and wrote on the lid, so hopefully no one finds it and decides to make peanut butter cookies or something.

Mike’s work has their holiday party on Thursday so it’s annual party freak out time Those of you who have been around for several years might remember the first time I tried to prep for this party. The new HR lady and I were both told it was a formal event and to dress accordingly. We both went all out. I was FREAKED because I don’t attend formal events. I did end up with a really nice, flattering dress and I did my hair up. I was so nervous, though. Formal event in the DC area! Scary! I’m from rural Oregon. Diamonds with your denim is perfectly appropriate.

Turns out it was not so formal. Most women were in slacks and sweaters. The HR lady and I were waaaaaaaay out of place. Most of the employees were very young men and brought their mothers or sisters.

I went to buy a new dress last night. Being a SAHM doesn’t lead to a big need for dressy clothes, so I thought it was time to treat myself.

I can normally find something, but was having a tough time last night. Everything I liked was sleeveless, and I don’t do sleeveless. I have super flabby, farmer tanned arms. Give me about three more months of twice-a-week BodyPump and I might be willing to do sleeveless. Right now it just makes me feel super vulnerable.

In the end I bought two things, a pair of black slacks and shimmery red and black long sleeved blouse. It makes me look like a middle aged woman trying to dress fancy for a party. I am a middle aged woman trying to look fancy for a party. But still, not the image I want to convey.

I also bought a sleeveless purple dress that I think looks flattering and much more “Hey! It’s a party and I’m enjoying myself!” except for the whole sleeveless thing. I couldn’t find a pashmina or shrug at the store, which was irritating since they were all about the sleeveless. I tried on all manner of other things that would cover my arms, but none of them went with the dress. I’ll go shopping this week and see what I can find.

So what about my legs? What does a middle aged woman wear? I’ve heard nylons are out? But it’s December and it’s cold. Tights? Do grown-ups wear those? My friends swear by tights, but I think they wear them under their pants as long johns. How about fishnet stockings? Where does a fat lady find fishnet stockings?

I should post pictures and get your advice. I hate pictures of myself. I’m glad I’ve lost 20 pounds, but it was 20 pounds I never should have gained in the first place so I’m back down to being super fat instead of “OMG Obese”.

I guess I better get the rest of my Christmas cards out. I was going to write a letter for the older folks on my list who will never join FB or e-mail, but I can’t think of anything I want to say. Sending a pre-printed picture card seems so impersonal. I need to put some more thought into this. Maybe a monthly countdown or something instead of a formal letter? I have Publisher now so I can manipulate my text. Watch out, I’m barely trained and I’m not afraid to litter the page with random fonts!

I hate it when someone says “I’ll be there in the morning” and you have no idea if that means 9 am or 11:59 am, so you don’t take a shower because you don’t want to miss the person, especially when you NEED the flowers the person is bringing. Then it’s suddenly 10:48, you haven’t had a shower, your hair is sticky-uppy, you have things to do and you don’t know when this person is going to arrive and all you want in life is a shower. I must have a shower! Bring me my flowers!

Ugh.

And then, as soon as the person calls me, I have to call someone else to come over and then at noon someone ELSE is coming over (all relating to the flowers) so when will I get my shower? Why didn’t I take a shower as soon as I scuttled Erik out the door? And why is Elsa throwing books down the stairs? Why didn’t her mother raise her better than that (though she did have a dry diaper this morning, so it’s not all bad raising!)

Oh flying spaghetti monster, I just saw the book she is throwing around and it’s a children’s Bible that some well meaning person gifted us with. Now she wants to read a story about the sheep. Bah!

Yay! Let’s read stories about genocide, but they have a happy ending because there’s a rainbow! Hee-haw! Painful, terrifying, destruction of the human race is a-ok as long as you make it pretty.

There is a serious feast of crows going on outside my window. These creatures are so nasty and bold. I hate crow season. Very few people around here use garbage cans so the crows just sit there and pick apart the bags, leaving piles of trash everywhere.

Yo ho ho. Aren’t I chipper?

My neighbor gave some some super cute little dresses for Elsa yesterday. I am hoping she can wear them this spring. They are 3T, her current size, so it will be a gamble. She also
brought over a cute denim jumper (I guess that’s what it’s called?) that she could wear now if I bought an undershirt to go with it, and maybe some tights. I love tights.

Guess I better go do something productive if I’m going to be stuck at home waiting for people to show up. My house is such a disaster right now. I am totally not motivated to clean, especially the bathrooms. My hands are so cracked and sore right now that I can hardly stand it. Getting them wet is torture. Yes, I’m slathering them with all manner of goopy concoctions, but I wash my hands too much during the day. Cracked hands or e. coli? I guess I’ll take cracked hands.

This is why I always take a shower first thing. My shower is my coffee. I’m a total crab when I’m oily and stinky and gross.

Today was killer. Elsa was back in bed with us last night, which is not ideal at all. She needs to sleep in her own bed before I become a zombie again. Suddenly she likes me, so she spent a good portion of the night with her hand patting my face. So sweet. . . for a minute.

I couldn’t go to the gym this morning because of her cough. I’m so sad b/c I was ready to increase my weights in BodyPump. On Tuesday I felt like I was throwing a baton around, so I was excited to lift something a little heavier!

It was 70F a couple of days ago, so we got really spoiled. This morning Erik wore his crocs sans socks and a light sweatshirt. It was FREEZING, but we didn’t have time to fix the problem. I couldn’t stand the thought of my poor little boy with freezing toes, so I took him some more appropriate clothing.

Then it was off on an adventure! We sold poinsettias through Camp Fire and today was pick-up day. I had to drive about 45 minutes away to get them. The whole time I had a plan in my head to check and double check to make sure the order was correct.

I got there. The people running the office had an awful dog that scared the shit out of Elsa. She started screaming her head off and tried to climb onto my face. They promised me that they checked and double checked my order and it was all good. I was so so so so so so stupid and believed them. I KNEW that was wrong. The whole way home I was telling myself “of course they checked, of course it will be write, why are you such a pessimist?”

And of course it was wrong.

My nav system was working, but the sound was somehow turned off and I couldn’t figure out how to turn it back on. I hate listening to Rita when Mike is driving and I’m holding the phone, but when there’s no one to sit there and hold the phone you kind of need that annoying British voice to tell you to turn right in 300 feet. It’s not really safe to try to figure it out when you’re going 80 down the Beltway.

I was starving and couldn’t wait to get home, so of course access to our community was blocked by two police cars. I decided to chuck my diet and go to Baja Fresh. Got there and couldn’t find my wallet. Of course I’d been driving all over the country with no wallet. Of course!

Drove back home and the police were gone, but there was an ambulance and fire truck blocking a lot of the parking spaces. Thankfully my space was open. I hopped out and opened the back of my van. A group of firemen walked by and wanted to carry my boxes for me. Firemen are my favorite. No power trip, just a genuine desire to help.

Then, of course, I had to get on the phone and get the freakin’ flower order straightened out. I was pretty clear that I wasn’t going to drive back down there, so they agreed to have someone bring me the rest of the stuff tomorrow. The least they could do since it was their mistake!

Then the lady e-mails and says the office manager says there is no way the order is wrong and I’m just not counting things correctly. Because I can’t count to 23? UGH.

I called back and left a big ol’ voice mail. We ended up sorting it out through e-mail, though.

A couple of hours ago I got a very nice phone call from a lady who said I’d left a voice mail at the wrong number and she hated to think that I couldn’t get my order right so she wanted me to know I needed to check my number. Wasn’t that the nicest ting ever? Amidst all the things that went wrong today, there were some very good people making life a little easier.

Erik got in trouble at school today (talking too much and not keeping his hands to himself). I don’t know what his problem was, but he was a total pill at home as well. I was ready to send him to bed at 5 pm.

I was sitting out on the porch, freezing my face off, when a strange lady walked up and introduced herself and acted like I should know her. Ummmmm?

Oh yeah. She was my interviewee for a babysitter position. I was completely unprepared and my house was a complete disaster. She was great, though. She instantly engaged both kids
and seems like a responsible adult. She doesn’t like to do weekend babysitting though, so that’s a problem. Thanks to care.com I now have contact info for several sitters, so I’m hoping we can start doing monthly date nights.

I guess I better take Erik up to bed. I need to prepare myself and start fresh. I’m still so angry at his behavior earlier today that he’s sure to set me off. Not good. I need to be the mature one. I’m not the seven year old.

I’m beyond exhausted, so this will probably be a bunch of non-sense.

This summer Elsa had a beautiful few months of sleeping through the night.

Then she got sick with a cough and that was shot to hell.

The wonderful routine was destroyed, never to be found again. It didn’t make a big impact on my life. She was such a daddy’s girl that I was literally afraid to go in her room at night. When she wakes up she’s a complete wild beast. You don’t want to get in her path unless you are her daddy or she will cut you. (Or maybe just scream, slam the door in your face, punch you, throw puzzles at you, etc).

This morning, at the lovely hour of 3:30 am, I woke up with a foot shoved in my butt crack and sharp little fingernails trying to pick moles off my back. It was lovely. In the last two days she’s suddenly become all about mommy so these late night fun times are now my problem. Any fleeting thoughts of a third baby have been completely nixed. And by fleeting, I mean running like a freakin’ cheetah on fire. Do not need another baby, even if they are cute and squishy.

Despite the exhaustion, we had a really nice evening tonight. I invited our family friends over to enjoy elf-ordained marshmallow snowman making. It was not nearly as cute as pinterest would have one believe (CLICK HERE, especially since the kids started chowing down before the candy was hardened. No one seemed to mind, though. I also served dinner and the adults had a relaxing evening with a bottle of wine. Turns out Pinot Grigio is much better than Chardonnay (in my very, very limited experience). I may actually sleep tonight even if a mini-heater attaches herself to my back. That’s the other bad thing about my darling wanting to cuddle: she’s hot! And we can’t possibly turn the A/C on. It’s December! And it was 70F out yesterday! Global warming is starting to scare the crap out of me. Are we going to be trying to grow crops in the winter and hiding in caves in the summer? We need to get the kids their Swedish passports. Kiruna might be the new LA in forty years.

Subject change:

My mom saw my iPod Shuffle and declared that’s what she wanted for Christmas. She’s never seen an MP3 player, I guess. She thought it would be perfect to take with her on her cleaning jobs, and I agree. Problem? She can’t figure out how to watch the DVDs I sent her for her birthday (yes, she has a DVD player), so how the heck is she going to load up an MP3 player.

Ellen has been very helpful in giving me music suggestions because I don’t have a clue where to start. I found a scandisk slot radio thing that sounded perfect–it is a little MP3 player that you can buy SD cards for. They even had an Oldies card. Problem? It had terrible reviews. Apparently the music is full of cover bands and B-sides.

My computer’s CD drive is broken so I can’t even go to the library and check out a bunch of CDs to burn.

A solution presented itself tonight! My friend apparently has thousands of MP3 oldies, so she said I can come visit and we can set up the iPod (or whatever thing I decide to buy. Do you think a non-iPod device might be easier to work with?)

Last subject:

Thank you to regular reader, Gopher, for suggesting Arrow! I have not been paying attention to the CW since the cancelled Veronica Mars. Arrow is exactly the kind of show I love. Campy, sexy, geeky. Sure, it is not the best show ever made, but it’s fun. I like fun.

Oh, I forgot one very important subject: I just ordered new underwear! I used to wonder why my mom wore ratty old clothes and would never buy new dishes or new towels. Now I get it. There’s a lot of other things to spend money on and you should use what you have until it is done. I’m going to go out on a limb and say most of my underwear is done. When you suddenly realize you are mostly wearing crotchless panties and they were not purchased at a novelty shop, it might be time to invest in some new underwear. I found myself calling my maternity underwear my “good” underwear and. . . shocker. . . they don’t exactly fit correctly.

I really am a grown-up, aren’t I? Getting a thrill out of new underwear. Maybe that’s what Santa should bring me.

Actually, Santa had better damned well bring me some of the jewelry that I specifically pointed out, especially the ring I e-mailed about this summer. I need jewelry in a very specific style. I’m a big lady, so I need big jewelry. Delicate jewelry doesn’t look right on my body and just makes me feel fat and ugly. Hopefully Santa is listening!

Just when I think I have things figured out, I realize I know nothing.

I wasn’t going to do our yearly Christmas Countdown activity thing because I thought Erik was too old for it and that he’d be jealous if I did it for Elsa. I couldn’t figure out a way to make it work for both of them.

In the end, I couldn’t bring myself to can the project because it is one of my favorite things about December. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, I cut up a bunch of squares, number them 1-24 and then each day we do what is written on the back of the square. The first year I wrote out all our activities at the beginning. Erik couldn’t read so I could modify things if necessary. The next year I wrote the activities the night before. This year I didn’t write anything on the backs of them and the elf is coming in each night, writing with “grown up ink” that only an adult can see. Brilliant, if I do say so myself. Last night Erik left the elf a regular pen and the elf used it. Mike thinks Erik is going to hate me when he finds out that I’m a big ol’ tricksy liar. I think he’s going to love me for making his childhood so magical and fun.

Can I just say, keeping the magic alive when your kid can read is soooooooooo much harder? Because it is.

Erik is completely obsessed with the countdown and Elsa could not care even one teensy bit less. I was so, so wrong about how this would go. Now I just have to think of easy activities that can be done after school. I have a feeling my old stand-bys of “read a book about a snowman” are going to fail in a big way. He wants to make cookies every day.

Our first activity was going to a local town’s “Jingle Jubilee.” It turned out to be a very small event with music by the local high school band. I’m glad the weather was beautiful because the kids basically ran like wild things for an hour and slept really well that night. Santa rode in on a fire truck, Dora and Diego were walking around, and the band was playing in the background–very nice evening for everyone!

Here’s some blurry pics because I like forcing you to look at out of focus pictures of my special snowflakes:

Jumping at a Christmas Concert. Perfectly normal, right? I probably would not have let Elsa jump off that thing because it was giving me heart attacks, but I’m reading a book about two year old development and it says they need to jump off things.

Didn’t know there clothes would get so dirty at a concert!

Bonus blurry picture because this is one of the only pictures I’ve ever taken of Elsa with a real, genuine smile! She is completely in love with the Christmas tree and likes to sit and look at it.

Btw, I totally ruined Erik’s Christmas and made him “sadder than [he’s] been in [his] whole life,” by buying new ornaments so we could have a red and white tree. I am over my old blue and silver decorations. Erik is not, apparently.

My mom went home on Saturday. It was nice to have her here, but it is really nice to have my house back. She thinks she is being helpful and tries to organize my things, but it is not helpful to have my perfectly organized clutter stowed away in places I’ll never look. Or tossed out altogether. Grrrrr. At least she admitted that she needs to book two week trips because she can’t seem to stay any longer.

It truly is nice having her here. The kids love her so much and it is fun to see them enjoying their grandma. When Elsa would get angry with me, she’d run over to bury her head in my mom’s chest. It’s the only time she’s cuddly, silly girl.

I guess I better wrap this up. The girl is getting anxious for some attention.

Our local grocery store has purple carts. Not fully purple–they are mostly silver, but the plastic edges are purple. They also have purple car carts. Do you know how unusual purple is in the shopping cart world?

VERY VERY.

That’s how unusual.

Target, Staples, and TJ Maxx are red; Toys R Us is blue; the other grocery store is black.

So what happens if we go to any of these places?

Elsa screams. And screams and SCREAMS.

“Purple cart!!! PURPLE CART!!! Elsa ride purple cart!”

I’ve spent many a 20 minute chunk of time in Target, pretending I don’t hear the banshee wailing in my face as I rush through the aisles to get the basics and get the hell out.

Yesterday I couldn’t even get her strapped into the blue Toys R Us cart. She’s big, strong, and fiercely independent. She laid in middle of the floor screaming “purple cart, purple cart!” even after I told her she could pick out any cart she could see. We tried to talk into the store, but she kept running out. She started pulling things off the shelf. It was your basic 2 1/2 year old tantrum, and it was exhausting. It wasn’t as emotionally draining as Erik’s fits used to be because I know she’ll grow out of it, but it was still no fun.

Do you think a purple cart cover would help the situation? That’s the only thing I can come up with. Not like I can steal a purple cart from Giant and tote it around in my van. I have plenty of purple fabric if I can just find a simple pattern online. I hate dealing with shopping cart covers (we have a pink one), but maybe it would work? I don’t know.

What else?

Can someone tell me what to buy Erik for Christmas. He got a DS for his birthday so I’ll get him some games. I also got him a couple of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle things because he wanted them a few weeks ago, but he seems to have forgotten all about TMNT now. Dandy. I won’t be getting him any LEGOS. He got a bunch of sets for his birthday and they are all still sitting on his desk, unopened. The good news is he’s so uninterested in them he won’t even open them, which means I can re-gift them with a clear conscious.

I got Elsa a My Little Pony train so I picked out a green Pony for Erik. They both love to watch the show, so I was hoping if he had his own they wouldn’t fight over hers. Seemed fair to me. Elsa is super easy to shop for. She loves to play with toys. I’m getting her a play kitchen as her main gift and she’ll get some dolls and such to round out the experience. My mom is getting her a dress up trunk set, so that will be perfect as well.

Erik. . . that boy is so hard to shop for. He doesn’t like toys. He only likes games, but they seem so anticlimactic to me. He really wants his own computer, especially because our desktop died so now my laptop is the only computer in the house. I guess we could get him a KindleFire or other tablet that’s a little more affordable. He only wants to play FB style games on it. I don’t know. . .I’m just not that comfortable buying him something so delicate and expensive.

I’m all ears, if you have a great idea. He has several type of bikes, scooters, pogo sticks. . . Doesn’t play with any of them. The only toy he consistently plays with is the umbrella. Do you know where I’d like to shove that umbrella?

He thinks that he can’t tell anyone what his Santa wish is, which is frustrating. He has something in mind, but I can’t figure it out. Last year it was a pair of fleece, camo sweat pants. Strange, strange child.

Also, he is obsessed with his Chinese Zodiac sign. There’s a Chinese boy in his class and I think his parents must not be native English speakers because they’ve taught him that 2005 was the year of the cock. I’m trying to tell Erik that rooster is a nicer word, but he doesn’t believe me. I just loving hearing “Hey Grandma, do you love that I’m a cock?” a hundred times a day.

Oddly enough, Erik and Mike are both cocks *snicker* and Elsa and I are both tigers.

I had a dream last night. I can’t remember anything about it, except I was watching the Best TV Show Ever. It was a cross between Chuck and Grimm and now I’m really sad that it doesn’t actually exist.

I didn’t pick up any new shows this season. We started Revolution, but the girl was way too annoying. Did I miss any great shows this season? I even like shows that have been cancelled if they are wrapped up in some way (Terriers springs to mind).

I guess I better go cook dinner. I lead a life of excitement!

We had a really great, crazy, silly, stressful, unusual weekend. It started with Thanksgiving of course. Turkey, pies, stuffing. Yum. What else can I say? We had it at my friend’s house and it went really well. Four kids, almost zero fights. I’d call that a win.

On Friday we got up and headed to the Big Apple! Do people really call it that?

This was an ill-planned adventure inspired by my desire to have a romantic get-away weekend with Mike. Except? I can’t seem to leave my kids behind. Plus, I didn’t want to invest any money or energy into a plan that could go awry any moment based on my mom’s availability as a babysitter. Better to plan something that wouldn’t cause oodles of resentment if my mom had to fly home and rescue her grandkids from my psychotic, drug addled sister.

So off we went to see a family show: The 85th Rockettes Christmas Spectacular!

We had a pretty good drive up to Newark. We stayed in a slightly run down hotel, that I will never stay at again. Problem 1: Though the facility is advertised as non-smoking, some asshat had clearly smoked in our room at some point in the last year. My eye is still sore.

Problem 2: My mom’s toilet was clogged. Instead of sending a maintenance man or plumber, they knocked on the door and threw a plunger at my mom. They finally moved her to a different room when she called and demanded action.

The biggest problem? Poor Elsa spiked a high fever and was miserable. Great! Just what you want when you are taking your kids out on a special adventure! I did bring meds for her, but she was up a lot during the night. Even when she was sleeping she had her 103 degree feet stuck in my face, which was not comfortable. I felt terrible for dragging a sick kid around NYC, but she did perk up quite a bit the next day. Mike and I were less than perky after a night of zero sleep.

Erik was desperate to see the Statue of Liberty, so we tried to go to a viewing point but the viewing point was closed. We didn’t have time to figure out how to get to Ellis Island, or we would have done that. We ended up seeing it from afar and he was happy.

We drove into Manhattan, which was completely nuts and parked in a garage we had picked out the night before. Then we walked a block, bought our subway tickets and stood staring at the platform, completely unsure of which train went which direction. They didn’t have maps like we expected from our Washington DC metro experience.

I’ve always heard New Yorkers are super grouchy, but we didn’t have that experience at all. A jolly young guy in his twenties helpfully pointed us in the right direction and told us what stop to get off at. It was only two stops away, so thankfully our subway riding experience was limited. I get train sick. I was shocked to see everyone eating and drinking on the train, since in DC you WILL get a spanking if you are seen with food or drink.

We ended up in the Rockefeller Center. What a crazy place! I guess it is an underground mall? But with lots and lots and lots of hallways? It felt like we walked around for freakin’ ever. We finally made it to the street level, but all of the exits were locked. Eventually we found the one door that would take us out. I was getting panicked and claustrophobic. I should have been happy to be away from the crowds.

We walked out and saw two groups of Salvation Army bell ringers singing and dancing. These people were putting on a show. Quite a contrast to our tired, worn down bellringers. We tried to see the ice-skating rink at Rockefeller center, but we couldn’t push through the crowd to get to it. We were THERE, just not able to get close enough to see anything. We also saw the Christmas tree, but it was not public ready. I don’t even know if it is a real tree, or something they build with pine branches from other trees. It was up, but had tons of scaffolding all around it, along with big branches laying all over the ground.

We were hungry for lunch, so started walking around. If we had been smart I would have pulled out my phone and used Yelp to find a good place to eat. We did that for dinner the night before and ended up at a great diner–over-priced, but pretty decent food. Instead, my mom picked a Chinese place that was beyond awful. The kids were crying, I felt like crying, my mom was embarrassed. Ugh.

We made the best of it and joked about our New York City experience being authentic. We walked back over to Radio City Music Hall and it was time for the adventure to really begin! The whole place was completely nuts, with limos letting people out and people trying to buy our tickets. We couldn’t even find the line until another very nice guy told us we had to go around the block for the real line. We did so and got right in.

The lobby of the building was amazing! We were there fairly early and were able to check the stroller and walk around. We found the bathrooms, which were fabulous. They had a true ladies lounge, then another really interesting dressing room type thing where you could sit at glass vanities and freshen up your make-up.

Santa was in the house and though I vowed not to do Santa pics this year, we did Santa pics. There wasn’t a line, so what could I do?

I paid an arm and a leg for them, but they were much better quality than our mall Santa photos. Sadly, they took a pic of Erik by himself which turned out totally fabulous, then a pic of Erik and Elsa together which was just mediocre. I couldn’t justify/afford to buy them both so I had to get the mediocre picture. It was so sad to see them throw the Erik picture in the garbage, but I seriously could not justify getting it. I was hoping the gal would sneak it to me, but I guess she was well trained.

Eventually it was time to find our seats. Mom bought Erik some cotton candy that came with a Santa hat. I have no clue how much she paid for it. Elsa, my little sugar fiend, was not impressed with cotton candy and preferred to feed it to her dad. He was not impressed either. I was trying not to eat it because I could nom nom the whole thing (it’s offical! I’m down 20 pounds, even after Thanksgiving and NYC!).

The show was spectacular. The Rockettes are amazing. Totally, totally amazing. I can see why the tickets cost so much. This isn’t some rinky-dink production. There was a 3-D movie, dozens of dancing Santas, 3 camels, sparkles galore, and so much more.

Elsa was entranced for the first 15 minutes, then got very restless and it was hard to contain her. The rest of us, Erik included, totally loved it. Seeing such a large number of dancers all in complete time was surreal. It almost looked like computer animation or something.

The show wasn’t all Rockettes, all the time. They had Santa MCing the whole thing and a sort of loose story-line through parts of the show. Every other dance was something other than Rockettes, I’m assuming so the Rockettes could have a costume change. They had gorgeous costumes!

We were all starving after the show, so headed over to Rockefeller center for some overpriced food. We ended up in a place that had amazing sounding milkshakes (toasted marshmallow, chocolate peanut butter bomb!), but I resisted and got a small meal. They had wikki sticks instead of crayons, which was genius and kept the kids very busy.

After that, we headed out to find our van. We walked right in front of the Empire State Building, which made us all dizzy. We saw plenty of knock-off bags being sold in the street. Erik was very disappointed not to find a shell game so he could win some serious money. Mike and I were not at all disappointed. Erik doesn’t believe us that it is all a scam and is sure he will be the master of the shell game.

My only regret is that we got very few pictures. The crowds and lighting were not conducive to picture taking.

We finally drove off, headed for home. It was fun to see so many iconic places, but let’s be honest: New York is crowded and dirty. I don’t know how people breathe. There’s no oxygen source! I am so glad that we live in a pretty little community with tons of greenery. You couldn’t pay me to live in NYC.

We got home pretty late and had just put the kids to bed/gotten our PJs on when we heard a horrible banging noise. I thought someone was taking a battering ram to our door. I grabbed the phone to call 911 and Mike went outside. Two of our neighbors were out there and pointed to our living room window. They said a group of teens (3 girls, 2 guys) walked by, yelled out that they were the Night Terrors, and took a giant stick to our window. RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE NEIGHBORS. Fucking, audacious assholes. Thankfully we have double pane windows and it only broke the first pane, so we didn’t have to find a way to block off the window for the night, nor did we have to clean glass off our couch.

I called 911 and they sent an officer. He didn’t even take the stick for fingerprints. He basically wrote it off and said they will never catch the kids. The neighbors said it wasn’t anyone from the neighborhood. We have a case number, but I looked up our insurance info and it won’t pay for us to make a claim. Our deductible is much higher than a replacement window.

It was scary as hell hearing the sound of that window being hit by the stick. For the first time ever I’m thinking maybe we do need a dog. A big, loyal guard dog.

My mom arrived on Saturday and things have been going well. The kids totally love her. I was surprised that Elsa wasn’t shy at all. I guess she really does remember her from this summer!

She’s only driving me a little crazy. I learned all my bad eating habits from her, so it’s sort of a point of contention in my brain. She doesn’t know this. I’m doing WW (only 1.6 pounds before I hit -20!) and it is not a program that you can easily share with someone. She wants me to tell her exactly what to eat, but that’s not how it works. You need to be a member so you can find out how many points you are allotted, then track your own points. I am not eating magic food that makes me skinny. She is eating my food, but 3 times what I’m eating, and thinks she is dieting. I keep telling her that it isn’t a gimmick–the food is not doing anything magical to make her lose weight–it is strictly about reducing food intake (and increasing activity if you choose to do it that way). This is not a program where you can successfully eat someone else’s diet. A BIG component is spending your own points on food that you like and enjoy. You basically have a built in cheat day, which keeps you from giving up. If your cheats are different from my cheats you are not going to be happy.

Kisha and I are living parallel lives again and she doesn’t even know it. We’ve been having plumbing problems with the toilet in the main bathroom. Erik flushes down wads of flushable wipes, which aren’t so flushable when you do several at a time. It has slowly stopped sending matter down with a flush. Then the tank started filling soooooooooo sllllllllloooooooooowwwwwllllllllyyyyy that you had to wait a couple of hours between flushes. Good thing we have two other toilets, right?

So yesterday I changed out the fill valve. It was supposed to be a super easy ten minute job requiring no tools.

Ha, I say!

Ha!

If I had manly hand strength I probably could have done it without tools, but I had to get Mike to bring up a wrench. He had to do a lot of the removal of the old stuff, but I did manage to install the new stuff in about 45 minutes. Instead of spending $8 on the basic set, I splurged and got the fancy duo set for $20, so now we’re supposed to be saving a lot of water if we can ever figure out which lever to push at the right time.

Problem: toilet is still sort of clogged.

I bought some kind of toilet unclogger chemical stuff and gave it a treatment. It’s supposed to get four treatments this week. Hopefully that works and I don’t have to call a real plumber. Real plumbers break the bank.

Speaking of toilets, Elsa announced that she’s no longer going to wear diapers. I decided to run with the idea because she is totally ready. If she’s bare bottomed she will go in the potty every time.

We’ve been hard core potty training for 30 hours and we’ve had countless accidents, including big puddles on a see-saw at the playground and in her shoes at the library. I want to give up, but I’m a strong believe in “NEVER GO BACK” when it comes to potty training. She’ll get it. . . right? She doesn’t like the wet feel, so hopefully this will take a couple of days and it will be over.

I’m an optimist.

This is really the wrong time for the potty training. We’ll be out of the house for most of the weekend. I don’t know how this is supposed to work. I guess she better get trained tomorrow, or we’re going to have a big problem.

Next topic:

Erik doesn’t like to play outside because of some neighborhood issues. I hate this. He has always been so active and always loved to be outside. I’ve been seeing lots of commercials for a wii dance game, so decided to pick one up. I ended up with Just Dance Kids 2 and it is totally perfect!

It has a few really young songs (think Old McDonald, Wiggles, Yo Gabba Gabba), some tweeny songs, and some fun older dance songs that even adults can enjoy. There are various levels of skill and exertion involved. He is completely loving it and spends HOURS at a time doing the dances. The more he practices, the higher the score, which keeps him interested. I’ve been doing some of it with him, but holy cow. It’s hard! The dances aren’t particularity hard to master, but there are a lot of big arm movements (you hold the wii-mote), which make for an exhausting work out. He has completely mastered Do The Monkey, an old Wiggles song. He said “I wonder why this song seems so familiar to me” and I had to raise my eyebrow. Why yes, child, this song should be very familiar to you. He spent a year listening/watching nothing but the Wiggles. I swear he had an Australian accent for awhile.

And one more topic to round out the night:

I have never understood the Taylor Swift hate because I’ve never really listened to her songs.

Now I get it.

I don’t hate her. I don’t care about her enough to exert that kind of emotion. I am certainly getting tired of all her songs, though. She loves ’em and leaves ’em faster than Elizabeth Taylor. Or maybe they leave her. I guess they must leave her, if her passive-aggressive, weepy, crazy lyrics are anything to go by. From her lyrics, none of them understand her or have enough James Taylor (or is it James Brown?) records. I don’t know. I don’t care. Get her off my air waves, STAT! Not likely to happen as her DC concert sold out in minutes. When’s Garth coming to town?

I want a Jenny Special from Maria’s of Keno. This will mean nothing to any of you. Maria’s was a little Mexican restaurant that I worked in during high school. They went out of business over 15 years ago, so it’s been a long time since I’ve had my comfort food. I can make most of it myself, but the Jenny Special is elusive. It’s special beef and potato mixture, rolled up in a flour tortilla, deep fried, then smothered with enchilada sauce and Bud’s award winning chili. Don’t forget the cheese and sour cream!

My mouth is watering.

And I’ll never be able to have it again.

I know there are worse problems in the world.

I’ve totally been off-diet since Hurricane Sandy and I’m pissed at myself. I don’t know what I need to do to convince my fingers to stop shoveling sugar into my mouth. Cut my tongue out? I don’t know. I like being thinner. Why do I sabotage myself? Yadda yadda yadda. Same song, hit repeat for 30 years.

I want to buy tickets for a Broadway show and escape to NYC for an overnight hotel visit. My mom could stay with the kids. I am kind of desperate to do this, all of a sudden, after a life time of never realizing that I, a podunk from Podunk-ville, could attend a Broadway play. NYC is not that far away! We could do it! There might even be food in NYC that rivals a deep fried chili burrito!

I need to talk to Mike and my mom about this plan. My fear is that I would spend a small fortune on tickets, only to have my mom jet back home to rescue the kids from my sister. Of course the kids’ safety takes precedent, but it is irritating that I can’t make an awesome plan. Mike is probably relieved that I can’t melt the plastic.

I should see if I can find a show in DC. There’s gotta be something remotely Broadway-esque, right?

I just looked up Broadway shows in NYC and found the Rockettes Christmas show. How awesome would that be? Maybe when Elsa is older we can go to that as a big family fun thing. I have a feeling the money man might not agree. I think these tickets are more expensive than a trip to Disneyland! Or maybe not. I have no idea how much a trip to Disneyland costs. It’s like, twenty bucks, right? Hahaha.

I don’t even want to go to Disneyland. I want to go to Hogwarts. Isn’t there some Hogwarts theme park somewhere? When will Elsa be old enough to go? I need a little win-gardium leviousa in my life.

And now I need to go take care of laundry and make Erik decorate a turkey. He is going to flip the eff out when he sees his turkey paper. Elsa scribbled alllllllllll over it. I’m going to break the news to him first and try to convince him that we can cover the turkey in fabric. It will represent our family! And be really cool! It will be the best! YOU’LL WIN!!!! Please no break down, child. I can’t handle another breakdown. We already had one when he came in the door and I wouldn’t give him an ice cream sundae. Apparently he is entitled to an ice cream sundae whenever the fancy strikes without so much as a pretty please with sugar on top? Do I look like a scoop girl at Baskin-Robbins? I’m not nearly as cute and perky.

So what am I going to cook for dinner? I have no idea. I was supposed to crock pot a pork roast, but it’s 4:30 and it didn’t happen. I suppose if I knew how to make a roast in the oven instead of a crock pot I could still cook it, but I have never made a roast in the oven. Maybe my trusty red checkered cookbook would give me the lowdown on proper roast cooking. Problem: it was supposed to be some dumb weight watchers recipe so I don’t even have anything good to go with it.

Woe is me. Yadda yadda yadda.

I’ve gotta get this turkey and pork taken care of. Over and out.

Did I tell you that I started Elsa in a parent’s day out program? She had her first session on Tuesday and it was glorious! Four hours. FOUR HOURS!!! Do you know what you can accomplish in four hours when you aren’t dragging along a toddler? Even a happy toddler is still a toddler and. . .well. . . toddles. Toddles is the new dawdles, right? I could run in and out of a store, unencumbered by a child who likes to hide behind every tree, trash can, car, etc. I could listen to the radio. Zoboomafoo and the Kratt Brothers got a much needed break from my DVD player. Glorious, I tell you.

Plus, the school has a car pool lane. I LOVE this thing. I am sure it can be frustrating, but at moment it seems genius. Erik’s preschool didn’t have a car pool lane. You parked and went in, no matter if you had a sleeping baby in the car or not. Now that I don’t have a sleeping baby to worry about it’s not that big of a deal, but it is so nice to just sit there and read a book with my seat heater turned up to the max, instead of parking, getting out of the car, awkwardly standing around, yadda yadda yadda.

Elsa was being a little monster for a couple of weeks, so I started researching my options and found a perfect fit. Of course, now she is back to her generally sweet, happy self so the program is not so necessary but I’ve already paid and I’m not complaining.

She loves it and was really ready for something with a little structure. She came out of her cranky phase with a very clear jump in cognitive abilities (not surprising at all–the cranky phase means something is happening with their little brains). She is doing a great job following directions, standing in line, emulating everything her brother does. She’s such a big girl!

I arrived to pick her up as the kids were coming in from recess. She was happily following along in line, her coat billowing out like a little blue Madeline. I remember when Erik was in his first year of preschool. He was about a year and a half older than she is now and every time I picked him up, the teacher was exhausted and exasperated, sternly telling Erik and another boy to stay in line. He never did.

Speaking of the boy, we had Erik’s parent/teacher conference on Monday. Everything was pretty much as we expected. I was very glad to learn that he has reading group every day. Last year he brought the book home every time he had reading group, but he hasn’t done that this year so I thought he wasn’t having reading group. At this point I don’t know why they are even calling it reading group. The teacher said that all the readers in his group are fluent and are waaaaaaay above grade level, so they are doing second grade reading group work. Second grade reading=a lot of writing. In order to progress they have to show written comprehension skills. They can’t orally answer a question. They have to write three complete sentences to answer questions.

So.

What do you do with a kid who HATES the physical act of writing, even if he can orally answer all the questions with plenty of detail. I never figured this out when I was a teacher and I can’t figure it out as a parent.

Side note: I would be a much better teacher today than I was back in the day when I knew jack squat about kids.

Seriously, these kids are expected to do the type of writing we were doing in seventh grade. They are capable of it, but it is a shock to my old brain.

Yet there is very little challenge with the math. Ugh.

At least this teacher understands Erik and is able to manipulate him like a master. Does that sound terrible? This child requires a lot of manipulation. He is . . . extra. . . as my friend calls him. It’s not that he’s bad. He’s just inquisitive, intelligent, and very, very opinionated. Very opinionated.

I just found out I’m getting a promotion in my MOMS Club volunteer job. Whoo-hoo! More work=/=more money when you’re a volunteer. I really love the volunteer job, though. I get to help chapters become better and help more moms. I know what a different MOMS Club has made for me, so I am more than happy to try to make that happen for other women. Plus? I’m bossy and need something to keep my brain engaged. This is probably one of my favorite volunteer jobs because it is all through e-mail and I can do it at my leisure.